by Yoon Ha Lee
Muyyed pulled up the files on her slate. Her forehead creased. “I have seen many things in my career, General, but I have no idea where you are going with this. If these formation elements are from any Kel lexicon, I’ll eat my boot polish.”
“Please don’t,” Jedao said. “You may be a suicide hawk but there’s no need to go to extremes. Let me know if you figure it out.”
“Which old battles were you looking at, anyway?” Muyyed said, curiosity getting the better of her.
“There’s an awful lot of history to pick over. Enjoy.” Jedao grinned unhelpfully at her. He might as well get some fun out of the situation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“AGAIN,” CHERIS SAID.
Hemiola was impressed by Cheris’s ability to maneuver through the limited space of the cargo hold. They’d discarded a number of the crates by simply ejecting them, not even running them through the recycler. “Face it,” 1491625 had said, “it’s not like anyone will notice a little litter more or less out in the middle of nowhere.” The practice offended Hemiola’s sense of neatness, but then, it was used to the more or less closed system of Tefos Base, and very infrequent resupply.
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” Hemiola said, not for the first time. “Shouldn’t you take 1491625 with you instead?” Especially since 1491625 was the one who liked to talk about having been a Kel servitor and therefore being familiar with the rudiments of combat.
“Sorry,” Cheris said with real regret. “I know this is uncomfortable for you. But 1491625 is the one who knows how to pilot the needlemoth and manage its stealth systems. So it’s in charge of getting us out if we survive. I want all the backup I can get, especially since the human crew is unlikely to pay close attention to servitors. That’s you. If we’re lucky, we’ll only need you for scouting. But it’s best to be prepared.”
They both knew it was an open question as to whom, if anyone, the hexarch’s servitors supported. Cheris had informed Hemiola that the relevant Nirai enclave was secretive so there was no way of telling.
“All right,” Hemiola said, reviewing the combat sequence from several different angles. “I’ll try again.”
For someone with merely human reflexes confined to a small space, Cheris was annoyingly good at pinning Hemiola and marking it with the paint gun she was using for practice. The interior of the needlemoth now sported numerous paint splatters in either Shuos red or blood red, take your pick. 1491625 had informed Cheris that the paint constituted a maintenance hazard, to which Cheris replied that they’d clean up after.
Hemiola missed three more times in rapid succession. “This is never going to work.”
“We’re hoping that you have the advantage of surprise,” she said. “If not, well, you’ll have me. I have more experience assassinating people than you do. Or Jedao does, anyway.”
1491625 flashed red and orange in disapproval.
“Try it again,” Cheris said kindly. “At some point the movement patterns will start making sense to you, and you can anticipate what I’ll do.”
“A pretty theory,” 1491625 said, “but our friend wasn’t designed for combat work.” While it had grudgingly shared some of its combat heuristics, Hemiola was having difficulty integrating them.
“It’ll work out,” Cheris said. “Come at me again.”
Eventually even Cheris tired, and they took a break. Unselfconsciously, Cheris toweled sweat from her face. Hemiola wasn’t exhausted in any physical sense of the word. But after periods of intense concentration, it often wanted a break. And it had been concentrating very hard on learning assassination.
“You’re doing well,” Cheris said consolingly. “We’ll work next on hacking, although I don’t know what we can expect from Kujen’s personal security systems.”
Hemiola flickered a noncommittal green-yellow.
“You shouldn’t feel bad,” 1491625 said to Hemiola later, after Cheris had fallen asleep. Cheris had mastered the trick of dropping asleep instantly, which must be useful to soldiers and assassins. “She has, after all, been doing this for a few centuries.”
“I don’t,” Hemiola said, surprised. “I would be disturbed if this came easily to me.”
“Well, you’re certainly working hard at it.” 1491625’s lights were a conciliatory blue-green. “You should do something to relax, though.”
“I plan to,” Hemiola said. Among other things, it might not survive the coming encounter with this second Jedao. When it had learned that there was more than one, it sympathized for the first time with the way that humans couldn’t tell servitors apart. At least Cheris and the other Jedao that was currently with the hexarch didn’t resemble each other physically.
While Hemiola had already composed a farewell letter to Sieve and Rhombus, it kept revising it. The current version struck it as too maudlin. It wanted to leave them with a sense that it had met its fate with dignity.
Of course, the current version also made a jumbled attempt to explain how it had gone from safeguarding the copy of the hexarch’s archives to helping to assassinate him. Maybe that part would be best explained in person. On the other hand, logically speaking, if it were dead it wouldn’t have to endure Sieve’s reproachful indigos and Rhombus’s recriminations.
It had revised the letter three more times (thirty-ninth draft) when it became aware that Cheris had woken and was watching it. “I got distracted,” it said, a little guiltily.
“No harm done,” she said. She reached up and massaged her neck. “Hawks and foxes, I swear each time I wake up there are more aches.”
“It’s called aging,” 1491625 said without sympathy.
As Cheris and 1491625 bickered amiably, homesickness washed through Hemiola. At this point it was certain that it would never return to Tefos. Even if it did, it didn’t think it could face being confined there, no matter how much it missed Sieve and Rhombus. Just the fact that it thought of staying at Tefos as “confinement” underscored how much its notion of the universe had changed.
Of course, it hadn’t seen much of the universe yet. Ayong Primary, and a lot more dramas. And now it knew better than to expect reality to bear much resemblance to the dramas.
For the first time, Hemiola wondered if 1491625 had left comrades behind. It still didn’t feel comfortable speaking to the other servitor, although their exchanges weren’t as prickly as they had once been. Since 1491625 hadn’t volunteered the information, it would be rude to ask. But Hemiola reminded itself that it wasn’t the only one adrift in a large universe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AFTER THE LATEST high table, Jedao sat at his desk and contemplated the items on it. Two slates of different sizes. Styluses in a ceramic jar. A single flower, which had not been there before. It had velvet petals the color of a moon-moth’s wings, pale blue tinged silvery soft. Kujen, he supposed. In the language of flowers it meant heartsease, which was the last thing Jedao felt at the moment.
He had decided to catch up on administrative matters. Kujen had told him not to push himself so hard and to delegate more to Dhanneth. In what was either a brilliant gambit or a fit of exasperation, Kujen sent up twin courtesans as a distraction. (Jedao had had no idea they had courtesans on board. Who else was Kujen hiding in his quarters?) Jedao had spent an uncomfortable evening entertaining them or being entertained by them; it was hard to decide which. (The two men were excellent jugglers and taught him a few tricks.) The courtesans were much more gracious about the waste of their time than he would have been in their place.
The paperwork, while not fun, kept his mind off the impossible thing he wanted to achieve. He inspected the Revenant at intervals, always accompanied by an anxious Nirai. He filled out forms and read the reports his staff generated. It was not a bad existence. Unfortunately, it couldn’t endure forever.
After four days of this, Jedao decided he needed a break. He headed toward the dueling hall out of curiosity. Discreet queries had revealed that he had a background in dueling; how much of it did he remember?
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The dueling hall was in the training and gymnasium section of the Revenant. He entered and looked around at the broad, flat expanse with dueling squares marked off in black on the floor, the sizzle-spark brightness of activated calendrical swords. The duelists studiously ignored him.
Jedao made his way to the benches at the edge for spectators and sat down to watch. Several pairs of duelists were busy at practice bouts. One of them was a Nirai, sure-footed, face blazing with a purity of purpose that Jedao wished he possessed. Jedao’s fingers twitched. He wouldn’t mind trying this.
As it turned out, Jedao lingered until Commander Talaw entered. Their eyes slitted when they saw him. Jedao inclined his head. They made a beeline for him.
“General,” Talaw said. “I’m surprised it took you this long to come here.”
Jedao wracked his memory for Talaw’s dueling record. Too much time had elapsed since he’d checked their profile. Then he remembered that he could query the grid through his augment. Talaw, it turned out, was a very good duelist.
“I didn’t die in a duel,” Jedao said. He didn’t care if everyone heard him.
Talaw smiled ferociously at him. “No. But you were a fabled duelist. Do you mean to take it up again?”
“I’m willing,” Jedao said, “but it’s been a while.”
He hadn’t meant it as a challenge, but of course Talaw took it as one. “Well,” Talaw said, “what about a practice bout? Since you feel yourself out of practice.”
If Talaw lopped his head off in a spontaneous assassination attempt, would it grow back? What a horrifying thought. He gestured toward the deactivated sword-hilt at their belt. “Where do I get a practice sword?”
“I suppose you can’t be blamed for misplacing your own after 400 years,” Talaw said.
“Ha.” Too bad he didn’t have more arms than the usual two. (Kujen could have built him that way if he’d cared to.) He could have fun waving around four swords at once and terrifying the everliving fuck out of poor innocent Kel. Or, more likely, impaling himself on his own swords.
“Here,” Talaw said with a sudden glint in their eyes. “I’ll use one too. It wouldn’t be proper for me to claim more honor than you.”
Jedao had caught the sarcastic dip of their voice on “honor,” but he wasn’t going to fight with them about it.
A stocky, nervous soldier checked out two practice swords to Jedao and Talaw. Talaw had to remind the soldier of the correct procedure, although they were professional rather than sharp with him. As Jedao examined the plain, bladeless hilt, Talaw said, “Full-power calendrical swords are standard issue for Kel infantry. The Compact doesn’t use them anymore except for parades.”
“Cheris’s calendar, I presume,” Jedao said. Using exotics must be an interesting exercise for them, considering the Compact had to rely on their soldiers’ voluntary participation.
“Indeed.”
Talaw showed Jedao how to work the sword. Light flared up and coalesced into numbers, the year and the day of your death, the old cold chant. Jedao was transfixed by the way the light of the blade edged Talaw’s gloves and sheened deep gold in the fabric. When he activated his, the blade lit up red-black.
Although the hall was spacious, Talaw led the way to one of the occupied corners. People drifted closer, but not too close. Jedao didn’t mind. His existence was a performance already.
Talaw demonstrated some warm-up exercises. Jedao didn’t mind the condescension. From the rising murmurs, Jedao gathered that the audience thought he was humoring Talaw. If only you knew.
They found a dueling square and faced off. Several servitors had joined the small crowd. Did they bet on the duels, and if so, with what currency? Too bad he couldn’t ask them.
A chime sounded four times. Talaw’s opening attack was orthodox, derived from a form he had seen someone practicing earlier. They were acclimating him to the sport.
That, or they were testing him.
What followed was not so much a bout as a demonstration of forms. The two of them were well-matched, Jedao with his occasional lapse into archaic variants, Talaw with their slower reflexes and tendency to treat Jedao like a gifted but wayward student. Jedao lost awareness of the audience, of the servitors, of everything but the flickering numbers, the traceries of light, the heady welcome exertion of his muscles.
His stamina gave out first. At last, by wordless agreement, they disengaged and saluted each other. The duelist’s salute, with the swords’ numbers sparking, rather than the more familiar fist-to-shoulder military salute.
“I need more exercise,” Jedao said when he had regained his breath and the crowd had, reluctantly, dispersed.
Talaw bowed from the waist. For once there was no antagonism in their eyes. “It was well-fought.”
“I’d better practice harder,” Jedao said, which pleased them. “I will try to be a more interesting opponent next time.”
“A few of the staff heads and I were going to play jeng-zai in the officers’ lounge in eighteen minutes,” Talaw said: another challenge. Talaw produced a deck from one of their pockets with a flourish, in a distinctive box of wood stained dark. “Would you care to join us?”
It was the first overture any Kel other than Dhanneth had made to Jedao. “Of course I would,” he said.
As he and Talaw wound their way out of the hall, he caught sight of Dhanneth. Dhanneth had entered sometime during the bout and taken up a position close by, presumably to watch. His expression was unreadable. Jedao almost called out to him. Dhanneth’s gaze slid past. Then Dhanneth spun on his heel and continued out of the hall. A hilt of black and leaf-green hung from his belt. Jedao wondered what color the blade would be, but Talaw was speaking to him, and Jedao didn’t want to jeopardize the small, fragile accord they’d reached. The matter with Dhanneth could wait.
ON THE NEXT day, Dhanneth requested a meeting. The excuse, which Jedao recognized as such, concerned a matter of discipline. The incident itself was genuine. The report called it an altercation over—Jedao wasn’t sure he was interpreting this correctly—a piece of fruit. Or possibly a sex toy in the shape of a piece of fruit. (A euphemism?) But this was something a sergeant should have been able to handle.
Dhanneth wanted to meet in his own office. Irregular, but Jedao didn’t have to explain himself to anyone if he wanted to indulge his aide. He cleared his schedule and set out.
The double doors with the outrageously oversized Deuce of Gears emblem receded behind him. Dhanneth’s quarters were near his own, yet it felt like an infinity road separated them. Ashhawks flew and flared and died on the wall tapestries, and were reborn in outlines of shimmering thread and fire-polished beads. He touched one of the threads in passing, on the grounds that no one was likely to upbraid him for doing so. It didn’t unravel.
Since he was currently a major, Dhanneth’s door had no emblem. It was marked simply with his name and rank. Jedao announced himself to the grid while he wondered what Dhanneth’s emblem had once been.
The door opened. “Sir,” Dhanneth said. He was standing.
Jedao crossed the threshold. The door swished shut. “You were closemouthed about the disciplinary issue you wished to discuss,” he said.
Dhanneth didn’t salute—overly formal, although it wouldn’t have been out of character—or invite him to sit. Instead, he grasped Jedao’s arms and crushed him close. Dhanneth’s head bent and his mouth met Jedao’s, hot and yearning. Like all Kel men, Dhanneth went clean-shaven, yet a faint hint of stubble brushed against Jedao’s skin like fine sand.
Jedao froze, tempted. Then he gripped Dhanneth’s shoulders and shoved him back, just enough to get some distance. It wasn’t intended to begin a fight. A flash of knowledge: if he’d meant to cause injury, he would have stepped in closer.
Dhanneth didn’t resist him, but his eyes burned with a mixture of longing and desperation and unkindled nights.
I won’t do this to you, Jedao said in the drum code.
Dhanneth swallowed dryly. Whe
n he spoke, his voice was rough. “Isn’t this what you want?”
Their paths had crossed in the dueling hall. Dhanneth hadn’t spoken then. But why would he, in front of all those people?
Jedao closed his eyes. “You know what they do to hawkfuckers.” The obscenity came easily to his mouth. “What would happen to you if anyone found out?” Hell, he could have Dhanneth up on charges for touching him, unjust as it was.
“You’re not a Kel,” Dhanneth said. “What do you care?”
“You’re out of line.”
Dhanneth closed his eyes. The sweep of his lashes was shockingly dark, defining a crescent curve. He breathed in and out, then, face twisting, yanked himself out of Jedao’s grip. “Let me be something to you,” he said. “Anything.” As though the black fabric scalded him, he stripped his gloves off and cast them to the floor.
Jedao knelt to pick them up. “Don’t,” he said. The similarity of the gesture to the obeisance to a hexarch did not escape him. It didn’t escape Dhanneth either. His breath huffed out in response.
The gloves scarcely felt like they could encompass someone’s honor. Yet here they were, resting in Jedao’s palms. He folded them neatly and set them on the edge of Dhanneth’s desk, right next to an inkstone that had been carved in the shape of cavorting lions, and was gilded besides. Jedao couldn’t imagine grinding something so beautiful down for ink.
Dhanneth embraced him from behind this time. His arms were thick with muscle, and he had large, square hands, scars revealed by their nakedness. He blocked Jedao’s attempt to twist away, grip tightening painfully on Jedao’s waist. He kissed Jedao’s neck, his mouth more insistent.
“Why?” Jedao whispered when the kiss ended.
“You want it,” Dhanneth murmured.
He couldn’t deny it. That didn’t mean he had to give in. I want you to help me destroy the hexarch.
Then I will, Dhanneth said. I will find out what I can. But we will need a way to communicate. The heat of his bare hand stung as he slid it into the waistband of Jedao’s pants, fingers curling into the hairs of his belly, then angling lower.