Unconquerable Sun

by Elliott, Kate

  Sun let her instincts guide her. “Commander Rahaba. Are you not of the knnu lineage?”

  “You have a clear eye,” said the old woman in a raspy voice. “We are of that lineage. We trace our line back to the Celestial Empire and its voyaging fleets.”

  “How come you dwell on Chaonian soil if you were once one of the space-faring lineage who guided our ancestors long since across the vast expanse?”

  “Our ships were stolen from us by Hesjan pirates twenty-five years ago,” she said without the slightest change of expression, “with the connivance and assistance of the Yele League who were then stirring up trouble between Chaonia and the other unaligned systems.”

  “That’s right. Before my mother brought the Yele League to heel.”

  “That’s right. Like many others dislodged by that trouble, we came adrift to this place, where we have made our way ever since.”

  “Are you citizens of the Republic, Commander?”

  “To the fortune of the queen-marshal we swear our service.”

  “So must all provisionals swear, if they wish to live in the republic.”

  “Yes. All who are required to live in this district are provisional, the floating people, unmoored and unanchored. When the government wants something from us, they take it by claiming we owe it to them. When we ask for aid, they reject it by reminding us we are due nothing.”

  “Yet you aid me and mine now.”

  “We keep our promise to the queen-marshal. Also, your companion had an object in her possession that compels our attention.”

  From the door Hekekia burst out, “That girl is a Lee House spy. The gendarmes followed her. But we have the corrupted disc.”

  He held out the black toolbox.

  “Take it into the safe room and open it,” said Commander Rahaba. “I want a diagnostic immediately.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.” He went out.

  Sun beckoned to her companions that they should greet the elders. Zizou made his way down the line with a quaintly formal bow for each one. Hetty ventured with a hitch in her step that made Sun think she had never met provisional citizens before and wasn’t quite sure how to address them.

  “Until the prisoners are absolved or accused, they must remain blindfolded,” said Rahaba. “You may now eat.”

  “This way.” Naomi led them down the long attic room to the table.

  “Who else is to meet us here?” Sun asked, counting eight places.

  “Two more of your companions have been extricated from the Wheelhouse and will join you as soon as they get here.”

  “To fortune we give thanks,” Hetty murmured and dabbed at her eyes.

  Sun absorbed the news with a relief she would not show because it would be like showing weakness. “When will they arrive?”

  “Please do not wait to eat, for it could be some time,” Naomi added. “There’s a washroom through that door.”

  Sun let the others go ahead and made sure they were settled before she washed her hands and face and took a seat between Zizou and Hetty. Naomi sat on a chair facing Sun. A pair of young people brought bowls of thick noodles luxuriating in a salty broth and a platter laden with scallions, corn, grated garlic, and raw mushroom. They ate with intensity, slurping their broth—all but Zizou, who considered the soup with misgiving before finally cautiously sipping at it.

  “You have to eat,” said Sun. “I command it.”

  “It’s not what I’m used to, begging your pardon, Royal.”

  Persephone had pulled up the gauze mask enough to expose her mouth. She said, “What are you used to?”

  Was her tone hostile, or curious? Sun couldn’t tell.

  Zizou set down the bowl, opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again as the stairwell door opened. The women on the couch, iced drinks in hand, all looked up as Candace entered the room, scanned it for threat, and stepped aside.

  Alika knew how to make an entrance.

  Holding his ukulele and looking miscast in a cheap festival jacket, he paused at the threshold and in an instant took in the scene. His attention swung like a spotlight to the women on the sofa. Then he looked toward Sun.

  She gave a nod of command. His jaw tightened fractionally, but he knew what he had to do. He strummed the familiar opening chords of the popular song “Our Haven” from the traditional opera These Long Voyages before breaking off and offering a little bow.

  “My thanks for this haven, gracious aunts.”

  The stern expressions melted. The iced drinks were hastily set down on the table. It took barely any time at all before Alika was seated on the sofa giving an impromptu concert to their hosts, playing all their favorite songs. People appeared from other doors to listen. Sun waved Candace over to the dining table. Once the cee-cee was seated, Sun went back to her own meal, distracted only when Hetty leaned into her to whisper in her usual way, as if forgetting that the warmth of her shoulder pressing against Sun’s fired down her every nerve.

  “He is your best weapon. They don’t know who cannot see the power of art and charm to lure the eye and sway both hearts and minds.”

  “He’s worked hard,” said Sun more curtly than she’d meant. She tipped away just enough so they were no longer touching.

  Hetty’s lashes fluttered with her usual mischief. In retaliation she pressed her leg against Sun’s under the concealment of the table.

  Sun perfectly recalled the first time they had touched in a way no longer childlike. Assigned at the age of eleven as one of Sun’s seven Companions, Hetty had left with her fathers at the age of thirteen to live on Yele Prime. For five years, one living on Chaonia and one on Yele, the two girls had communicated with long encrypted letters into which they had poured their tenderest and most explosive secrets, or at least Sun had. Hetty had no particular secrets. She was deep waters but clear and unclouded all the way down. In the wake of the unfortunate death of Hetty’s diplomat father, she’d been returned precipitously to the palace after her scholar father in his overwhelming grief had retired to a hermitage.

  Which meant that one random day a door had opened and, unannounced and unexpected, Hetty had walked in, smiling through a wash of tears. In a rush of unfamiliar and defenseless feeling Sun had cast free all moorings and embraced her. One soul in two bodies.

  So she didn’t move her leg. She allowed the warmth of Hetty’s flesh as a balm against her own although in general she never liked revealing her vulnerabilities and especially never in public. But Hetty’s presence was a comfort always.

  She addressed Naomi. “We are grateful for your aid but must go soon.”

  “As soon as— Ah! That was fast.”

  Hekekia appeared from the stairwell, gave a startled look at Alika on the sofa, and made his way to Naomi. He handed her a black disc, which she held up to her eye.

  Naomi addressed Persephone, who was sipping a last bit of broth. “Where did you get this disc?”

  Persephone set down the bowl.

  “It was given to me by Solomon Iosefa Solomon. He knew I didn’t want to go back to Lee House. They recalled me when I hoped I was shed of my family forever. He said if there was trouble I could say the code word and someone from his clan would rescue me. That’s what I did when we were trapped by the gendarmes.”

  Naomi’s frown held a lash of fear. “We’ve scorched the tracker embedded inside this. It’s tuned to a private security channel used by Lee House’s enforcement wing.”

  Alika’s playing faltered and stopped.

  Everyone turned to look toward the table, toward blindfolded Persephone.

  Hands curling into fists, she said hoarsely, “But that means … that means…”

  “Don’t try to deny it,” snapped Naomi. “You know what you did.”

  Sun knew the decision was upon her, so she made it.

  She pushed back her chair and stood. “I believe Persephone Lee was given the disc and did not know it contained a tracker. I believe someone gave it to her knowing she would not suspect.”
>
  From the sofa, Commander Rahaba spoke up. “What proof have you, Princess Sun? The likeliest explanation is that her own people employed her to help them destroy you.”

  “What benefit to Lee House to send a daughter under an assumed name to CeDCA for so many years, when they have better uses for her? I knew her brother well, so I believe she is telling the truth, that she ran away from a home she hated and took an assumed identity to escape her family. If she’s guilty of anything it is naïveté. Lee House would never let her escape. They would keep her departure secret, and find a way to surveil her without her knowing. I’m right, aren’t I, Persephone?”

  “But that means…” She slumped forward, hands bearing the weight of her head. “But Solomon gave it to me. Solomon. My best friend.”

  “If it were me,” said Sun, “I would want to have a talk with Solomon Iosefa Solomon. Didn’t I overhear Hekekia saying that he didn’t have good enough scores to get into CeDCA? And yet got a place anyway. Is that true?”

  Persephone lifted her head with desperate hope. “The day when we got our assignments and were allowed to call home he was talking to one of his uncles. There must be a record of that conversation. That will prove his innocence.”

  “He has no uncles on-planet he could talk to,” said Naomi in a hard voice. “They all joined the Guard, as Solomon was meant to do before he got admitted to CeDCA.”

  Sun crossed the room to stand before Rahaba. “Commander, it seems I can do a favor for you in exchange for the help you’ve given me today. You must wish to know who has compromised one of your devices.”

  “Lee House has always been the enemy of provisionals and the floating population,” said the commander. “There’s no news in that, Princess Sun. You are quick to accuse a son of ours rather than the obvious candidate from among your own people.”

  “I’m right about this.”

  “Enough to risk your life? We can take care of Persephone Lee easily enough.”

  “I have accepted her as one of my Companions. If she has betrayed me, then she will pay. But that is my prerogative, no one else’s. With all respect, Commander, not even yours.”

  Rahaba considered Sun in silence, then spoke. “The ministry now knows we have these objects, and they’ve learned how to tap into them. The welfare of my people rests on my leadership and my responsibility to guide and protect them.”

  Sun trusted the instinct that gave her warning, and goaded her into action.

  “Your people are my people. Their welfare is my business and my responsibility.” Only now did Sun realize the woman wore braces on her lower limbs, a means to help her walk; perhaps an artifact of growing up on the deep-space voyaging ships that were calibrated to an artificial gravity less than that on Chaonia. “If it pleases you to accept this arrangement, Commander. There’s a ship in it for you.”

  “Ah. Such an offer is an intriguing move on your part, Princess Sun. But your position is weak.”

  “It only seems weak because Lee House has overreached. The queen-marshal’s anger will blow over. It always does. She can’t afford to lose me.”

  “You don’t lack confidence.”

  “I know who I am.”

  “Very well. We fell to Chaonia through no fault of our own. You are the first to offer us acknowledgment, much less dangle the possibility of a return to our ancient home among the stars. Let it be known that I agree to this alliance. I cannot get you all the way to the academy, but I can provide secure transportation to any port of call within greater Argos and its neighboring districts. I ask you to take Naomi with you to deal with the son of our house in our own way.”

  “I will treat Naomi as I treat my own. This I promise you. We’ll go right away. We have more people to meet up with who are waiting for us. And one vow I must fulfill before anything else.”

  “Sun,” said Alika, “I’m so hungry. Can I eat something before we go?”

  When the aunts’ remonstrating gazes turned upon her, she could not refuse.

  23

  The Pyres of Autumn West

  They descended from the Heffalump Trunk Escarpment onto the coastal plain north of the main bay. The sprawling industrial districts were interspersed with residential cores and fields of greenhouses, but it was the hundreds of small fires burning along the rocky shoreline that drew the eye.

  Hekekia had driven them all the way from the south of greater Argos, exchanging vans three times with unnamed associates to confuse pursuit. When he pulled up across the street from Orange Line Station, Sun sat staring at the people emerging from the station headed toward the flickering red flames. Some carried their deceased wrapped in a sheet on a traditional stretcher while others conveyed them in a hover-bag or on a wheeled death-wagon pulled by mourners.

  She turned to look back into the van rear, which had buckles and straps to fasten cargo. Persephone was seated right behind her, head tipped back to rest against the seats as if she were trying to sleep, not that anyone else in the group looked at all sleepy. It was obviously impossible to tell with her because she had to wear the gauze mask over her face.

  “Is it accident you suggested we meet at Autumn West?” Sun asked her. “Some way the train lines work that made it safest or most efficient to avoid notice?”

  “No. When you said you wouldn’t allow Lee House to know they’d killed your bodyguard, I took that information into account when I plotted our escape. Maybe you have other plans for his body, but there wasn’t time to ask. Any Chaonian is honored by the funeral rites available here.”

  Streetlights flashed on to illuminate the wide white path that led to the sea and its nightly pyres. A steady stream of people flowed past, a tide dragging her into bittersweet memory. She did not really remember a time when Octavian wasn’t beside her, patient as a tutor, relentless in weapons training, unshakable in watching her back. How could anyone understand what he meant to her who had not walked that road alongside her all these years?

  “You’ve surprised me, Persephone Lee.”

  “You surprised me when you refused to give me up to the Solomon family.”

  Sun leaned toward the other woman, lowering her voice enough to force the Lee girl to pay closer attention. “Let me make this clear if you didn’t believe me before. You’re one of my Companions now. If you betray me, it’s for me to punish you, not anyone else. Anyway, you didn’t do it.”

  Persephone raised her head off the seat back, her tone caustic. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because you’re an asshole. You pretend you aren’t, and people doubtless mistake you for a consensus builder or a group problem solver. But you are not so different from the family that raised you. You’ll do what’s best for you, whether out of principle or desire. That’s why they gave me Perseus instead of you. They recognized he didn’t have the character to be what they are. That’s why you left home for the academy, because you didn’t want to do their dirty work, but that’s not to say that you won’t do dirty work, just on your own terms. That’s why your family is willing to sacrifice you in this scheme of theirs: they don’t trust you.”

  “That’s harsh,” said Persephone, yet Sun was sure she heard a smile in her voice.

  “I’ve got a ping,” said Hetty from the back of the van. “Two hundred meters to the south.”

  “Got it,” said Sun.

  A nondescript rental van pulled up behind theirs. At the Solomon compound they had exchanged their expensive banquet garments for plain workday gear and paper mourning jackets. So when they got out to meet James and Isis they looked like any other ramshackle group.

  James strode forward with a grin and grasped Sun’s arm. “You had me worried. Smart strategy to come here, Sun.”

  “We can thank Persephone for that. Can you do a trawl of our three secured drop points to see if my father left a message packet for me? He never goes more than seventy-two hours without pinging me an all-safe.”

  He tugged his cap low over his eyes to signal he was working.

&nb
sp; Isis guided the hover-bag forward. The pteranodon was perched at the front of the bag. In the dark it might be mistaken for an icon brought to accompany the corpse into death. Sun rested a hand on the hover-bag, staring at the seal with a glare that no one dared interrupt.

  Eventually she spoke. “He once told me he prayed for only one thing: an honorable passage. We’ll give him one.”

  “We have to turn the van in or it’ll be reported stolen,” said Isis.

  “I’ll make sure it’s returned in an untraceable way,” said Hekekia. He turned to Naomi. “Aunt, are you sure I can’t come with you? I really want to punch Solomon in his lying face.”

  “That’s why you still run errands,” said Naomi. “Get the other van sorted, then return here and wait for us.”

  They worked their way in among the groups of people. The pavement gave off a gleam, making it easy to follow even in darkness. Ash filtered down from a breeze wafting inland off the sea. People walked in silence, so they did too—no chatter, no songs, but as they got closer to the shore they heard voices and music. The path ended in a plaza. Merchants sold wood, oil, disposable lighters, paper mourning jackets, winding sheets, powdered incense, and tiny funeral bells.

  Naomi was the only one who possessed untraceable coinage. Tiana volunteered to shop. At length she returned bearing everything they needed and a token with a pit location stamped on it. They walked the hover-bag about a klick north along a boardwalk that ran parallel to the sea. Smoke and stinging-hot ash from the nightly pyres made their eyes stream. Mourners wailed. Bells tinkled as they burned up. The smell of sandalwood drifted on the air like grief.

  Their pit was one of many crematory slots set into the rocks and with an open view to the sea. Water slushed and slapped three meters away against a revetment. A pair of attendants had arrived before they had to leave a wagonload of wood. Tiana helped Sun detach the bag from its hover mechanism and carefully bundle the corpse out of the fireproof bag into a sheet without ever touching it flesh to flesh. The rest stacked the logs inside the open jaws, laid flat, of their slot. Zizou kept watch, crouched in the shadows so he could see up and down the boardwalk. Wing glided in circles above, her vision tracked through Isis.