was peaceful that she was not one with the enemy who had just destroyed so much the translation program worked two ways of course and even as it translated her offers of help into dance movements for the benefit of any watching Lonnie its audio output provided her with a constant real-time translation or as close as current science could come to a translation of whatever that traumatized Villani around her said to one another it was not of much help the concepts being exchanged now were far too arcane to fit within the limited vocabulary of her harnesses software she got one translation every minute or so and none of them added to her general store of knowledge death disaster ballet death sadness confusion death world Vlade death disaster ballet pain confusion evil death the Porrinyard s had no difficulty understanding what the full translation of that would have been in mercantile the world’s ending somebody destroyed the ballet why would any of us want to destroy the ballet why would anybody be so insane how are we ever going to pick up after this egg that was interesting did Fulani hatch from eggs did they know of some other creature that hatched from eggs were these Villani looking forward to some kind of rebirth were they wishing that they’d never been born did they see the egg as an actual object or as some kind of metaphor the Porrinyard s filed that away as raw data something to be relayed to me as soon as they had the time and opportunity it might be helpful Skye took another step and something terrible happened the ground shifted beneath her somewhere beneath the mud a shard of chitin balanced on another shard of chitin gave way under her weight and she slid forward
feeling jabs of pain along both sides of her right calf Skye had managed to step in the worst possible place a shelf formed by a shattered hemisphere of exoskeleton broken off some luckless Lonnie’s head already fractured and set to shatter the next time it was subjected to any stress it had collapsed beneath her the razor-sharp edges on both sides slicing downward into her skin now any attempt to free herself would just drive the shards deeper into her flesh peeling off layers of skin and muscle and she’d bleed out or denude the bone before being able to break free of the grip on her leg most people would have passed out or panicked some would have pulled on they’re trapped leg until the sharp edge is severed it or sliced into an artery I would have screamed bloody murder and shit myself none of this would have been productive the Porrinyards had a different way of handling things even as pain signals flooded Skye’s body Oceans produce endorphins that compensated not quite eliminating the pain but damping it preserving focus and rationality while preventing the deadly complication of shock he of course gave me no indication that any of this was going on not even changing his facial expression as bare cuff and the others interrogated me about my mission on Vlad Skyee was able to perform the proper action that no normal human instinct would have permitted putting more weight on that leg pushing it free of the sharp edges and giving her the room she needed to free herself by hand the wounds were serious she had a deep ragged gash on each side of her leg losing blood even as she rolled up the legs of her tights the skin was black with mud and Villani juice infecting her own body chemistry with zuj alone knew what pathogens the wounds would need to be cleaned and disinfected as soon as possible but the need was not imminent and if she called for help or had and do the same it would only be a matter of time before she’d find herself delivered into the same political morass that was even now dragging me down half a world away better the Porrinyard s decided together if Skyee endured her wounds and remained at large for a while she wouldn’t be forgotten about in the meantime she still had a job to do focusing past the pain declaring it background noise she made her way to a patch where the gore had dried enough to qualify as mud and not liquid before realizing that the Villani survivors closest to her had taken note of her predicament and were now gathered around her in a circle enclosing her in a cage where the bars were the whips planted in the sodden earth most human beings who had been through what the Porrinyard s had been through last night would have assumed that they were about to kill her Skyee just spoke plain I’m hurt help me as the whips directed Skyeward danced for her her harness provided more unhelpful translation hurt danger egg human human dance human yes she said daring to hope that the whip harness could make her thoughts clear I’m a human being and I’m hurt I don’t understand what you’re saying about eggs can you help me help hurt egg hurt ballet egg hurt many kill that had come perilously close to making sense she tried again I’m looking for the dance pilgrims the human beings who were supposed to dance with you in this year’s ballet I want to talk to them dance pilgrims human dancers humans did any of them live through the through the many kill the Villani told her something that made scary sense in translation something that made Skye gasped in astonishment Ocean was smart enough to repress something that the Porrinyard s would still be chewing on even as Ocean and I were escorted into confinement egg many kill Lani the several Villani nearest to Skye froze standing like statues for several seconds in what the Porrinyard s interpreted as a deliberate pause intended to separate this thought from the next one in the limited understanding of the stupid human whose translation device could only relay one at a time go on Skyee said the whips undulated again and dropped a bomb unseen demons many kill Vlade another pause longer than the one before it go on Skyee said unseen demons many kill humans I understand safe friend a whip moving
with such a degree of effortless grace that it seemed more like a wisp of smoke than solid limb curled around Skyee’s waist and bottom and lifted her above the muck passing her to another whip and then another the landscape blurred from the speed of her passage above it then resolved again as she was delivered to the last flan II in line and lowered with infinite care toward a rise that resembled dry land there were two other injured women already lying there the race and features of the more seriously injured one was impossible to discern beneath the layers of mud and blood that had left her tar black her shoulder-length hair was an oily mat surrounded by flies her prominent front teeth and wide brown eyes were like white jewels beneath the patina of grime forming an expression that could have been a smile but for the tremors that made it easier to read as a grimace of pain and shock her limbs not human arms or legs but artificial Villani whips embedded in her shoulder and hip sockets were now all stumps that all been severed half a meter from their anchor points and they now arrived in spastic loops that Skye did not have to know the danced language of the Vlade to recognize not as communication but convulsion as the Villani lowered Skye to the ground the wounded woman shouted something in some language other than mercantile one Skye had never heard the second woman was another dance pilgrim one whose alterations had not been nearly as radical as the first her arms and legs still looked human enough on the outside even if the arms betrayed the changes made to them by elongating to almost twice their natural length in order to reach out and probe Skye’s face her eyes were as black as marbles without any whites to them at all there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her vision though the first thing she said to Skye was you’re not one of us who are you one of Kreutz people never met the man Skye said truthfully what happened here the other woman’s incredulity manifested as anger what do you mean what happened weren’t you here I thought you people were watching forgive me it was dark and we were all a little busy trying to stay alive we couldn’t make sense of it it wasn’t much better down here said the woman with black eyes who were those other Vlade where did they come from the more damaged woman sharing this dry spot with them both let out an incoherent scream praying to somebody in either the same unknown language she’d used before or another the one with the black eyes had to wait until she finished to cry out I don’t fucking know where they came from don’t you get it there aren’t supposed to be Villani like them they’ve never had factions or politics or revolutions or Wars they just have this dance and I don’t know what the hell they wanted except for all of us dead that should have been it but something told the Porrinyard s that they’d still missed the essential point wanted who dead the danc
ers a wince of pain shoes you really don’t know do you what’s your name the woman with the jet black eyes was so thrown off balance by this complete non sequitur that she answered it without any hostility or attitude thoth RC thoth RC I’m Skye Porrinyard and you’re right I don’t get it I don’t get it at all please help me understand who did those other Vlade want dead if they weren’t targeting the dancers who did they want a long time passed before the farsi answered it was an interval filled with the crunching and splashing sounds made by Villani whips poking around the carnage the distant shouts of an injured young man and the anguished cries of the woman who had lost her implanted limbs to violence it lasted so very long that the porn yards were beginning to wonder if silence was the only answer that farsi intended to provide but then the thar sea wiped mud from her face spat and spoke in a voice calmer and darker and infinitely more dangerous than the one driven by her hysteria when it first started happening we didn’t know what they wanted either we only knew that something was wrong and it was a while after that with all the killing going on before we could see but then I saw a dozen of those bastards fight their way past all those trying to stop them not caring if they left any alive not even caring if they got killed themselves just to get at me they didn’t care about the dancers just the human beings among the dancers they were willing to kill whoever they had to just to get to the humans there seemed nothing Skye could say to that but as the individual of Lonnie who had delivered her here continued to dance for her the whip harness kept up a running translation summarizing a thesis strange and terrifying egg many kill blonde II unseen demons many kill Fulani unseen demons many kill humans there was a pause representing the harnesses inability to translate whatever the Villani danced after that unseen demons many kill ballet the dancing continued for almost a minute the whip harness was unable to decode at all except for fleeting words that like most of what the Villani tried to say to humans did not seem to connect to any other words in the only translation available about all Skye-god was a sense of overwhelming urgency of frustration of the Villani needing her to understand and probably cursing the stupid ineffectual toy on her back for its failure to make that happen but then there was one more thought one that whip harness understood completely one that gave the Porrinyard s a chill and had the same effect on me when Ocean passed it along in our room at the Rio Kong embassy Andreea court the Villani danced many kill unseen demons
CHAPTER 7
Fugitives
Meanwhile I didn’t take the news of Skyee’s injury at all well I cursed Ocean with all the bile at my disposal I knew even as I did it but it was irrational and stupid but Ocean was here and Skye was there and he had put her in the line of fire and she was somewhere out there hurt subject to zuj alone knew what further dangers so I called him an idiot and in pure defiance of everything I knew about the Porrinyard s Kame damned close to banging my fists against his chest and calling him an unfeeling monster who didn’t give a shit whether his other half lived or died we have to get somebody get her some help we could but doing that we’ll just get her locked up with us and eliminate any possibility of her being able to continue her own independent investigation I promise you Andrea as long as her own need is less than imminent I can take her pain more than I can take the impotence the local diplomatic community seeks to inflict upon us that gave him the chance to finish the story and pass along the very last thing the Fulani had imparted to Skyee Andrea court many kill unseen demons
I left him walked to the curtain between us and the outside and faced it the way I would have faced a bottomless pit destined to swallow me I’d known this moment was coming of course I’d wanted it and the AI source had even promised I could have it but hearing it confirmed in as many words even if those words came from a Villani source and could be written off as a bad translation hit me harder than I’d ever expected Andrea court many kill on the scene demons the words stark as they were offered me no other guidance what was I to think of the message was it prayer or warning a future already written or one that should be avoided at all costs I returned to within the his screens range I don’t want to lose her that’s good I don’t want half of myself amputated but if we leave her there she’ll be helpless I’m never that Ocean said it’s a calculated risk Andrea and I wouldn’t suggest it if the stakes were any less I wavered it sucks he remained level that Falcon car with I wanted to punch him that or kiss
and no sensible alternative to leaving her in danger presented itself and I found myself left with nothing but a heartfelt heartbroken dammit yes he said with absolute calm I fought down another wave of resentment it made no logical sense but remained an inescapable aspect of loving one person who only happens to live in two bodies after a while you do understand that there’s only one joined soul there but if you’re a singlet you never quite reconcile their shared nature with that private part of yourself that still insisted on seeing the two halves as individuals as much as I’d always tried to avoid drawing lines between them I’d always been slightly incremental II unavoidably closer to Skye as an illusory individual female than I was to Ocean the equivalent a loser email and so I once again fought off an impulse to berate Ocean for his cavalier treatment of her a wholly human reaction that would have made about as much sense as somebody damning her arms when her feet hurt after a few seconds I managed a return to sanity you promise he’ll tell me if it gets bad it’s already bad Andrea but I promise to tell you if it gets to more than I can handle I hated this hated it hated it hated it alright then we might as well free ourselves to after all we can’t do any good in here no we can’t but I have to ask even assuming we do get away do we have anything resembling a plan No so your plan is to start wandering around without direction on a planet we don’t even know can you think of a better way to gather data he considered that then accepted it and gestured toward the curtain to exit do you want to do this or shall I I kissed him we can’t afford to risk you not when you’re the only link to your other half another reason he said while you should have joined up long ago I gave him a wan smile held up my hands and in no particular hurry left the room I did not push the curtain aside but allowed it to pass over my face like a veil as I entered the corridor my hands empty and in plain sight the two rear Gong posted outside had been handed teamers and told to prevent us from leaving but had not been provided any special guidelines regarding what to do if I tested that Authority as I had expected my intrusion into their space disconcerted them they stepped away from the opposite wall and brought their weapons to bear but did not team me or order me to stand back they hesitated waiting to see what I wanted each one abdicating the awkward decision to the other in most circumstances I would have had zero chance of getting away with what I was about to do I’m a tough bitch but no better than mediocre as a fighter especially against nonhumans whose skills and capabilities were outside my everyday experience but I was not under arrest I was confined to guest quarters I was not threatening them I was so meek it made me sick this was not a prison this was an embassy on a world that had never developed espionage they were not guards they were embassy personnel pressed into a security assignment they’d never been trained for I was not a criminal I was an important person approaching them with all due politeness that’s the key thing all intelligent species from human beings all the way up to the AI source have in common they’re all inclined to see what they expect to see the one on the right said yes counselor I blushed at the necessity of asking them for such a little thing and so bashful about that without realizing it I fingered my dip Corps insignia pen for reassurance this is silly but I was wondering if you could please there was no point in continuing the question as by that point the one on the right was already on the floor twitching and the one on the left was already gaping at him a synapse fire away from realizing what I just done the only advantage of having a bounty on my head is never making the mistake of trusting all my weapons to my luggage my pen carries an electric charge the rear gall on the Left tried to bring his timur to bear by t
hat point I was already at the safest possible distance for somebody who must fight a handheld weapon at close quarters which is to say inside the enemy’s reach instead of outside I didn’t have time to reset the charge so I put one hand on his wrist and the other on his neck and drove the back of his head into the wall behind him his timur flashed turning the corridor around us a blinding white and reducing my vision into a collage of throbbing purples but not paralyzing either one of us since teamers only work when the fractal image hits the retinas head-on he tried to push me away but I slammed his head into the wall a second time he dropped the Timur I sent it sliding across the floor with a sideways kick and decided I was doing pretty well and tried to knock the breath out of him with a knee to the abdomen and well I’d been doing pretty well up until that moment but that last move was just plain stupid the greatest challenge of attempting unarmed combat with aliens is that human martial arts techniques do not apply they have different weak spots and different capabilities a groin blow crippling against a human being is worthless against a creature whose genitalia retract inside their torsos when not in use leverage is worthless when creatures have different centres of gravity jabs and punches are worthless against creatures whose joint and bone masses are arranged in different proportions to make matters worse you can only train against creatures you expect to fight most both Kyon’s want me dead and so I’ve had reason to learn how to consistently beat the crap out of them and most cheap piss me off on general principle so I’ve had excellent motivation to learn how to smack them down even if the necessity of laying one out has unfortunately never come up but I’d never once experienced any unpleasantness from rear goal reorge all were allies after all and thus I’d never learned the moves that would be most effective against them as it happens a knee to the abdomen is a damn difficult thing for any human being to pull off in any fight against a rear Gaul since we’re calling legs are so long and the pelvic bone hangs at about the same height where the human ribcage begins my knee thrusts hit the guard only a glancing blow without any real power behind it and no more effect than hitting a bag of sand with a stick it did however place me in perfect position for him to return the favor with a version of the same move driving the upper knee of his own triple segmented right leg into my own diaphragm with an impact that almost flattened me had he wanted to kick me again or just beat me until I fell down I wasn’t about to muster any serious objection I waited for it realized it wasn’t coming and stood there trading stairs with the rear Gaul as he fell back against the wall no doubt sharing my eagerness to get back into the fight but unable to do so as long as the floor between us wobbled on invisible pivots I had probably given the son-of-a-bitch a mild concussion I tried to speak gulped err and managed a breathless Juche but you’ve got balls I’m a female she managed fuck me with rear gone I’ve never been able to tell the difference so I owe you a drink sister and have stumbled and have fell toward
Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes Page 9