Shards of Earth

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  “Stop.” A barely audible plea. “I can’t. I’m not strong like Xavienne. I can’t do it.”

  “You’ve proved you are—” Borodin started, but Idris held up a shaky hand.

  “Xavienne had to watch us die,” he said. “Us volunteers, the first class. I remember all the faces who were there at the start, who didn’t survive the conditioning, the surgery, the chemical diet. Who didn’t survive you trying to make us into her. And I saw how it hurt her, how she felt every death. But she kept on, because she had to, and we kept on because we had to as well. Because there was a war on. Thirty, Menheer. Thirty of us walked out of the Program as Ints. And now you have the Liaison Board, and you take criminals and put them through the factory. If you’re lucky, then one Int walks out alive out of every hundred who go into the grinder. And those Ints of yours, you want to know something about them? They’re useless, Menheer Borodin. They’ll never fend off an Architect. None of them, or almost none.”

  If Idris looked nine-eighths dead, Borodin was pushing for ten-eighths himself. “Why…?” he managed.

  “Because they don’t want to be there. They’re slaves.”

  “A leash contract is—”

  “Slaves. Enforced labour without right or choice. And you know what the Architects are, for all their power? Slaves, Menheer. And if you’re a slave sent to chastise someone, and that someone sends their own slave out to plead for their master’s life, how well disposed do you think you’d be? Volunteers, Menheer. You cherish and take care of Andecka Tal Mar and anyone else like that, who give themselves willingly to the process. More of them will survive, for one thing, and what you get out of it will be worth having… not just a tame commercial pilot, but someone who can defend your worlds.”

  Kris watched Borodin’s face, saw his quick mind changing tack. “There will be volunteers,” he promised. “Once people understand that the threat is back, and it’s real, they’ll put themselves forward. Just like you did in the war.”

  Idris nodded, looking defeated. “You’re probably right,” he whispered. “But I still couldn’t watch them die. Because our brains aren’t the same, not any of us. Everyone gets cut up differently, trying to shape our brains to match Xavienne’s. It’s stupid, wasteful. And mostly it fails. I couldn’t live with it. I’m sorry, Menheer.”

  “Menheer Telemmier,” Borodin said, at his most reasonable despite his pallor, “your crew would be compensated. You would be compensated. We would do everything we could to insulate you from the… negative aspects of the role.” He blinked. “Menheer Telemmier?”

  A stab of worry went through Kris, because Idris was very still. It wasn’t inconceivable that he’d actually died on them, right then and there. Then he said, “No,” although there was a thoughtful tone to it. “No, Menheer. I’m not your man. And I’ll go against the Architects again, no doubt. I’ll likely die doing it, next time or the time after. Because even success kills, in this game.” He shook his head, and suddenly everything seemed to be funny to him. “Oh, Menheer, I won’t abandon anyone. I just won’t take on this responsibility. I volunteered, back in the day, because I was needed. I’ll do my bit now for the same reason. However, I won’t go near you or your Liaison Board. Not now. Not ever.”

  Solace

  Monitor Superior Tact had left for the Thunderchild by the time various conversations amongst the Vulture crew had been concluded. So Solace had to commandeer another packet runner to get her over from the orbital to her superior’s ship. And every moment she was gone, she worried in case the Vulture God might not be there when she returned. Perhaps the crew would reconsider what they’d said, and just take off without her. No matter what she or anyone tried to pretend, she wasn’t quite one of them—and maybe never would be.

  Tact’s room had holographic representations of every Partheni ship in the system projected around the walls, the display dominated by the five warships currently at her disposal. More Hugh forces were doubtless on their way, and that kind of pissing match was likely to end with someone doing something rash unless the Parthenon backed down. After all, Hugh couldn’t back down because they were above their own administrative capital. Situations like these made Solace glad she wasn’t a career diplomat.

  “You’ve requested a face-to-face meeting, so I take it you’re here to make a final report on your mission,” Tact observed. She was watching those warship images: each one with the face of its Exemplar projected over it, all those sister-close likenesses.

  “Mother, I am,” Solace confirmed.

  Tact nodded. “When I sent you to turn Telemmier, nobody could have known just what was about to erupt. I don’t doubt you did absolutely everything in your power to recruit him peaceably.” She brought up a virtual board and dispatched a brief communiqué. The display showed it as arrowing off to the Lady of the Night. “Of course, recent events show us as even more in need of an Intermediary Program. We are looking at the other two first-class Ints who yet live, though neither of them appears as disaffected as Telemmier. I understand he’s not a joiner, though. Not them, not us, not anyone.”

  Solace took a deep breath. “Mother, he will join us.”

  Tact went very still. “Clarify, daughter. Are you stating a fact or merely your belief in some future change of heart?”

  “He has agreed to come with us and help us with our Intermediary Program. With conditions.”

  “Well of course with conditions. He’s a Colonial spacer, and they never did anything for free if they could avoid it,” but there was a jag of excitement in Tact’s crisp voice. “How did you possibly manage it, Solace?” Tact had turned away from the display entirely, now, the Partheni fleet circling unregarded behind her head. Her face crinkled abruptly into an oddly fond smile, which looked utterly alien on her face. “Don’t tell me the mediotypes are true and the Colonials are hopeless romantics after all?”

  Solace felt herself colouring. “No, Mother. Idris…

  Menheer Telemmier knows that we will need Intermediaries—that is, all humanity, all intelligent life will need them. And he doesn’t trust the Liaison Board to help. What’s more… the Colonial method of developing Intermediaries is flawed, wasteful. Telemmier said only a rare few have the right sorts of brains, and they can’t know before the procedures whether a brain’s right or not. But…”

  “Yes?”

  Solace looked at the ships, at their captains, seeing in them Tact’s own features and knowing her own were just like them. A genetic legacy of Doctor Parsefer’s genius and hubris. “We vary less than Colonials, Mother. If we can train one Partheni Intermediary, we should be able to train many, with far less failure, far less loss. If. That’s what Idris is betting upon. That our more limited genetic range has that potential. That we can raise a class of Ints without killing most of them—because we’re alike. More alike than any two Colonials who aren’t close family.”

  Tact digested that for a moment, then glanced up with a sly expression. Perhaps she was wondering if Idris and Solace’s shared history hadn’t played some part, after all. Solace wondered that too, she really did… And these were odd thoughts to have about someone who was the wrong gender and whose chest she’d been wrist-deep in not so long ago. In those Sách v faim mediotypes, the Colonials were always fighting for people’s hearts. But that probably wasn’t what they meant.

  “They had conditions, you said,” Tact reminded her.

  “Idris wants to bring along the Vulture God and its crew.”

  “I’m sure we can throw sufficient Largesse their way.”

  “They don’t just want credits, they want a contract with the Parthenon,” Solace clarified. “They want to work for us, legally. They think that will at least give them some protection against Hugh interference. Of course they’ll do their best to outwit us on contract terms and so on. The usual. But they’re good people and good at what they do. And who knows when we might need a…”

  “Shabbily maintained salvage vessel,” Tact finished for her. “Yet
strange times, strange tools, yes. Do we get the Hiver academic in the bargain? I couldn’t work out whether they were crew or not.”

  “Delegate Trine will go wherever they can learn most about the Architects. Which means not yoking themselves to us or anyone else. But if we have an appropriate research opportunity they’ll come running. If we want them.”

  “We do,” Tact agreed. “Which brings us to you, Myrmidon Executor Solace. Where do you see yourself, in all of this?”

  Solace straightened, feeling her future fall out of her own hands after this brief. “I’m at your disposal, Mother. As always. Although… I did wonder if the newly contracted Vulture God would need a formal Parthenon liaison? To smooth over our new working relationship.”

  “And you’re volunteering yourself, I take it.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  For a difficult moment she thought Tact was about to pass judgement on her. Something about unsoldierly sentiment. The danger of attachments outside your sorority. The general perfidy of Colonials as a class and male Colonials in particular.

  But Tact simply said: “Very well. You have yourself a new mission,” and she regarded Solace with a faint smile. Perhaps in her youth, she had even watched the same kind of mediotypes.

  “Call the Vulture God and say we’re on,” Tact continued. “And tell them to get that little Hannilambra factor over here to talk terms. Don’t let them think they can simply name a price, either. If it’s a contract they want, it’s a contract they’ll get.”

  “Yes, Mother!” And Solace turned smartly on her heel and marched out. There was a future out there, and it was a terrible one. It included war and whole planets dying in the shadow of Architects. They were living in a fractured galaxy and it must come together, or it would fall into darkness one star at a time. Yet just then, her own personal star seemed bright. And she was smiling to herself as she went to hail the Vulture.

  THE UNIVERSE OF THE ARCHITECTS: REFERENCE

  Glossary

  Architects—moon-sized entities that can reshape populated planets and ships

  Aspirat—Partheni intelligence services

  The Betrayed—the violent extremist wing of the Nativists

  Broken Harvest Society—a Hegemonic criminal cartel

  Colonies—The surviving human worlds following the fall of Earth

  Council of Human Interests (“Hugh”)—the governing body of the Colonies

  Hegemony—a coalition of species ruled by the alien Essiel

  Hegemonic cult—humans who serve and worship the Essiel

  Intermediaries—surgically modified navigators who can pilot ships off the Throughways, developed as weapons against the Architects during the war

  Intermediary Program—Colonial wartime body responsible for creating the Intermediaries

  Intervention Board (“Mordant House”)—Colonial policing and intelligence service

  Kybernet—an AI system responsible for overseeing a planet or orbital

  Liaison Board—current Colonial body responsible for creating Intermediaries en masse for commercial purposes

  Nativists—a political movement that believes in “pure-born” humans and “humanity first”

  Orbital—an orbiting habitat

  Parthenon—a breakaway human faction composed of parthenogenetically grown women

  Throughways—paths constructed within unspace by unknown hands, joining habitable planets. Without a special navigator, ships can only travel along existing Throughways

  Unspace—a tenuous layer beneath real space, which can be used for fast travel across the universe

  Characters

  Crew of the Vulture God

  Rollo Rostand—captain

  Idris Telemmier—Intermediary navigator

  Keristina “Kris” Soolin Almier—lawyer

  Olian “Olli” Timo—drone specialist

  Kittering “Kit”—Hannilambra factor

  Musoku “Barney” Barnier—engineer

  Medvig—Hiver search and catalogue specialist

  Myrmidon Executor Solace—Partheni soldier and agent

  Other key characters

  The Unspeakable Aklu, the Razor and the Hook—Essiel gangster

  Harbinger Ash—singular alien prophet

  Heremon—Tothiat

  Chief Laery—Havaer’s superior in the Intervention Board

  Luciel Leng—administrator on the Lung-Crow Orbital at Huei-Cavor

  Mesmon—Tothiat

  Havaer Mundy—Intervention Board agent

  Doctor Sang Sian Parsefer—founder of the Parthenon

  Yon Robellin—biologist on Jericho

  His Wisdom the Bearer Sathiel—Hegemonic cult hierograve

  Albas Solier—Mordant House operative on Tarekuma

  Monitor Superior Tact—Solace’s superior in the Aspirat

  Livvo Thrennikos—crooked lawyer on Tarekuma

  Xavienne “Saint Xavienne” Torino—the first Intermediary

  Delegate Trine—Hiver archaeologist

  Boyarin Piter Tchever Uskaro—nobleman from Magda

  Worlds

  Amraji—world destroyed by the Architects

  Berlenhof—administrative and cultural heart of the Colonies

  Earth—world destroyed by the Architects

  Far Lux—where Intermediaries ended the war

  Forthbridge Port—where Saint Xavienne first managed to contact an Architect

  Huei-Cavor—prosperous world passing from the Colonies to the Hegemony. Site of the Lung-Crow Orbital

  Jericho—wild planet rich in Originator ruins

  Roshu—a mining world and Throughway hub

  Scintilla—planet noted for its legal schools and duelling code

  Tarekuma—a lawless, hostile planet

  Species

  Castigar—alien species with several castes and shapes, naturally wormlike

  Essiel—the “divine” masters of the Hegemony

  Hannilambra (“Hanni”)—crab-shaped aliens, enthusiastic merchants

  Hivers—composite cyborg insect intelligences, originally created by humans but now independent

  Naeromathi (“Locusts”)—nomadic aliens that deconstruct worlds to create more of their “Locust Arks”

  Ogdru—a species from the Hegemony that produces void-capable navigators

  Originators—a hypothetical elder race responsible for the Throughways and certain enigmatic ruins

  Tothiat—a hybrid of the symbiotic Tothir and another species, often human. Phenomenally resilient

  Ships

  Ascending Mother—Partheni warship

  Broken Harvest—flagship belonging to the criminal cartel of the same name

  Cataphracta—Partheni warship lost at Berlenhof

  Dark Joan—Partheni packet runner

  Gamin—freighter lost in transit during the war

  Heaven’s Sword—Partheni warship, both the original that was destroyed at Berlenhof and its replacement currently in service

  Oumaru—Hegemonic freighter lost in transit

  Pythoness—Partheni launch

  Raptorid—private yacht of Boyarin Piter Uskaro

  Samphire—Colonial warship at Jericho

  Sark—Broken Harvest ship

  Thunderchild—Partheni warship

  Vulture God—salvage vessel captained by Rollo Rostand

  TIMELINE

  107 Before: Probes sent by Earth to neighbouring star systems attract the attention of an alien ship. Humanity’s first alien contact follows shortly afterwards. Once the initial revulsion over the wormlike Castigar fades, humans begin to learn about unspace, Throughways and the wider universe. The Castigar themselves have only been travelling between stars for under a century and have a practice of making small colonies on many planets, but not engaging in large-scale colonization. Castigar ships reach deals to ferry Earth colonists to habitable worlds they had discovered. They also give humans some details about the Naeromathi and the Hegemony.

  91 Before:
Humans establish their first interstellar colony on Second Dawn, a planet with a dense ecosystem of plant/fungal-like life. Second Dawn is pleasantly balmy for the Castigar but proves difficult for humans.

  90 Before: Humans establish a colony on Berlenhof, a warm world with 90% ocean coverage. This thrives and is patronized by a number of powerful companies and rich families.

  88 Before: A colony is established on Lief, an ice world in a system with valuable minerals in several asteroid belts. A colony is also established on Amber, a hot world with a crystalline ecosystem where humans live in cooled domes.

  75 Before: Several minor colonies are established in other systems with Castigar help, mostly for industrial purposes. Reliance on the Castigar for all shipping is becoming problematic to expanding humanity, and to the Castigar. Castigar scientists work with humans to help them build their own gravitic drives.

  72 Before: The first human gravitic drive spaceship, the Newton’s Bullet, opens the doors to a greater era of human colonization.

  61 Before: On the forested world of Lycos, humans discover their first Originator ruins.

  45 Before: A Naeromathi Ark arrives in the colonized Cordonier system and begins dismantling some of the inhabited world’s moons. Contact goes poorly and degenerates into fighting. There is never a formal Naeromathi–human war, as there is no Naeromathi state to declare war on. However, other Ark ships are seen across the Throughway network, and there are several clashes with losses on both sides.

  25 Before: Contact is made with the Essiel Hegemony as a result of human travel and expansion. Initial contact is not hostile but humans find it baffling as they and the Essiel fail to understand one another. Human diplomats recognize that the Essiel appear to be offering humans some kind of master–subject relationship. However, they are confused that it does not appear to be accompanied by threats. In retrospect, warnings about the Architects were present, but not grasped. Over the next decades human emissaries understand that the Hegemony appears to value Originator ruins, though not displaced Originator relics. Several worlds with Originator sites are effectively sold to the Hegemony as a result.