Unconquerable Sun

by Elliott, Kate

  He murmurs, lips at her ear, “If the leash were taken off me, then I could see your face.”

  He feels her smile. She tilts back and whispers, “You don’t need to see my face to do this.”

  Because he cannot see, his other senses have sharpened: the scent of cinnamon from a saint’s alcove; the coarse cloth of her sleeve brushing over the fingers of his right hand; the scuff of her foot on the floor as she shifts her hips to press against his; the tickling taste of her hair as strands trail over his mouth. Her cheek brushes his chin. He bends his head down to the face he cannot see and hasn’t really ever truly seen. But it isn’t by a face that you know a person.

  Her lips are all promise. Her heat is a vow. They stand in a place of worship, attended by the silent avatars of a faith neither of them follow, and yet these are their witnesses, the watchful guardians of protection, duty, ingenuity, loyalty, healing, and all the qualities and trials that human beings seek to emulate or endure or become. Among them there stands a guardian to love and passion, an adventurous and joyous spirit, and maybe this is she come to life in his arms.

  He has to breathe.

  He says—

  “This is all very endearing, but we need to go immediately before our presence here is discovered.”

  Both he and Persephone jolt back. He’s so jarred by the unexpected voice breaking into their embrace that he sparks with a burst of energy along his neural pathways.

  “Whoa,” says Persephone. “That’s vivid.”

  Prince João adds sardonically, “Zizou, you’ll find your lovers like it when that happens. It’s an autonomic response to high levels of arousal, something akin to an erection in people who have penises, but naturally a sexual partner can’t help but congratulate themselves on bringing it out in you.”

  “Oh,” murmurs Persephone in a tone that makes Zizou flush, wondering if she’s visually checking out the awkward silhouette of his clothing.

  “Last we met, Persephone Lee,” remarks the Royal, “I forgot to mention how much I admired and respected the noble sacrifice of your eight-times-worthy sister. You look just like her.”

  “So I’m told, Your Highness, although I don’t see the resemblance as anything but superficial.” Persephone’s tone has turned from molasses to acid.

  “I can see why Sun likes you.”

  “Where is Princess Sun?” Zizou asks.

  “It’s impressive how in the heat of passion one can become completely immune to sense and observation. She and the others have left.”

  Touching the ring, Zizou recalls that he can always check her position. She has moved out onto the plaza together with her other Companions and the soldier Isis.

  “You’re coming with me, Zizou.” The prince taps him with an implement. By the buzz that resonates in his flesh, he recognizes it as the wand the Rider used to control him. “I intend to free the banners from this leash.”

  “For Chaonia?” Persephone asks.

  “No, not for Chaonia. For humanity’s sake. The banner fleets formed long ago to salvage people from the wreck of bondage. It’s outrageous the councils of some of the banner fleets pretend they haven’t revived the very evil we once fought against. I will end it. There, you’ve had your speech for the day. And your kiss. Come along, Zizou.”

  The prince does not wait. Zizou is given no chance for a proper goodbye, for anything but a touch of his hands to her hands. He doesn’t even know what to say. To him, a parting means forever.

  She says, “Oh fuck, I almost forgot,” and thrusts a small wrapped bundle into his hand.

  “Come along,” repeats the prince, voice more distant because he’s walking away.

  Zizou obeys the Royal. He leaves behind the basilica with its harsh memory of the Rider leashing him forward and its sweet memory of the mysterious transcendence of the embrace. He leaves behind the flash and its subsequent void of memory, when whatever the Phene did to him caused him to attack her, again.

  It’s better this way. Despite himself he’ll kill her if he doesn’t leave. It’s not worth the risk. But it still hurts.

  Yet he cherishes the pain. He doesn’t try to mute its blend of piquancy and hope. The little package is still in his hand as he’s guided into a conveyance. A door is slammed shut. The vehicle vibrates as it begins to move.

  “Can I take off the blindfold?” he asks.

  “No. Not until I say.”

  There are others in the conveyance with them. They don’t speak, but he can smell their sweat and anxiety, taste a hint of metal shavings and wood dust, hear restless movement and, once, a woman’s voice say, “Sit still, Kas.”

  He waits with the patience he learned as a child waiting for his ration, as a youth getting lost in the maze of Lady Chaos and knowing they will let him die there if he does not keep his wits about him and find his way out, as a young man in the endless drills that taught him a soldier’s discipline. Waiting is a form of discipline.

  After a while the vehicle stops and they disembark. Now they are outside in the windblown, gritty air of the moon. Again the prince guides him, fingers hooked around his elbow. They go up a ramp into another vehicle. They strap into acceleration couches. Still blindfolded, he waits as the shuttle takes off, as g-forces push him into the couch, as they hit the high atmosphere and lose gravity. He thinks of Persephone Lee, replays in his mind every interaction, seeking the hints she gave and emotions she felt that he could not see but that he nevertheless experienced. He also thinks about his squad, and Colonel Evans, and the banner soldiers in the lab and all the ones who have come before him. Every child in the banners is born with the neural pathway. According to tradition it’s the legacy of their flight out of the Apsaras Convergence eight hundred years ago, but now he wonders if what he was taught is true. If truth can ever be settled, or sure. A life becomes unmoored when its anchor is shorn away.

  With a clang of docking clamps the shuttle arrives at a ship.

  Once again he waits as the unseen others disembark. When all are gone except for him, the prince guides him out. By now he recognizes the scent of vanilla as a perfume the man wears.

  “Who was with us?” he asks.

  “Why, just the lifepods and consoles.”

  “Not just them.”

  “Don’t ask again.”

  After they clear the hiss and pressure of the airlock, walk for a bit, and take several turns, the prince unties the blindfold. “Make your proper greetings to the captain.”

  Zizou blinks as his eyes adjust to the lighting. Some of the tubes aren’t lit. The gray paint on the walls is chipped as if maintenance has not done its job. The air has a musty smell that indicates the filters need cleaning.

  As a child he memorized all the various classes of ships from the simplest planet-bound Swallow to the massive wheelships of the banner fleet to the heavy cruisers that anchor the fighting fleets of the great confederacies. So he recognizes the command center of a very large knnu-drive ship.

  “A Titan!” he exclaims, then sees women seated on a long bench. They are sizing him up.

  He approaches, opening his hands to present them palms out. “Warmest greetings, Grandmother and Aunts. My battle name is Zizou. The name my grandmother calls me is Kurash. I offer it to you as thanks for opening your home to me. May I know where I have come?”

  The oldest of the women has seen a long life, that is clear from her age-weighted face and the braces that shore up her limbs. Her voice is firm and her dignity unimpaired.

  “Kurash, I am Commander Rahaba. You are welcome here aboard the Keoe.” She looks him up and down. “We’re a bit shopworn, still tidying up. This ship came out of a mothballed yard.”

  “I am a good worker, Grandmother. I can swab decks, paint, clean filters and ventilation systems, repair filtration lines in the hydroponic vaults, and cook.” He smiles. “I’d be grateful for a chance to pitch in. It’s how we did things at home.”

  Her imperious expression softens. “What a good boy you are. I see in you
the hand of an affectionate upbringing. Someone loved you enough to share with you a love of community and many hands working together. What’s that you’re carrying?”

  He glances down at the package, wrapped in yellow silk, tied in a cunning knot that reminds him of her. For an instant he hesitates. But hesitation is so unlike him. It’s unworthy of his battle name. So he plucks it open, slipping the smooth cloth free. Inside, neatly folded, rest the socks his grandmother knit for him.

  48

  A DISPATCH FROM THE ENEMY

  Dear Mom,

  Why didn’t you tell me? Can it be possible you never knew?

  “Another game, Lieutenant At Sabao?” Admiral Manu propelled himself into the crash seat next to her with the hearty smile he used to bludgeon people into agreement.

  Apama was hungry, stinky, and exceedingly grouchy after five days of being crammed into a courier ship meant for twelve and currently housing twenty hungry, stinky, grouchy Phene military and one egregiously cheerful Yele admiral. Military discipline, and the presence of the Rider they were tasked to get to safety, kept her focused. So instead of pummeling his beaming face she crossed both pairs of arms and imagined herself restfully basking in a lovely sun-warmed glade in the Grove.

  “We’ve already played nine games, Admiral.”

  “Yes, and you’ve won six.” He clipped himself into the straps so he wouldn’t float away. “Give me a chance to catch up.”

  “If I lose on purpose, will you stop asking me to play?”

  He dipped his head, hiding his mouth behind a hand.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  “You won’t lose on purpose. You pilots never do.”

  With a sigh she triggered a virtual version of the layered boards for four-dimensional chaturanga. “Pilots are chosen for spatial and chronological awareness. We trained at flight school with this game.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you in particular are so skilled. You’re even better than I am.”

  “Your brilliance is acknowledged by everyone, Admiral. But in the game you have a certain predictability.” Especially when his pride was at stake, but she knew better than to say so out loud. “I use your patterns against you, while you haven’t figured out what’s predictable about my moves.”

  “You love defeating me with your drunken elephant gambits, do you not?”

  “No. I’m not in love with victory for its own sake.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant, but it does suggest another question.”

  She said nothing, wondering if he would go away, although of course there was nowhere to go. When their courier ship with its precious Rider had fled Molossia System, they’d been meant to join up with the Tanarctus Fleet in Troia System and celebrate a great victory.

  Instead they’d been hiding for days in Troia System’s outer asteroid belt, powered down with full baffles on and all comms off as Chaonian patrols swept past in the wake of their victory to make sure no pockets of Phene ships had been left behind after the Phene retreat to Aspera and Karnos.

  “What, or whom, are you in love with?” Manu’s conspiratorial wink snapped clean the last of her usually copious store of patience that five days stuck on the courier ship had whittled down to a brittle twig.

  “Such a question is inappropriate—”

  An adjutant slumped in the crash seat opposite stirred. “Huy! Could you two keep it down with your teledrama flirting?” He opened his eyes. “Oh! Apologies, Admiral.”

  “No need for apologies. We’re all exhausted by this confinement.” Manu flashed the most genial of expressions toward the adjutant, who was startled into a smile in reply. Their knees were almost touching across the narrow aisle. There was nothing anyone could do to claim personal space or privacy, except the Rider, who had requisitioned the single berthing cabin for himself.

  The adjutant adjusted his collar and said, a trifle nervously, “If I may say so, Admiral, didn’t you just come from speaking to the Rider?”

  “I did, indeed!” Manu smiled as if delighted to be reminded of this exceptional piece of good fortune. “Good news is afoot. We can expect a rendezvous within six hours.”

  “A rendezvous with who?” Apama asked.

  “Whom is correct. Without proper grammar, we lose not just proper language but really the foundation of our own selves.” He winked at the adjutant, an individual older than Apama but younger than he was. “Youth these days, am I right? Lieutenant At Sabao, six hours is plenty of time for another game.”

  Plenty of time.

  She beat him twice.

  Or she would have beaten him the second time. Their game was interrupted by a proximity chime: the expected rendezvous. Everyone donned a protective membrane and weapons were passed out, although there weren’t enough to go around. Weaponless, Apama took her place in formation last in the line of precedence. The door to the berthing opened and the Rider emerged, wearing the sleeved mantle of the Rider Council and a steel diadem as a circle around his foreheads.

  Gravity took hold between one breath and the next. After so many days in free fall the idea of ground had become disorienting and uncomfortable, but there wasn’t time to adjust. Grapples thudded onto the exterior. Fresh, oxygen-rich air was vented in. With a jolt the courier came to rest. A green light signaled a clear airlock.

  The commander of the courier ship took point at the airlock, followed by Admiral Manu, two individuals wearing the uniform of the Incorruptibles, and the Rider.

  The commander said, “I am Captain Nabua Te Mamaril of the Certain Swift. Permission to come aboard for reasons of military security.”

  The airlock opened to reveal a Yele woman dressed in the flamboyant colors of a Yele merchant guild. Her gaze touched on the commander but flashed past to note the Rider. “Permission to come aboard.”

  She stepped aside to reveal a Yele man standing behind her, dressed in soberly colored clothing. Of indeterminate age, he had a slightly sardonic but generally inoffensive expression on his pleasant face.

  “Welcome, Your Eminence. I have a comfortable cabin waiting for you.”

  “Aloysius Voy!” Manu swore. “A trap! You traitor!”

  He pushed past the commander and barged onto the entry gangway with such unexpected vigor that everyone gaped as he punched the other man in the face. Apama slid past the others and, since no one stopped her, hurried through the open airlock and onto the gangway just in time to grab Manu’s arm before he could punch the other man again.

  “Admiral! As I said before, your attacks are predictable. That’s why I keep beating you.”

  The anger in Manu’s face relaxed, and he laughed.

  “What have I ever done to you?” demanded the other man as he dabbed blood from his nose with the back of a hand.

  “To me? Nothing to me personally, since I have never fallen under the sway of your golden tongue. What your glib words and specious arguments have done to Yele is a different matter.”

  “I have done nothing except to save Yele from being burned to ashes, as you would understand if you could but understand the perilous conditions that faced us when Eirene first began to seize our outposts and outer territories, which had become vulnerable because of our own apathy and arrogance.”

  “I was involved in those battles while you were prancing around the theater stage declaiming speeches.”

  “Scorn me if you wish. But at the time, when we were on the brink of losing not just the war but our precious autonomy, a policy of tolerance and cooperation seemed a prudent price to pay as a temporary measure, until such time as we might discover better options.”

  The Rider walked forward. “I see the truth of the accusation that the Yele like nothing as much as speeches and parsing grammar. Baron Voy, I was promised an immediate report.”

  “He can’t be trusted,” said Manu to the Rider.

  “You don’t trust him. I have my own goals, which differ from yours.”

  The admiral had the pent-up buzz of a disturb
ed hornet. “He urged the League to make peace with Eirene despite all evidence to the contrary. Then he carved out a cozy sinecure for himself by marrying her, all the while assuring us that Chaonian goals were congruent with Yele goals. But of course—”

  “Please desist. I have more urgent matters than your internecine disputes. Or do I need to remind you that your alliance with the Rider Council is deemed traitorous by your own people?”

  “We’re on the same side now.” Baron Voy addressed Manu, showing no sign of rancor despite his bloodied nose.

  “I doubt that.” But Manu took a step back, his concession to a truce.

  When Apama realized he was perfectly happy for her to keep holding on to his arm, she let go.

  Baron Voy fished a monogrammed handkerchief out of a pocket and wiped his face clean. “This way.”

  “You have the information you promised me?” asked the Rider.

  “I do, but you won’t like it.”

  The Yele guildswoman worked very hard not to flinch as the Rider walked past. Yet his interest in her was minimal. The gaze of his riding face sought and found Apama. Only her years of training and a quick downward glance of the eyes kept her from an instinctive wince. Phene did not commonly see Riders in public spaces.

  “Lieutenant At Sabao will attend me,” he said before following Baron Voy along the gangway.

  All the Phene peering out of the airlock, eager to see where they’d fetched up, looked at her with a fresh quiver of curiosity. She’d heard them whispering, trying to figure out why a junior lieutenant had first made it off a crippled dreadnought when her squadron was left behind, then escaped the death throes of the Styraconyx flagship, and finally evaded the disaster in Molossia when so many more deserving others had not. It was easier to fall into step behind Manu and the two silent Incorruptibles. It was always easier to keep moving forward when you didn’t have any answers.