Overlapping interjections broke out, and she quickly hushed them all. “We are out of leads and almost out of ideas. We have to try something—I have to try something.” Something to keep her mind occupied. Something real that she could accomplish.
Adlai didn’t appear convinced. “Take an escort with you. Take an entire fleet of military ships.”
“What for? We can’t touch the Sogain’s technology. If they want to destroy me and my ship, they’ll do so—and they’re much more likely to do so if I show up with an armed fleet. No, better to go alone and appear as nonthreatening as possible.”
He sighed. “Since you’re off to get yourself atomized, will you at least make sure to leave behind a current psyche backup?”
“I’ve taken care of it. But I don’t think you’ll need to use it. If the Sogain are the source of the Rasu simex, then they know who I am, they know the crisis we’re facing and, in their own odd, alien way, they want to help. So, I’m going to ask them for it.”
Nika fled the room with the intention of rushing straight to the spaceport. This building with all its frenetic activity and grating noise and dashing people was suffocating. She needed air, then she needed space—several hundred parsecs of it.
Space. Ship. Shit.
As soon as she’d turned the first hallway corner, she stopped to ping Grant.
Hey, did everything go all right with the installations? Is the Wayfarer good to fly?
One hundred percent. Everything checked out.
Great. I appreciate it.
Listen, Nika, about the other issue. Can I apologize again? I didn’t—
It’s fine. You were doing what you thought was right. If anything, it was my mistake for not telling you about the psyche-wipe.
We’re good, then?
She sank against the wall and closed her eyes. Objectively, the secrets Grant had kept from her were no different from those her former self had kept from Dashiel. They’d both believed they were making the best choice; they’d both inflicted harm nonetheless. One day, she and Grant needed to sit down and have a lengthy and possibly difficult conversation, but such a day waited on the other side of defeating the Rasu.
Yeah, we’re good.
A gentle hand landed on her arm. She jumped, opening her eyes to see Maris wearing a worried countenance and also blocking her exit route.
“Nika—”
“You’re going to say I shouldn’t have told him.”
“No. I wasn’t going to say that.” Maris played with a ringlet of hair falling across her cheek. “But you shouldn’t have told him.”
“You’re wrong. No matter how angry he is, even if he never speaks to me again, I have to believe you’re wrong. He deserved to know the truth.”
“It is done, rendering our dispute futile. Still, I feel as if this is partially my fault. I buried you beneath an avalanche of revelations and left you to deal with them on your own. It’s no surprise that you sought out a sounding board.”
“Maris, the truth is never anyone’s fault.”
“Eloquent words to be sure. But reality is, regrettably, far messier. In any event, I embarrassed myself chasing you down to see if you were okay. You might have put on a decent performance in there, but I can see the cracks.”
Nika wilted, abandoning the act for just a moment. “No. I’m not okay. I feel…hollow. Brittle. But there’s nothing I can do to change that right now, so I’ll concentrate on what I can do.”
“Talking to the Sogain. My dear, please don’t get yourself atomized.”
“I meant what I said before. They won’t atomize me. In fact, I’d wager they’re expecting me.”
16
* * *
RIDANI ENTERPRISES
Mirai
“We can manipulate specific materials—or more often metamaterials—into functioning as a variety of machine or weaponry components, protective shielding, power generators or batteries, and so on. Virtually everything we’ve observed the Rasu creating. But to ply a single substance into performing all those functions, one after another?” Bruno Galesh spread his arms in an exaggerated shrug. “The substance that can perform those feats doesn’t exist, in nature or in the lab.”
“It exists in the Rasu,” Dashiel snapped, and instantly regretted it. Seeing Nika earlier had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. Fractured his composure then and his concentration now. Also, his manners. “Forgive me. Obviously, you know it exists in the Rasu.”
Galesh’s company, Tsuyo Materials, specialized in crafting the strongest, most resilient and, when required, most flexible materials in the Dominion. The company’s products girded the Ridani Enterprises headquarters building, held together most d-gates in operation today and formed the hulls of a third of commercial starships. The man knew his materials, which was why Dashiel had invited him to the office this morning.
“I do. After watching every Rasu transformation we’ve recorded at 1/1000th speed and experimenting with over five hundred material combinations using eighty-two different catalysts, I’m forced to conclude that the Rasu can manipulate themselves at the subatomic level. It’s likely they exercise control over not only their own protons and electrons, but their own fundamental particles.”
Nika was wearing her old clothes now, and the stark juxtaposition of old and new added a layer of complexity to the storm of conflicting thoughts tearing him to pieces one bloody slash at a time. His intention this morning had been to throw himself into work until he no longer had the bandwidth to linger on the storm. It was going swimmingly so far.
“That would mean they can transform into nearly anything in the universe.”
Galesh grimaced. “Theoretically, yes, but I have to believe some limitations constrain them. They seem to strongly favor inorganic compounds to organic ones, which could suggest a preference for, or greater skill at, metallic bonding over covalent.”
“Let’s hope something constrains them. If they can truly shift at the subatomic level, where do you think their intelligence resides?”
“You are now firmly outside my area of expertise.”
Dashiel conceded the point with a tilt of his head. “I’m outside mine as well. It’s just difficult to conceive of a single atom of Rasu being sentient.”
“Perhaps, like all other intelligent life we know anything about, their intelligence lies in the complexity and nature of their neural interconnections. Perhaps they become struck by temporary dumbness while they transform!”
He laughed, which felt good for half a second. “Finally, a weakness we can exploit. We can hope, anyway. All right. Thank you for stopping by and, if I can beg an indulgence, keep working the problem?”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise. This is all of our problem now. I’m sorry I don’t have better answers yet.” Galesh extended his hand, and Dashiel shook it.
“We’ll talk again soon.”
MIRAI ONE PAVILION
It had been almost a day since Dashiel had eaten anything, so he finally gave in and went to the Pavilion cafeteria. He found it crowded even early in the evening; it was possible he wasn’t the only person randomly forgetting to eat.
After grabbing a sandwich and roasted potatoes, he spotted Adlai at a small table in the corner and headed over. “May I?”
“Of course, but you look like crap. What happened?”
He sat and took a quick bite of his sandwich. “You don’t want me to recount the gory details, and frankly, I don’t want to either. You look positively chipper by comparison, though.”
Adlai’s cheeks reddened. “I feel horribly guilty, daring to be happy amidst all this terror and angst and imminent death. But I can’t help it. I’m happy.”
“Perrin?”
Adlai nodded, and a smile spread across his face. “At least it’s the same…” he paused to study Dashiel more critically “…unless it’s not the same for you. You and Nika had a fight, didn’t you? She was uncommonly sober and brooding when she briefed us on her plan to
visit the Sogain and—”
Dashiel’s heart stopped beating, and only his OS’ core programming restarted it. “On her what?”
“She didn’t tell you? How bad of a fight was it?”
“Bad enough. She’s planning to seek out the Sogain?”
“Not planning any longer. I think she left this morning. I’m sorry, I thought she told you.”
“Gods, did no one try to talk her out of it? What about the Sogain’s warning?”
“Everyone tried to talk her out of it. She insisted she understood the warning, because one of her ancestors was on the survey ship to first encounter them. Did you know that?”
Dashiel pinched the bridge of his nose. Not an ancestor…but this was how the lies were told and the secrets kept, wasn’t it? “No. I didn’t.”
“She believes the Sogain were the ones who warned her about the Rasu three years ago. If so, it means they have a lot more information on the Rasu than we do. Maybe they’ll be willing to share it.”
“And if they aren’t? If they atomize her and the Wayfarer?”
“I’m sure she updated a psyche and memory backup before she left.”
“Did she? Where?”
“She told us she’d taken care of it. I didn’t ask where she’d stored it. Again, I assumed….”
A shadow crept across the table, and Dashiel spun around to see Maris standing behind him. “What the fuck does ‘she’d taken care of it’ mean?”
“I don’t know, either.”
Dashiel snorted in disgust.
Maris sighed. “I’m telling you the truth. But she said she had, so I trust she has.”
“Must be nice to trust so freely.” He pivoted to his friend at the table. “Adlai, I bet Maris is here because she has something important she needs to tell you.”
She fidgeted, betraying a rare lack of poise. “No, I merely wanted to—”
He grabbed his half-eaten plate of food and stood to point a finger in her face. “I will not be your coconspirator. Either you tell him, or I will.”
Her lips drew into a thin line, exposing tension wrinkles along her perfect ebony skin. “Dashiel, I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”
“What are you two talking about?”
“Ask her. I have work to do.”
And he did have work to do—enough work to fill a hundred lifetimes. But his last thread of tenuous focus had frayed and floated off on the breeze that greeted him when he walked out the front doors of the Pavilion. He meandered to the left and found shade beneath the broad limbs of a snowbell tree.
Nika had run off alone to provoke a confrontation with the Sogain, the only aliens they knew of who were capable of killing them even faster than the Rasu. He’d been the one to suggest the Sogain might be responsible for the Rasu simex. He should be with her, dammit.
But he couldn’t be with her. Couldn’t so much as see her without being consumed by the bitter sting of…not betrayal, but something worse. Of being used. Trifled with. Demeaned.
Except, it didn’t feel like she’d demeaned him. When she’d stared at him this morning, he didn’t see scorn or contempt; he saw sorrow and longing. He saw pain. But should he trust anything he imagined he read in her eyes? Clearly his perception programming was shit, for her to fool him so completely in thousands of encounters of profound intimacy.
An alert arrived from his bank, notifying him of a significant new deposit. He opened the alert to check the details, then sank against the sinewy trunk of the snowbell.
2.1 million credits deposited to the personal account of Dashiel Ridani from the personal account of Nika Kirumase.
The itemization that followed spelled it all out: the 1.4 million for the Wayfarer, the 500,000 for NOIR, the 60,000 for the Taiyok cloaking device, plus an assortment of smaller expenses they’d incurred while traveling together.
At the end, a note:
Thank you for being there for me, for NOIR and for the Asterion people when we needed you most.
His immediate reaction was one of anger. How many times had he told her the money wasn’t a loan? By treating it as a business transaction, she trivialized everything about their recent time together, ensuring those memories now joined their predecessors, tainted, in a dank sea of doubt.
But the anger swiftly gave way to soul-gutting despair. Why did she have to be so fucking kind? He’d flung the worst manner of vitriol at her, yet she was thanking him for being a decent person.
Gods, was this a goodbye? A settling of debts before closing and locking the door forever? Worse, was it an actual goodbye? Did she not expect to return from her visit to the Sogain? Had she lied about taking care of a psyche backup, and was this her chosen way to ‘sunset’?
No. Whatever wrongs she may have inflicted on him, she would never abandon her people, whether this meant NOIR or every Asterion who lived and breathed, at their hour of greatest need. She’d spent 700,000 years protecting them, and on losing all memory of those aeons, she’d nonetheless promptly taken up the mantle anew.
But the fact remained that she might not be given a choice in the matter.
He crouched beside the tree trunk and dropped his head into his hands. The thought of her not coming back threatened to rip the tattered remains of his psyche apart. Damn him for loving her so much. Damn her for lying to him. Damn her for vanishing and reappearing and making him love her all over again.
If she defied all sane odds and did survive this mission, what the hells was he going to do?
Forget then—what the hells was he going to do now?
He bit the inside of his cheek until he drew blood…then unblocked her message ID and pinged her.
Just tell me you’re all right. Just tell me you’re safe.
Message unable to be delivered to intended recipient.
Godsdammit. He probably deserved that.
With a sigh he pinged Perrin instead.
Hey, have you heard from Nika this evening?
No, and I’m worried sick about her. She should’ve reached the Sogain stellar system by now, and I thought she would have checked in before trying to communicate with them…and of course you’re worried about her, too. You ought to send her a message, Dashiel. She’d really, really like to hear from you.
Not so much. I tried, and it bounced. She’s blocking me.
I highly doubt it. Hold on for a second, I’ll ping her.
A pause.
Um, she’s not blocking you. My ping bounced, too. She’s not receiving. Stars, what if something’s happened to her?
It’s likely some kind of interference field emanating from the Sogain stellar system. They’re paranoid, so they’d implement defensive measures along those lines, right?
I don’t have the foggiest idea what strange, hermited super-advanced aliens would do!
He smiled a little. Fair enough. Do you know where her psyche backup is? She told Adlai and Maris she’d updated her backups before she left, but no one knows anything about where she’s keeping them.
I don’t. I mean I used to, when we were at The Chalet. But even then, she kept additional backups in secret locations. Now? I’ve got no idea.
I’m sure a backup won’t be needed. Contact me when you hear from her, okay? Please?
Absolutely. You do the same.
I will.
The connection ended, leaving him alone with the breeze and the shade and the smooth bark at his back. He closed his eyes as the naked, unvarnished truth smacked him in the head like a tidal wave and settled in so he could drown beneath it: he needed her to come home. Not a copy or an old backup—he needed this Nika, this complex mosaic of the woman she’d once been and the one she’d become, to return safely, real and whole.
He didn’t know what else this meant, or what he planned to do if she did; he only knew he needed her to be here.
17
* * *
WAYFARER
Interstellar space
Coming alone had been a mistake. She should have brought P
errin along for a constant stream of enthusiastic conversation. She should have brought Maris along and picked her brain about seven-hundred-thousand-years’ worth of history. But to bring either of them would have endangered their lives, if temporarily, and the Dominion couldn’t afford to lose them for even a day right now.
She should have brought the entire A Song of Sorbonne series for twenty hours of song and dance.
Instead she had only her thoughts, and they made for poor company indeed.
She skirmished with the emerging picture of the woman Nika Kirumase had been as it took shape one journal entry at a time. She agonized over how she could possibly convince Dashiel to trust her again. She ruminated on what her next move would be if this gambit failed. Not for long on the last one, however, because she didn’t have a next move. She mused pointlessly about the motivations of the Rasu.
She found no answers in the noisy echo chambers of her mind.
Expansion for expansion’s sake wasn’t a goal Asterions aspired to, but their ancestors the Anadens had. Nevertheless, though the Anadens were a hard and at times ruthless people, their desire for greater power had not transformed them into monsters. They had treated the alien species they encountered with minimal decency, if not always empathy or respect. The war her people had fought against the Anaden leadership had its roots in ideological differences and fear of the unknown—
—a bell sounded to alert her that she’d reached the far outskirts of the Sogain stellar system. It hadn’t been a terribly long trip, which her weary psyche appreciated. The system lay a mere six hundred thirty-four parsecs from Mirai, but for the last 200,000 years they’d treated the space surrounding it like a black hole and, as ordered, given it a wide berth.
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