Revenant Gun
Page 42
Then a woman detached herself from the greeters and came toward Cheris. She addressed Cheris in rapid Mwen-dal.
Cheris shook her head, flushing. “I’m sorry,” she said haltingly, doing her best to suppress Jedao’s drawl. “My Mwen-dal isn’t very good. I came here hoping to learn.”
The woman patted her shoulder. Cheris held still for it. This time when the woman spoke, she used the high language, flavored with an unfamiliar accent. “I’m Oru, one of the interpreters. You’re one of the settlers? Not a visitor?”
“Yes,” Cheris said. True enough for the moment. After the events of the past decade, she was looking forward to a quiet life. “My name is Dzannis Paral.” Another favor she owed Mikodez: he’d set up the false identity for her.
Oru’s face brightened. “The math teacher! The school’s been looking forward to your arrival. They’ve been short-handed, and the little ones do get squirrely when they’re going through tutorials for the tenth time, and their ‘teachers’ don’t know enough about the material to go over it with them.”
As Oru continued to chatter, Cheris felt herself relaxing for the first time in a long time. It wasn’t the future she’d envisioned for herself once upon a time, when she’d defied her parents to join the Kel, or the one she’d thought she’d committed herself to when she took up Jedao’s cause. But even small things made a difference sometimes.
“Thank you,” Cheris said after Oru had finished her speech. She said it in Mwen-dal.
“Like this,” Oru said, correcting her pronunciation with a smile.
Cheris repeated the words carefully.
“Come with me,” Oru said, first in Mwen-dal, then in the high language. “I imagine you’re hungry.”
“I am,” Cheris said, and followed Oru toward her new home.
Learning the language of her mother’s people wouldn’t bring back all the Mwennin who’d been slaughtered, and teaching mathematics to schoolchildren wouldn’t unknot the centuries of damage the high calendar had done to society. But that didn’t mean those things weren’t worth doing. Someone had to carry on with the small acts that kept civilization moving. And this time it was her turn.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THANK YOU TO the following people: my editor, Jonathan Oliver, and the wonderful folks at Solaris Books; my agent, Jennifer Jackson; and my agent’s assistant, Michael Curry.
I am grateful to my beta readers: Joseph Charles Betzwieser, Cyphomandra, Daedala, Seth Dickinson, David Gillon, Isis, Karanguni, Helen Keeble, Nancy Sauer, and Sonya Taaffe. Additional thanks to Sam Kabo Ashwell for providing an emergency Kindle when I was working on revisions after the flood; to Andrew Plotkin and Helen Keeble for their thoughts on the calendrical lock; to Peter Berman for help with the mathematics of the threshold winnower; and to Lila Garrott-Wejksnora for information on military funerals. All errors and narrative license taken are, of course, my own.
This one is for Daedala: pistolium tuum sum.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
YOON HA LEE is a writer and mathematician from Houston, Texas, whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He has published over forty short stories, and his critically acclaimed collection Conservation of Shadows was released in 2013. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat.
FOR FANS OF THE MARTIAN AND THE MARS TRILOGY
In the near future Dr. Holland, a scientist running from a painful past, joins the Mars colonisation effort, cataloguing the remnants of Mars’ biosphere before it is swept away by the terraforming programme.
When an artefact is discovered deep in the caverns of the red planet, Holland’s employers interfere, leading to tragedy. The consequences ripple throughout time, affecting Holland’s present, and the destiny of the red planet.
For in the far future, Mars is dying a second time. The Final War of men and spirits is beginning. In a last bid for peace, the disgraced Champion Val Mora and his ‘spirit’ lover are set free from the Arena to find the long-missing Librarian of Mars, the only hope to save mankind.
Holland’s and the Champion’s lives intertwine, across the millennia, in a breathtaking story of vast ambition.
“Champion of Mars celebrates all that is best in SF. Simply put, Guy Haley is a very good writer, with an infectious love for sci-fi that shines off every page.”
The Guardian
“Haley weaves two tales into a tight, compelling narrative. Champion of Mars is a thriller, an unnatural mystery and a strange sort of love story. Highly entertaining and original, and well worth a look.”
Starburst Magazine
www.solarisbooks.com
Paris was supposed to save Hallie. Now… well, let’s just say Paris has other ideas.
There’s a strange woman called The Chronometrist who will not leave her alone. Garbled warnings from bizarre creatures keep her up at night. And there’s a time portal in the keg room of the bar where she works.
Soon, Hallie is tumbling through the turbulent past and future Paris, making friends, changing the world—and falling in love.
But with every trip, Hallie loses a little of herself, and every infinitesimal change she makes ripples through time, until the future she’s trying to save suddenly looks nothing like what she hoped for…
“A high-flying novel of love and peril—sheer page-turning entertainment that hooked me with its wit from the first sentence.”
Helen Marshall, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Gifts for the One Who Comes After
“A glittering novel of time travel that you’ll want to devour like a mille-feuille in one single bite. I loved it.”
Lavie Tidhar, World Fantasy Award-winning author of A Man Lies Dreaming and Central Station
www.solarisbooks.com
HIS MIND COULD SAVE THE WORLD... IF SHE CAN SAVE HIM FROM THE HUMAN RACE.
The Shield is Earth’s only defence. Rendering the planet invisible from space, it keeps humanity safe – and hidden. The exceptional minds of the Actives maintain the Shield; without them it cannot function.
When an Active called Tobe finds himself caught up in a probability loop, the Shield is compromised. Soon, Tobe’s malady spreads among the Actives and Earth becomes vulnerable for the first time in a generation.
Tobe’s assistant, Metoo, is only interested in his wellbeing. Earth security’s paramount concern is the preservation of the Shield. As Metoo strives to prevent Tobe’s masters from undermining his fragile equilibrium, humanity is left dangerously exposed...
‘Nik Abnett brings a most welcome new voice and vision to SF. Savant is a knockout!’
Pat Cadigan, Hugo-award winning author
www.solarisbooks.com
Table of Contents
Praise for Revenant Gun
Title
Indicia
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also from Solaris
'Paris Adrift'
'Savant'
, Revenant Gun