The Monster

by Seth Dickinson

  Instead of the prisoners, she’d found burning islands, dead children, and this damn letter.

  Baru had been on the Llosydanes. She’d stopped at the mailhouse to send a note to Aminata. That night Juris Ormsment’s Sulane had arrived. At dawn a battle had erupted on the fallow islet Moem, and under the new light Ormsment had destroyed three Oriati ships.

  If only it had stopped there. If only none of the Oriati survived—all could have been written off to storm losses. But a fourth Oriati ship had escaped under diplomatic flag. The Federal Prince aboard had already changed vessels to a fast clipper and sailed south to carry news of the battle to the Mbo federations.

  The Mbo would demand an explanation from Parliament. And in Parliament they’d say, The navy is out of control, they’re going to drag us into war too soon. . . .

  There would be purge, then. Swift recalls to Falcrest, “to report to Parliament,” and swifter trials, swifter verdicts.

  Rear Admiral Maroyad said: The real purpose of your work, Lieutenant Commander, is to find the agents on our side who are working to provoke war. And Aminata had known it couldn’t be Baru, it just couldn’t, for Baru had always worked so hard to be an honest citizen. Baru did her duty, she took her exams, and she got her reward. Oh, Aminata had been dazzled when Baru landed the Imperial Accountancy—how she’d tried, in her clumsy, tongue-tied way, to tell Baru how much she admired and respected her. Maybe, if she found the right way to say it, Baru would open up in reply. Baru would tell Aminata how much she admired her.

  If Baru couldn’t get ahead honestly, Baru with her mind and athleticism and her excellent scores, then how could Aminata hope to earn a ship by honest means?

  Aminata put her fists on each side of the feather and laid her forehead on the planks. Through wood and bone, the crisp reports of bootstep on the deck. The slow roll of the sea beneath moored Ascentatic. A sailor’s lullaby.

  What was happening here? What was Baru mixed up in? Was she working with Ormsment, or was Ormsment chasing her?

  Aminata groaned. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to feel. So she would keep on doing her duty, like an ox, a big, lumbering ox, because she didn’t fucking know how to do anything else.

  The feather brushed her forehead. A stupid ember burnt warm in her breast.

  The letter did mean that Baru had remembered her.

  YOUR full report, Lieutenant Commander, on the situation on the Llosydanes.”

  Captain Nullsin was a short fat man with a hammer in place of his left hand and a brisk competence which was Aminata’s only comfort in all this. He began this officer’s dinner by tapping his hammer against a wineglass and, uncharacteristically, calling for a reading from the Book of the Sea. It was proscribed, but after today’s work in the burnt ruins not even the surgeons gave a shit. In fact it was the ship’s surgeon who lifted her chin and recited, from memory,

  Remember first that you are of the sea

  Carry fire far from homeland hearth

  Keep the ways and moorings fair and free

  Chart the stars and shallows all you see

  Guard the salted yields of the earth

  But remember first that you are of the sea

  In time of war they send us from our berth

  To humble ancient peoples’ ancient pride

  To keep the ways and moorings fair and free

  A hundred hundred miles from our birth

  We fought and by the thousands died

  And all those lost are ever of the sea.

  A few officers flicked water onto the floor and murmured thanks to Ascentatic. Aminata looked away. The Cult of Ships was too dangerous for an Oriati woman, whose heritage might mix poorly with such superstition in the eyes of Navy Censorate evaluators. But out here on the middle seas, ever one day from disaster, she understood the need to worship. The ship bore up against storm and reef. The ship’s ropes trembled and sang to them on spring wind. Always, in the face of catastrophe, the ship endured. Aminata thought that only the truly heartless could lay hands on Ascentatic’s timbers without feeling a pulse.

  Oh, they were all looking at her, weren’t they? It was time for her report.

  “Something very peculiar,” she said, “has been done to the Llosydanes.”

  Swiftly she summarized recent events: the rumor of trade closure, the collapse of the exchange rate, the mad night of currency speculation. “On that night Sulane arrived and began deploying marines onto the Llosydanes. By that point the currency exchange was normalizing, as an unexpected supply of fiat notes came into circulation. The next morning the Morrow Ministry station on Moem islet came under attack by Oriati grenadiers. Sulane’s marines counterattacked—”

  “We’re sure of that?” Nullsin asked. “Ormsment didn’t strike first?”

  Aminata wanted to beg him to un-ask the question. If Ormsment had struck first against the Oriati, she might as well have written to Parliament begging for a purge.

  The ship’s master-at-arms said, “We’d better all hope that’s how it happened. If not . . .”

  “Right. Proceed, Lieutenant Commander.”

  “Yes, sir. Sulane repelled the enemy from the station, destroyed three Oriati ships, and then sailed immediately south. On the islands, word got around that Sulane was fighting the Oriati, and people thought it meant the Oriati had come to invade them. A mob sacked and burned several Falcrest-owned buildings. I understand they counted on the Oriati winning, and wanted to curry favor.”

  Captain Nullsin cradled his hammer in his good hand and stared straight ahead. Aminata knew what he was focused on. They’d both seen the tiny fist protruding from the wreckage. They’d worked together to move the tumbled limestone sheets. And together they’d found the fisted corpse beneath, curled up like a boxer, his child head charred into a featureless coal.

  She cleared her throat and went on. “In short order the riot became a general rectification of Family grudges and insults. The Families began to drop bridges to try to contain it. That worked, mostly, but it meant fire gangs couldn’t move around except by boat, which led to the loss of . . . some good fraction of the date crop.”

  It had been said in certain quarters that the Llosydanes, being ruled by women, must be immune to animal passion and reckless violence. Aminata, born in matriarchal Segu, felt a little cynical pride that she knew better. Give a woman power—not a hearth to keep or an office to run, but real power, power she didn’t have to constantly guard or justify—and she would gain all power’s evils with it. Evils which were not intrinsically masculine at all, but which, in societies that gave men power, belonged most often to men.

  Nullsin nodded to her. “Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. We need to send a packet back to Cauteria with a report on the natives. What are our options?”

  “I think we face a choice, sir,” Aminata said. “On the one hand, we can punish the Sydani for disloyalty. As I’m sure you all know from customs work, imports to the Llosydanes are buttoned up tighter than Stakhi ass.” Mild laughter. “If we lower tariffs and allow unrestricted trade, we’ll drive their remaining shipwrights and machinists out of business with cheap import. Then we sabotage their date crop, and when they need to take out a loan to afford food, we sink them so deep into debt they’ll be paying us back for a century.”

  The sailing-master made approving noises.

  “However,” Aminata said, feeling everyone searching her for some sign of sympathy for the un-Falcresti, the unhygienic, “it looks as if Payo Mu might have planned for exactly that.”

  “Who’s Payo Mu?” the purser asked.

  “Our mystery currency speculator. I found her name on a mess of papers in the Sydanemoot.”

  Nullsin looked warmly upon her. “You took the time to look into the currency event?”

  “Made the time, sir. Now, I don’t know much about money.” This to defuse, in advance, accusations that she had stepped beyond her expertise. “But when I went through records from the night of the panic, I fo
und that someone by the name of Payo Mu made a very fast fortune in local ring shell. And she seems to have . . . invested it in a peculiar fashion.”

  “Virtue,” the sailing-master groaned, “please just tell us.”

  “She established a trust. A big pile of money locked away for one purpose. The trustees—those who get to distribute the money—seem to be a local harbormaster, a junior woman of the Jamascine clan, a few local bravos, and a female prostitute.”

  General laughter. Aminata waited for them to finish. “The purpose of the trust is the support of the Llosydanes’ trade with the Stakhieczi Wintercrests.”

  The laughter was now uproarious. The sailing-master had tears in his eyes. Even Aminata chuckled. It was a lot like a joke: What happens when two bravos, a fourth daughter, and a whore take up investment? Stakhieczi trade! The Stakhi did not trade, except the occasional disorganized sale of telescopes or metalwork for salt. And the idea of the Llosydanes sending trade parties not just to Aurdwynn but up the Inirein to the alpine north . . . wouldn’t that require dredging, and hired security, and better roads?

  Still. Whoever Payo Mu was (and Aminata had her very firm suspicions), she had vision. If the Llosydanes actually managed to make contact, selling Stakhi glass and metal to the Ashen Sea would be a better way of life than date farming in rainy climes. Wouldn’t it?

  The laughter died away. Nullsin stopped laughing first; when the captain stopped laughing you did not go on long yourself.

  “I drew the dead boy,” Nullsin said. He produced a scrap of paper on which he’d sketched, in one-handed charcoal, the boy who’d burnt alive. A few efficient lines captured the pitiful stump of a head. The tormented arch of the back.

  Aminata’s fists buzzed with the need to hurt the people responsible. “Savages,” she said, trying on the word, and then, with bitter anger and cold satisfaction, for at least she could say it accurately, “these fucking savages. The north is sick.”

  “War runs in their blood.” Nullsin smoothed the picture with his hammerhead. “They get a little less sun at these latitudes, you know. A tiny poverty of light. You can’t blame them for obeying their nature.”

  Implicit in that argument, of course, was the belief that an excess of sun caused peace, decadence, and philosophy. The Oriati afflictions. But in that one moment Aminata forgave her captain. She had enough weight to carry already.

  “So the question is,” the ship’s surgeon said, “why it happened. Why did Sulane attack those Oriati ships? Why was Sulane even here? And what does it have to do with this Imperial agent, Baru Cormorant?”

  Everyone looked to Captain Nullsin, who might have received a coded letter from Ormsment explaining her place in a grand scheme, advising Ascentatic whether to assist her or pretend ignorance or even chase her as a foe

  “There was no letter,” he said, heavily. “It’s possible that she’s on sanctioned navy business, but it’s being kept secret from us. Or that . . . well. Best not to consider it. Lieutenant Commander, has anyone revealed to you why Sulane was here?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Aminata said. “But I have a lead.”

  SHE dressed to ravish, a word which had, in the not-so-distant past, meant to plunder.

  Aminata had brought two of her suasioners with her from Cauteria Fortress, as they knew more tradecraft than the average sailor. Yesterday Midshipman Gerewho, dragging his coat in local establishments for anyone who might pass a discreet tip, had connected with a (reportedly very handsome) race-hygienist who said he might know more about the battle on Moem. Today he would be at the Demimonde restaurant on Eddyn islet at the beginning of second dogwatch, waiting for a navy contact. If the navy wished to speak with him, he thought they ought to send a charming nautical lady to appear as his companion, for he was known as a womanizer. But she should not, if possible, arrive in uniform. He did not wish to seem associated with the frightening warship offshore, which all the Sydani believed had come to punish them.

  Aminata decided to handle this meeting herself. He might have some clue to Baru’s true purpose. Also she’d had no time to take a leave watch and go whoring, and she hoped, if he were a womanizer, that he would be agreeable. Spies did that, right? Spies were always consorting with seductive and dangerous men.

  She drew the line, however, at his request for her to come not in uniform. Who would she be without the reds? They might take her for a Mbo Oriati. So she wore full starched dress, tall boots polished and buffed, her pins and links shining, a smart little folio on her hip, a clean shave for her scalp and a jaunty cover. Perfect.

  The Demimonde was a longhouse, shattered black stone mortared together like a puzzle. When Aminata marched in, the sparse and quiet crowd all looked up from their gossip. Inevitably someone began to whistle “Hey Navy Girl.” Aminata ignored it.

  The Belthyc-looking host had date wine on his breath and worry lines all around his eyes. Would she like a discreet table? Yes she would, Aminata said, and would he kindly tell the man that his appointment had arrived? What man? Why, the most beautiful man in the place.

  In good time said man arrived in a corseted wedge of perfume and color. Aminata had bought a dram of import whiskey, the strong conservative Grendlake with its smoky tones. She looked up with practiced challenge. Her first impression was of composition, like a sculpture.

  “Miss Aminata isiSegu?” His voice crisply Falcrest-accented, in his thirties or forties. “I spoke to one of your colleagues yesterday. . . .”

  He had a face like the morning, wide and bright, with a small flat nose, powerful cheekbones, and perfectly classic eyes. His sherwani flattered a muscular body of pornographic leanness. He was quite uncomfortable to look at, in the sense that it was hard for Aminata not to stare. How had he gotten so definite? Isometric training, perhaps, to isolate and endow each muscle?

  Aminata saluted him with the whiskey. “Hello,” she said, “just the man I was looking at.”

  “Looking for, perhaps?”

  “That, too.” She pushed out his chair with one boot tip. “I’ll excuse the Miss. I’m Lieutenant Commander Aminata. I don’t come ashore often, so I hope you’ll forgive my indiscretions. Are there any drinks here as fine as the company?”

  “The restaurant company, I’m sure you mean,” he said, dryly. “You’re a drinker?”

  “Not when I’m on duty,” she said, reminding him, with the Grendlake malt, that she wasn’t on duty. “You?”

  “I’m afraid I find it dulls me.”

  “We wouldn’t want that, Mister . . . ?”

  “Calcanish. You know that my reputation could be damaged if I’m seen with you, Lieutenant Commander? And that’s not all that might be hurt.”

  “A little risk in the service of the Republic, Mister Calcanish.”

  The waiter delivered samplers of dates in sweet honey and pure spring water. The table was a little too small for them, each quite a specimen of height, and their knees touched. Aminata complimented Mister Calcanish on his makeup. They made small talk about the island’s hydrology and Calcanish’s work. He was a demographic hygienist, checking for inbreeding. What would he do if he found it, Aminata wondered? Import brides from abroad? No, Calcanish explained, in general men were more valuable for that type of import, as they could be studded. Did the men enjoy that work, Aminata asked? But Calcanish did not play along. He thought men were already treated dreadfully on the Llosydanes, and did not care to speculate on what an experimental stud might think of being twice chattel.

  Aminata ordered a garnished chicken in wine. Calcanish selected a dish of nuts in crystallized date syrup. “You must be very disciplined,” Aminata suggested, “to maintain such, mm, aesthetic. Are you a dancer, perhaps? Or otherwise ornamental?”

  “Bodies are my primary interest,” he confessed, as if ashamed not by the topic but by the depth of his enthusiasm. “I’ve been accused of religiosity, actually. Worship of the human mechanism. Of course, as a navy officer you must understand the critical role of experimental
physiology in our great Republic?”

  “Oh yes,” Aminata agreed, “at bathing times I’m surrounded by experimental physiologies.”

  He laughed. “Is that so? Experimental? You know, to be a proper experiment, they’d need to be divided into home and traveler groups.”

  “I could sort them that way, certainly.”

  “You could?”

  “The ones I’d send traveling and the ones I’d keep at home.”

  “Lieutenant Commander!” he said, with rich shock.

  She drank her water. Swallowed. Wet her lips. He looked deliciously aware of her every motion. Aminata veered, sharply, into the questioning. “Tell me what you know about the battle. How did a navy warship come to burn three Oriati dromon?”

  He didn’t know. He’d arrived just afterward, in time to meet a small group of very confused foreigners trying to book passage to Aurdwynn using Oriati papers. The dockside authorities were very curious to know where this gang of misfits had gotten Oriati diplomatic protection. Calcanish took pity on them, saved them from interrogation, and brought them to a property he owned on Jamascine islet.

  “Who were they?”

  Aurdwynni commoners, as far as he could tell, refugees from the Coyote rebellion. A midwife, an herbalist, a man and his son, and a frighteningly pale and thin Stakhi woman.

  Aminata clenched her fist in triumph under the table. Those were the prisoners who’d been dispatched to the Ministry station here! He had them. Perhaps they’d seen Baru. Even spoken to her!

  “You’re excited,” Calcanish observed. “Why?”

  “Do you know the Imperial agent who masterminded the Coyote uprising?”

  “Baru Cormorant, yes. I heard she’d been spirited off to Falcrest to receive a new name.”

  “I’m trying to track her down.” She shouldn’t have said that. She just wanted to be connected to Baru’s infamy, in his eyes.

  “Oh?” He kissed his napkin. “Why? She’s the Emperor’s creature, isn’t she? Very elusive. A mask without a face.”