‘Could that really happen?’
Ah. That’s where it was going. ‘Absolutely not,’ Pei said.
Tupo’s neck drooped. ‘Not even maybe?’
‘Not even maybe,’ Pei said. She didn’t mind Tupo asking, per se, but she did not share the kid’s enthusiasm for this pattern of questioning. She couldn’t tell xyr that she knew precisely why a person’s skeleton would not even maybe be visible if you hit them with a plasma cannon, because then xe’d ask what a plasma cannon at short range would do instead, and that was not a detail a kid needed to be privy to. She didn’t know how to tell Tupo that vid war and real war were not the same thing at all, that it wasn’t a stylish series of heroics punctuated by kick-ass music and witty retorts. War was ugly, exhausting, and above all else, tedious – an odd thing to say about a situation in which there were more explosions and adrenaline than you knew what to do with. But for all the strategising, for all the narrow escapes and near misses, when you boiled it down, war was nothing more than an argument in which no one had landed on a better solution than killing each other. The suffering, at some point, became commonplace. Pei did not mind working on the edges of that. She did not mind the things she saw or the things she did. Her stomach was strong and her conscience was clean. But what did sometimes unsettle her was the disconnect between here and there. Here was a kid with big eyes and busy paws, for whom war was a fun story you watched before bedtime – a sugar rush, a metaphor. There, there were no kids. There were only exhausted adults who were desperate in a way Tupo would hopefully never be, people who wanted nothing more than for the miserable business to be done so they could go home. Except it never was done, and many would never see home again.
‘Where is it you’ve travelled from, if you don’t mind my asking?’ Speaker said. Her suit’s hands were busy with gadgets whose names Pei did not know.
‘The Rosk border,’ Pei said. That was as much of an answer as she was allowed to give, and she knew there were only a few reactions to this that would follow. She’d heard them all. As soon as the Rosk were invoked, people would say ‘wow’ or ‘whoa’ or ‘holy shit’, or anything else along those lines. Some were impressed. Some were sympathetic, in a clueless sort of way. Most people, unless they were military themselves, merely stumbled through the moment in which war stopped being a story – fun or otherwise – and instead found themselves talking to a piece of it.
But Speaker surprised her, for she did none of those things. ‘Ah,’ was all she said. Ah, as though Pei had told her she was a fruit farmer or that she’d come from the Capital or that she’d bought a new pair of shoes last tenday. Ah, as though Pei had confirmed something Speaker found obvious. What that might be, Pei had no idea, and Speaker offered no insights to help her along. She continued her work, saying nothing else.
Pei didn’t particularly enjoy the gawking responses she was used to, but she was so accustomed to them by now that their absence puzzled her. All right, so the Akarak didn’t care. Or maybe she didn’t know what else to say. Most likely, she was just an alien that Pei couldn’t read. So what?
The exchange stuck in Pei’s teeth all the same, a single grain of sand she didn’t really give a fuck about but also couldn’t ignore.
‘Ah, shit,’ Tupo said. The phrase left xyr mouth exactly as it had left Ouloo’s the night before, and it took everything in Pei’s power to keep her talkbox from laughing. The kid held up a pawful of tangled wires. ‘I dunno what I did.’
Pei walked over and sat down by Tupo. ‘You made a mess, is what you did,’ she said congenially. ‘C’mon, let’s sort this out.’ She picked up a knot and began to work through it. As she did so, she glanced over at Speaker. The Akarak wasn’t looking at her, but she shifted her beak ever so slightly, as if she, too, had something stuck in it.
ROVEG
A cup of tea sat upon the table before him. The projection walls were dark. The tea was untouched. He had made the drink with the intent of comfort, but though it was sitting right in front of him, he’d forgotten to pick it up.
There had been a time once when the galaxy had been simple. There were Quelin, and there were aliens. Quelin were people. Aliens were … aliens. They were almost like people, but not quite, and never would be. Never could be. You could talk to an alien, and trade with an alien, but aliens were not like you. You should be polite to them. You should respect the laws you shared.
You should not be their friends.
The thing that held a society together, Roveg had been taught, was shared narrative. A common history, a bedrock of ethics. This was the shell that held the world together, and protected all that was soft and fragile. Turning away from your own story was to open yourself to chaos. This was not academic opinion, his teachers had told him. This was observable fact. This is why good Quelin made pilgrimages to the Silent Warfields, so they could gaze upon the crumbling ruins of the civil war. The land there was still scarred from caustic artillery fire, still littered with debris. This was not to be disturbed, nor were the exoskeletons to be removed. Some of their faces remained, those of the old soldiers, their insides long eaten away by rot and time. One of these in particular was scarred into Roveg’s memory – a single eye casing, partially crushed, bleached with sun, all that was visible of a body embedded in a fallen rock face. He had stared at it, living gaze meeting dead, and his teacher had stood with him, nodding with approving sympathy as Roveg rattled his mouth in the percussion of grief.
The Silent Warfields were what straying from Quelin teachings brought: destruction and decay. The Quelin could not pretend they were alone in the universe, and it was wise to cooperate with your galactic neighbours (especially when said galactic neighbours were bigger and stronger and had more toys than you). But you could not try to think like them. People who had tried that were lost. Wretched. They were forever torn inside, and they would never know peace.
Roveg had believed that once, wholeheartedly. As a child, he’d been determined to live a good life, a virtuous life. He heard the way adults clicked with pride when he memorised the Twelve Central Tenets or made paintings of the founding of the Grand Library. He fed on that approval as though it were the only nutrient he required. He remembered the day of his First Brand in the Watchful Hall. He’d been afraid, of course. He’d watched the older children go through it, heard their shouts and the hissing of the iron, smelled the acrid stink of scorched keratin that lingered for tendays after. One could not watch that and not be afraid. But something had happened when the Curate held the sizzling metal to Roveg’s shell. There’d been pain, yes, and the panicked scent of his own body burning, but he’d looked at the joyful assembly, and he’d understood that he was just one in an immeasurable chain of people who had stood exactly where he was standing and born the same brand, that he was part of something noble and incredible and beautiful, that he could not only look at history but further it. The crowd around him roared their support as he screamed, and truly, in that moment, he had felt no hurt. For a moment, he transcended it. He was whole. He was loved.
He had tried, in his adult years, to re-contextualise that moment, to understand whatever it really must have been. Adrenaline was the obvious main ingredient, combined with other potent neurotransmitters and the irresistibility of eusocial belonging. A heady cocktail, that. He’d had many other transcendent moments since, things that made that ghastly ritual pale in comparison. He’d seen the artwork of dozens of different planets, pieces beautiful enough to make him feel like there was no one in existence but him and the artist, each breathing air into the other. He’d seen a rare, synchronous sunset born out of three different stars. He’d seen the glittering ice of Theth’s rings through the window of a plex-bottomed cruiser. He’d made friends that were family, and held infants with fur or claws or tails. He could swear in a dozen languages and sing along to songs he didn’t understand. He had eaten the finest foods the galaxy had to offer. He’d had sex that bordered on the spiritual. His life was a marvel, and he would trade it for nothing.
This should not have mattered. The life Roveg had built for himself was a celebration of difference, of variety, an endless exultation of questioning and learning and questioning again. He knew there would never be a point in his life in which he knew everything there was to know, and while part of him despaired at the puzzle that would never be solved, the rest of him embraced this truth fully, for what satisfaction could there be in having nothing else to ask? There was only one absolute in the universe, Roveg was (relatively) sure of, and that was the fact that there were no absolutes. Life was fluid, gradient, ever shifting. People – a group comprised of every sapient species, organic or otherwise – were chaos, but chaos was good. Chaos was the only sensible conclusion. There was no law that was just in every situation, no blanket rule that could apply to everyone, no explanation that accounted for every component. This did not mean that laws and rules were not helpful, or that explanations should not be sought, but rather that there should be no fear in changing them as needed, for nothing in the universe ever held still.
Roveg took great solace in this. This was the core belief of all he did and said and made. He’d given up everything for it, and he would do so again. There was nothing that could make him do otherwise, even though he knew how much pain that choice had brought to others. How much pain he’d caused himself. It was worth it, in the end. It was worth seeing the universe as it was.
But there was a great irony in that. If the root of all things was chaos and change, and if there were no true answers, if no one was capable of figuring everything out, Roveg could take comfort in that knowledge. Comfort, however, was not the same as peace. So in that respect, the Curates had been right: away from the Tenets, peace was something he would never know.
The wall vox switched on. ‘Ouloo is at the hatch,’ Friend said. ‘She says she’d like to invite you to the garden.’
‘Thank you, Friend. Please tell her I’ll be outside in a moment.’ Roveg got to his feet, and went to join the aliens. He left his tea where it was. It had gone cold anyway.
PEI
As far as parties made for only five people went, this one had turned out pretty good.
The lawn made for a decent dance floor, and the hedges surrounding it were strewn with the ribbons and craft supplies Tupo had gathered from home (Pei had assured everyone, repeatedly, that she was fine – really, fine – with the colourful decor). Ouloo had prepared desserts enough for twice their number, and was laying them out on a table off to the side as the others danced. Pei, for her part, lay on her side in the grass, propped up on one arm as she enjoyed the spectacle.
Speaker, it turned out, had an enormous repository of music at her disposal, and seemed to know her shit in that regard. She emceed from within her cockpit, selecting songs from her scrib and jamming along in her seat. She slammed her head hard when the drums kicked up, and closed her eyes blissfully as the vocals overtook them.
‘Who is this?’ Roveg asked, his body in motion. He moved his legs in bizarre symmetry, each pair performing the same move but no two pairs moving in tandem. The result was hypnotic – difficult to watch yet impossible to look away from.
‘The Bathtub Strategy,’ Speaker replied.
‘I’ve heard the name, but – stars, they’re good. You’ll have to send me their Linking details.’
Speaker’s eyes suggested a smile. ‘If you like this, then I know exactly what we’re playing next.’ She gestured at her scrib with vigour, skimming through titles.
Tupo danced in the space between them, limbs and neck in a frenzy. What xe lacked in technique xe made up for with enthusiasm, and there was no question that the kid was having a blast. Xe caught Pei’s eye, by chance, and this was enough to make xyr run across the lawn, straight toward her.
‘Come on, Captain!’ Tupo said. ‘Come dance!’
Pei smiled blue, but made no move to get up. ‘I’m happy watching you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to dance to this.’
‘You just … move,’ Tupo said. Xe flailed xyr legs and neck chaotically; Pei guessed this was meant to look extremely cool. ‘However you feel like.’
‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Pei said, keeping the tone from the talkbox light. She didn’t want to bring the kid down. ‘Music doesn’t make me feel anything.’
‘Oh,’ Tupo said. Xe thought. ‘Do you not like this song? We can change it.’
‘No, it’s not this song, it’s … music. I don’t understand music. Not like you do.’
Speaker caught this, and turned the volume down. ‘Does your implant not register music?’
‘Oh, it does,’ Pei said. ‘I’m aware of the sounds. But it doesn’t mean anything to me. It doesn’t make me feel anything. My brain understands language; it doesn’t understand music.’
Roveg looked at her now. ‘What?’
‘It’s just … sound. Like if I’m walking through a marketplace, I can hear talking, movement, and machinery. If I go to … I don’t know, to a park, I might hear insects, or a fountain, or whatever. I know what those sounds are. I can identify them. So, right now …’ She paused, angling her forehead toward one of the speakers, colours swimming as she concentrated. ‘I know there are drums. Flutes. Singing. I can tell that it’s complicated. I could make you a list of everything I’m processing, as I process it. But that’s as far as it goes for me. You’re feeling something, right? This makes you feel something?’
‘Stars, yes,’ Speaker said. She closed her eyes. ‘It gets way down in my bones. It makes me feel … triumphant. Powerful. I want to swing back and forth as fast as I can. And it makes me ache, too, in a way I can’t possibly explain. Like … like the way you feel when you’re saying goodbye to someone, and you’re so excited for where you’re going, but you don’t want to leave, either.’
‘See,’ Pei said. ‘That’s where you lose me.’
‘But rhythm,’ Roveg said. ‘This, I know you understand. I’ve seen Aeluons dance at festivals. That stomping thing you do.’
‘Okay, but that’s – that’s different.’
‘How so?’
‘Well …’ She thought hard. She knew exactly how to explain this in colour; less so in words. ‘I can follow a beat, and I can make one happen. But that’s not about sound, to us. That’s about sight and touch. When we dance, we can feel the vibrations through the bottoms of our feet, and the larger the group is, the more intense the feeling. And you can see the … the call and response, I suppose. I move one way, you move another way, we move together.’
‘That must make you feel something.’
‘Absolutely. It feels …’ She flashed understanding blue at Speaker. ‘Triumphant. Powerful. I’ve worn myself out doing it, and I wake up sore, and I never regret it.’
Speaker seemed to warm to this. ‘That’s pretty close to what music is.’
‘Can you show me?’ Tupo said. ‘Can you dance?’
Pei hesitated. ‘It’d be really weird doing it by myself. There’s this whole back and forth to it. We don’t dance alone.’
‘So show me!’ Tupo said. ‘Look, I can be two Aeluons.’ Xe laughed as xe stomped both sets of legs.
‘I can be twenty-two,’ Roveg said, deadpan. Everybody laughed at that.
Pei looked at the pleading kid for a moment, her cheeks speckling amused green. ‘Okay, sure,’ she said. ‘Why not.’ She began to unstrap her boots.
‘Would you like the music off?’ Speaker asked.
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Pei said.
Speaker tapped her scrib, and the noise stopped.
‘What are you doing?’ Tupo asked.
‘I’m taking off my shoes,’ Pei said. ‘Dancing’s best done barefoot.’
Tupo watched her actions intensely. ‘Shoes are so weird,’ xe said. ‘I can’t imagine wearing shoes all day.’
‘Same,’ Roveg said.
‘Same,’ Speaker said.
Pei looked arou
nd at the group. ‘They’re just clothes for your feet.’
‘I also can’t imagine wearing clothes,’ Roveg said.
‘Same.’ Tupo giggled.
‘Fair,’ Pei said. She pulled her foot free and set it in the bare grass. She couldn’t help but wiggle her toes in it. Stars, it felt good. She did the same with her other foot. ‘Ouloo, you joining us?’
Ouloo was in the middle of fussing over some icing that had gone askew. ‘You go on, I’m content watching.’
Pei stood up, gripping the grass between her toes indulgently. The others faced her, falling into an informal line. ‘All right, let me think.’ She knew herself to be a good dancer – very good, to be honest, but she’d never boast about that – and she had dozens of options at her disposal. There were festival dances, funeral dances, dances that were playful, serious, sexy, sweet. But selecting something for a group of beginners who all had different types of limbs was a trick she’d never attempted before. She mentally dug around for something easy that wouldn’t scare them off. ‘Okay, this is a cute dance you learn as a kid. It’s called …’ She paused. There was no translating this. She thought for a moment, then gave up and pointed at her cheeks as she flashed the name of the dance. ‘That. It’s called that.’
‘Green Blue White Spots,’ Roveg said. ‘Marvellous. Teach us Green Blue White Spots.’
Pei laughed. ‘Okay, to start, I’m going to slide my left foot forward.’ She demonstrated. Tupo hopped up on xyr back legs and started to mimic. ‘No – no, don’t do what I’m doing. I’m the leader. Your job is to respond to me, not copy me. I slide my left foot, and now you – you slide your right foot back. Like this.’ She turned her back to them, performed the correct response, then turned back around.
Tupo slid xyr back paw away, wobbling a bit. Roveg took a step back with all the abdominal legs on one side. Speaker thought, pulled a few controls, and made her suit slide a foot back.
‘Awesome,’ Pei said. ‘Now, I do this.’ She lifted her foot and slammed it full-sole onto the ground. ‘And you—’ She turned around again and performed the response: two equally hard stomps. ‘Do that.’
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Page 14