by Jaine Fenn
Ifanna was told to lie down beside the cart; her hands were tied to one wheel, her feet to the other. They were obviously not taking any chances. As her companions were about to settle for the night the woman said, ‘Mothers preserve us! That was a bright one!’
Ifanna had no clue what she was talking about, but the comment provoked uneasy muttering from the others.
The next day she tried to distract herself from brooding by focusing on the sounds from beyond the cart: the thrum and caw of a paddywader taking wing, and the calls of men splashing through the fields – from the sound of it, harvest had begun.
That evening, after she had been fed and before the gag was replaced, she asked meekly whether she might be allowed to sit up the next day. She received no answer, but in the morning they sat her upright on the floor of the cart, propped up between the end-board and the woman.
It rained that night; the others, asleep under the cart, remained dry while she got soaked.
She had no idea how far it was to the City of Light. From the fifth day on, the sounds around them began to change. Instead of splashes and the sucking of mud she heard the swish of blades cutting crops, and the sounds of unknown animals, quite different from the lowing of water-oxen. The very air began to change; it felt somehow thinner and drier.
The next day was the Sevenday, and she was left tied to the cart while her companions attended a service nearby; the wind brought the sound of chanting to her. She tried to form her own prayers in her head.
She listened intently to the everyday talk of her companions, who were all members of the Reeve’s household. The man and woman had volunteered for this job in order to see their son, who was an acolyte in the Tyr, and a source of great pride to them. The driver had coins to trade for luxuries not available elsewhere, so the cart would not return to Plas Morfren empty. And the priest was there to offset Ifanna’s evil influence – though he too was looking forward to visiting the holiest place in Creation.
The sight on which the woman had commented that first night occurred again regularly, and Ifanna finally pieced together that they were seeing mysterious lights appearing briefly in the sky, as had happened every night since a single, bright light had appeared around Midsummer. These strange omens were causing great unease.
The road began to improve, something Ifanna, sitting on the hard wooden floor of the cart, was grateful for. They passed other travellers more often now. She wondered if any of them saw her, sitting low in the cart.
She tried not to consider the future, for whenever she did, terror flooded her soul. Given the choice she might take her own life rather than face the Cariad, but there was no more chance of that than there was of making her escape. And if she did kill herself, then her soul would be doubly damned.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Taro was happy to leave the talking to Jarek, who asked the lingua about everything, from how their hab was set up to the wheelings and dealings of the Aleph ‘patrons’ (a good word, thought Taro; from what the lingua said the males were as possessive of ‘their’ humans as Khesh was). When Jarek’s stomach grumbled loudly enough to be heard over the conversation, they moved from the garden to the diner, and carried on talking while they ate. Nual stayed in the background, trying to make like she wasn’t there, though Taro knew she’d be listening for lies.
In the garden Vy had been sulky but quiet; when they moved inside he started getting twitchy again. Finally, in one of his freaky outbreaks of formal speech, he asked sniffily how long it was going to take to organise ‘a private talk with the powers that be’.
The lingua repeated her promise to tell him as soon as she had any news.
Vy jumped up and started pacing, and Taro, seeing Jarek’s imploring look, suggested to the boy that they leave the others to their talk and go explore the hab. He was glad to get away too; being around Nual and not being allowed to touch her was doing his head in.
Vy agreed only after the lingua promised – and repeated her promise – to com Taro immediately she got a response to his request.
The way the lingua had described it, the gardens took up nearly half the hab. The living space comprised a single layer of rooms, in the other half, and inside that was a central core containing the tech that ran the place, plus Ain’s living area. They weren’t allowed in there, though the core had a passage out to a second airlock; when Jarek had been orbiting the hab, they’d spotted it, looking subtly different in shape and size to a standard airlock. The lingua had told Jarek she was alone in the core, though several patrons had wanted to send in their own avatars. Taro was glad that particular idea had been voted down in their Consensus. He already felt like he was living in a zoo.
The trick with Vy was to keep him distracted, so Taro took him back to the garden and they explored the paths, grottoes and streams (actually just one stream, cleverly looping around and back on itself). The place reminded Taro a bit of the Gardens in Khesh City, except where they were designed for the tourist hordes; this garden had been made specially for the four of them. Some of the plants were pretty weird. The miniature meadow of delicate bell-shaped flowers in purples, pinks and blues was nice enough but he wasn’t sure about the clearing next door, full of knee-high mats of dense multi-coloured fibres; they were soft as a bed if you pressed down on them, but if they touched bare skin they set it tingling in a way that was just a little bit freaky – though not unpleasant. Then there was the hammock of living vines strung between two fruit trees that moulded itself around you as you lay in it, and the bush with spiral orange leaves that shivered and retracted if you touched them. Even the grass wasn’t quite right: it looked like normal grass, even felt and smelled like it if you picked some, but when you looked closely, every leaf was the same shape and size, and it grew in a regular, repeating pattern.
Vy liked all the new stuff to see and do, but as soon as he’d had a go at something – climbed a tree, swung in the hammock, eaten some fruit, had a dip in a sandy-bottomed pool – he was off again, looking for new experiences. Taro would’ve liked to hang around in each place a bit longer . . . but they weren’t here for fun. He couldn’t forget that this whole set-up was meant to take their minds off being stuck in a box and spied on. Not that Taro minded the enclosed environment as such; open skies still did his head in, and some deep part of him felt happier inside an artificial world. What bugged him was that they had to stay here until the ‘patrons’ let them out.
Still, they were probably safer sealed in the hab than they’d be outside. When Jarek had asked Ain how the males were reacting to having visitors after being isolated for so long she’d admitted there were mixed views: some didn’t care, some were curious and some (just a few, she claimed) were hostile to the visit – although, she assured them, all patrons respected the decision to welcome them. Taro hoped they’d keep respecting it.
Other than the core, the lingua hadn’t said there was anywhere they couldn’t go, so Taro decided to try a little experiment – not only would it entertain Vy for a bit, but it’d be useful to see what they could get away with. He led the way back to a glade they’d passed earlier, and once they were clear of the trees, Taro pointed at the ‘sky’. ‘So,’ he said to Vy, ‘what d’you reckon’s up there then?’
Vy looked up, shading his eyes. ‘Fusion ball,’ he said.
Taro noted this useful piece of info, then said, ‘No, I mean on the walls – the ones that separate this half of the sphere from the core.’
Vy shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘How about I go find out?’
‘If you like.’
Taro kicked off and hovered about ten metres up, checking out the view. It was certainly pretty, but he didn’t spot anything new or unexpected. Vy was staring up at him; at least he’d got the boy’s attention. Knowing the ‘sun’ really could burn him made him cautious, but he wasn’t interested in that. Instead he flew across to the blue-painted wall that divided the gardens from the forbidden half of the sphere. Close to, it was just that: a wall
, with no markings or openings or anything else of interest. He’d expected that, but he gave it a good once-over anyway, just in case. He was half-expecting a call from the lingua, telling him to stop arsing around, but his com stayed silent, so it looked like a certain amount of arsing around was allowed. He took one last look at the gardens – which were a pretty freaky sight, not so much below him as wrapped around him – then he flew back down.
‘Did you find anything?’ asked Vy as he landed.
‘Nice view, but other than that, fuck-all.’
Vy looked up again, as though expecting Taro to be proved wrong at any moment. Then he looked down and asked wistfully, ‘Can you really remember nothing from the Heart of the City?’
Taro answered cautiously, ‘Nothing I could put into words.’
Vy knew he and Nual were pretending not to be lovers, so talking about that here might not be so clever. Their experience of – temporarily – taking over from Khesh’s consciousness was one of the things that’d brought them together. ‘Look Vy,’ Taro tried, ‘I know you’re not happy, but maybe if you told me what the problem is—’
‘You know what it is!’ the boy cried. ‘I’m alone. I can’t— It’s just me. You can’t imagine what that’s like!’
‘No,’ said Taro evenly, ‘I can’t. And I’m sorry.’ Watchers be damned, Taro wanted to know what was really going on. ‘I know it’s shitty being cut off from the rest of your consciousness, but that wasn’t what I meant. Something else’s eating you.’
Vy shrugged, and Taro recognised the gesture; he wondered if people found it as irritating when he did it.
‘You wanted a private chat with the locals, didn’t you? Why?’
Vy shrugged again.
‘I thought we were friends,’ Taro said, sounding hurt. ‘Friends tell each other what’s bothering them.’
‘Can’t tell you,’ he said sulkily.
‘’course you can, if you want too. I won’t tell. Even if you just gave me some idea—’
‘I can’t tell you, all right?’ Vy shouted, and with that, he stormed off.
Taro hesitated, then followed. He found Vy standing in front of a tree, banging his fists into the gnarled wood. Taro called his name gently, and when Vy turned Taro saw he was crying, and there were spots of blood on his knuckles where he’d been hitting the tree.
Taro raised his arms, and Vy rushed into them. Taro hugged him, patting his head and letting him cry until he was done. Finally Vy pulled back and said, ‘I want to go play some games now.’ He turned, expecting Taro to follow.
Perhaps this was what having a younger brother would be like, thought Taro as he trailed along after Vy. You want to slap him, but you end up helping and protecting the little fucker, even if he doesn’t notice.
They’d only been gaming for a few minutes – Vy was beating Taro as usual – when Taro’s stomach cramped. He’d had a snack with Jarek earlier, but it was ages since he’d had a proper meal. The fact that Vy had gone so long without food was further proof, if Taro needed it, that something was fucking up the boy beyond just being apart from Khesh.
He persuaded Vy that they needed to eat, then commed Jarek. Nual was already in the diner with Jarek when he got there. Between them they prepared dinner from an odd mix of foods – Taro didn’t recognise any of them, but they all tasted better than ship’s rations. While they ate they chatted about nothing in particular, conscious that every word was being overheard. Jarek did tell them he’d gone back to the Heart of Glass, and it looked ‘just like we left it’, which was good.
Taro spent most of the meal trying not to look at Nual, though she didn’t seem to have any trouble ignoring him. He found himself getting irritated, and that made him annoyed at himself for being unreasonable. He caught her eye and thought at her,
Vy returned to the gaming room once they’d eaten. Taro sighed and followed him, though he was pretty tired. At least Vy was losing interest in ‘amusing’ practical jokes – although he had tipped Taro out of a hammock earlier. But then he’d actually apologised; Taro got the impression the boy was growing up.
After a couple more hours of gaming, Taro needed to crash out. Vy looked at him earnestly and said, ‘I will try to hold myself together. But it’s so hard. I need your help. Please.’
‘All right,’ said Taro, ‘but I gotta sleep, even if you don’t.’
‘Most of these games run in minimal mode. We can take headsets to your room, then you can sleep when you have to. I just . . . I don’t want to be alone.’
‘I understand – better not use my room, though; we don’t want to keep Jarek up all night. There’s a nice-looking bedroom a few rooms back; why don’t we take the gaming gear in there?’
They found when they left the gaming room that the lights outside had dimmed; Taro guessed the others had already turned in, so Ain, or whoever controlled the hab, had decided it was ‘night’.
They played together until Taro really couldn’t keep his eyes open. ‘I really can’t stay awake any longer, Vy,’ he said, and yawned.
Vy nodded uneasily, saying nothing, and Taro wondered how long the boy could manage without sleep. The Heart of Glass’s medbay had a prime selection of drugs to keep a normal human up and active but he had no idea what they’d do to Vy.
As he lay down he had another thought: when did Ain sleep? If she adjusted her night to fit in with theirs, then perhaps night-time might be the right time to have a bit more of a poke around. They obviously didn’t mind, or they’d have got Ain to bawl him out for flying up the wall in the garden. Tomorrow he’d get his shimmer-cloak from the ship so’s he could creep around without being seen. Maybe he’d see if he could find one of the doors into the core. But not tonight.
‘You must awake now!’
Taro started at the voice. As he opened his eyes, he realised it wasn’t Vy, but the lingua Ain. She was leaning over him, gesturing urgently. ‘It is vital that you get up and come with me. Now.’
‘Wh— Why?’ he croaked. It was still dark, but he thought he saw another figure behind her. Vy?
‘You are in danger!’ the lingua whispered.
‘Danger? Y’said we’re safe here,’ he mumbled, panic cutting through his confusion.
‘The situation has changed. Time is short. We must hurry.’
‘The others—’
‘Gone ahead to your ship. Come on, please!’
Taro sat up and began to struggle off the bed. Good job he’d been too tired to undress properly. When he looked round for his jacket he noticed Vy staring back at him from the doorway. He turned to Ain. ‘Why didn’t you just com me?’
‘Coms are down. All will be explained in due course. First, escape.’
No coms? That sounded serious. As he followed the lingua out, Taro checked the com on the back of his hand. She was right, no network. What the fuck was going on? Should he try and contact Nual? He needed to sit still and concentrate to get in touch mentally when they were apart; stumbling through dim, unfamiliar rooms while his heart was going like the slug-autopistol from last night’s game wasn’t going to make it easy. And if Ain was right, she was already on the Heart of Glass. It made sense that the others had gone ahead; their rooms were nearer the ’lock.
Taro didn’t complain when Ain upped the pace. The sooner they were all together on the ship and safely out of here, the better. Then Ain could explain what the fuck was happening.
Even before they reached the airlock Taro felt uneasy – more uneasy than just being woken up and told to run away in the middle of the night made him feel. But he was still too befuddled by sleep and panic to work out what the problem was. It was only as they stepped into the ’lock that he realised what was bothering him: his com should have worked even if the local net was down, bec
ause it was routed through the Heart of Glass. He was turning to say that to Ain when the inner ’lock door opened.
‘Hey wait!’ he started, ‘this ain’t—’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nual woke suddenly to the hot aftertaste of ginger and foreboding. Even as she gulped against the burning in her throat, the sensation faded. She tried to hold onto it, repulsed yet desperate; that taste always accompanied a prescient flash, a packet of possibilities from time not yet experienced. She needed this—
But it was gone. And so was sleep.
She couldn’t relax here. She had been brought up to despise the males of her kind, but though she might no longer feel that mindless hatred – these days she was an enemy of the Sidhe females herself – she was still deeply uncomfortable. All her life she had believed the males were dead. Finding out about Khesh and his two City-state brothers was one thing; discovering that thousands of independent males were living in their own system was something else entirely . . .
Yet it took a female Sidhe to navigate here – or at least, it did now. When had that changed – and why? If only she could have read the Minister . . . but some combination of the males’ natural resistance to female powers and the nature of their avatars left the Minister, and Vy, blank spaces in her mental landscape.
She was sure of one thing: she was the first female to come to Aleph for centuries: millennia, even. The thought chilled her.
She had taken on the fight against her sisters knowing it would be hard. Sometimes the sheer scale of what she and her companions were facing paralysed her. Better to have stayed in the mazeways of Khesh City, safely in hiding; better yet never to have rebelled, never to have made herself an enemy of her own people.
But there was no going back.
Jarek had been born for this fight. He was a natural crusader, impulsive and brave. But he did not always consider the consequences of his actions. She wondered if it had occurred to him that the lost world whose cause he had taken up so vigorously existed only because it was of use to the females. They had set Serenein up, kept its location secret, and maintained its rigid theocratic society. Jarek did not seem much inclined to consider what was going to happen when he denied them that asset. And had he considered how Serenein might fit into the males’ schemes? The Aleph males must have suspected the existence of such a world, but the females would have gone to great lengths to hide it from them. Serenein was probably the only place in the universe where male Sidhe still existed in the flesh, albeit in a mentally neutered form . . . and now someone who knew where it was had come to Aleph. Nual shuddered, imagining the machinations going on even now amongst their hosts.