meanwhile I was an insect dwarfed by a war between Giants it was a feeling I’d come to know and hate in my time on vlad and it was not getting any better dropped in the middle of the fame compound by of lonnie protector who had evidently decided i could fend for myself while it did battle on my behalf I could only stumble around in the spaces between the shells of buildings avoiding the whips of both friend and foe as they speared down from the heavens I managed to get to one of the fragmentary walls and I tried to flatten myself against it as the last flan II to protect me and the last one to protect Ocean slashed a way at the - who’d cut off our escape I’d seen Ocean Paul Tyra Fox into one of the protected alcoves a second before - Villani entangled like a forest of serpents trampled what was left of that structure raising a cloud of dust now I saw Pavel Ania stumbling around like a blind woman unable to see through the blood pouring into her eyes from the gash in her forehead she knew she was in trouble but was totally unequipped to choose a direction for flight when the battle brought two of the struggling monsters over her position their whips spearing the grounds on all sides as she spun around in their centre screaming for anybody who would help her I was an insect dwarfed by a war between giants but I was also an idiot and so I launched myself away from my place of relative safety and charged Parkville Ania stopping only when one of the big black whips came down between me and her piercing the earth with a force that would have driven the top of my skull as far down as my pelvis I yelled fell on my ass tried to get away and was rescued from what would have been the lifelong memory of my own cowardice when another whip piercing the earth behind me cut off my retreat goddammit why can’t anything be easy for once I’ll urged back to my feet ducked again to avoid a wide lazy slash that would have done much worse than knocked me over and drove myself back toward POC Villa Nia who was screaming too much to hear my shouted assurances that I was on the way I hit her mid body and drove her back just as a thicket of whips pierced the dust where she’d been standing Skye the overwhelming shockwave was a lot like being the one calm point in a world otherwise gone mad the local Graff prevented anybody in the skimmers passenger cabin from being jarred but that only made the rest of the universe spin around them a nasty kaleidoscope of earth and Skye and fire and fleeing Villani that didn’t stop until Skye managed to regain something approaching control they still crashed but Skyee’s last-second feat of stabilization transformed what would have been a fatal impact followed by a series of shattering chaotic head-over-heels somersaults into a number of lesser but still wrenching hits that impacted the ground at a much more glancing angle for Skye and the two rear Gaul it was a drumbeat of deafening crashes punctuated by a cacophony of tearing metal they found themselves choking on dirt as buckets of the very soil they displaced made it past the faltering ionic shields and pelted their faces assaulting their eyes and clogging their throats but it would have been even worse had the skimmers local vertical been aligned with vlogs an angle that would have had them striking ground at the vehicle’s flat hull an impact that blunt might have shattered the skimmer to piece instead they swiped the ground with the starboard side down an angle that transformed the vehicle into the aerodynamic equivalent of a scalpel cutting an incision across flesh they didn’t so much crash into the ground as used the vehicle to slice it completing one shallow 000 meter gouge they lift it off and scraped the earth only twice more in the next 000 meters before dipping again to expand the rest of their momentum digging a final 000 meter trench it ended with the skimmer lying on its side with its nose embedded in a mound of upended dirt it took the Porrinyards a couple of seconds to decode Skye’s jangled senses enough to realize that the skimmer had stopped and that the drumbeat she could still feel in her bones came from the fresh battery of explosions even now stitching a fresh line across the desert she whirled to check on the two rear goal and saw her path sprawled across one of the seats had dazed and bleeding pill goth struggling to rise behind him the Porrinyards had just enough time to register Skye’s relief before the nearby thwump led her to look up just as the dust settled enough to reveal a half-dozen Villani towering above her if those Fulani wanted her dead they could have her dead she had nothing left neither did Ocean who was with Fox pressed close against a rec wall half a world away both Porrinyard s were on the ground dizzy and disoriented from an ordeal that had lasted days they each faced creatures many times their own size they each knew the other was in danger and from that their Gestalt was in danger they each knew that there was no longer any place to run as one they closed their eyes meanwhile there was no point in trying to crawl to safety because there was no place of safety no refuge where our clumsy and lumbering human legs could take us so I pressed pocketville ania into the dirt and draped my body over her as in an instinctive and absolutely rediculous attempt at protection closing my eyes against the tattoo of death all around us some of the strikes were so close that the displaced earth pelted my cheeks like hail I abandoned any pretense of courage and screamed long and loud and without seeming pause for breath not because I thought Ocean or anybody else could help us but because screaming was a way to carry me past each nightmarish moment to the next beneath me Parkville Ania did the same I had no way of knowing what she yelled because she’d lapsed into some rear Gong tongue but I cursed the AI source for bringing me here and the unseen demons from making this happen and my parents for dying and the universe for allowing such sheer terror to exist anywhere within its borders and then I don’t know how much later I stopped screaming because something about the night had changed something had gone away it wasn’t silent because there were any number of sounds Ocean calling my name fresh rubble settling in the wreckage even the thundering rhythm of Parkville aniyah’s racing heart and my own ragged gasping but the din of lani whips slashing away at Fulani chitin had just died away to nothing between one second and the next I wouldn’t look up I was too traumatized to sure that the second I committed the carnal sin of peeking I’d see my mistake in the form of the killing blow piercing my eyes from above but the trembling Parkville ania looked past her own fear and passed me coughing out a puff of dirt before managing to focus on whatever towered above us I saw her eyes track movement and recognised the rebirth of hope counselor she managed what they’re dancing.
CHAPTER 20
The Price
What the hell just happened?
It was the single overriding question being asked all over Vaughan and Beyond flan in all the places where post mortems are held it was asked in a thousand languages and by every known sentient species and as the bits and pieces came in over the next few weeks nobody failed to notice that the bits and pieces didn’t fit it would be some time before anybody in power thought to question why all the surviving of lonny around nor EF had all turned around and marched away that day let alone why all flan e broke off their hostilities at pretty much the same time to most human observers judging the battle from the perspective of human military logic the answer was self-evident why wouldn’t the lani flee there was open revolt in their ranks the area was being bombed to shit they were overpowered and outgunned and they had enough sense even in the throes of worldwide madness to know that they’d been beaten in human terms retreating was the only course of action that made any sense only a few observant souls pointed out the major flaw in this theory which was that war didn’t always make sense Fulani like human beings had always been willing to die in vast numbers for a greater cause sometimes even a mad cause eventually somebody remembered that Fulani were more than just towering monsters but intelligent beings with whom we’d opened diplomatic relations maybe we could ask them or better yet since nobody was in any hurry to try that yet maybe we could just take a look at that impromptu dance the Horde performed on their way back to the desert after all the bombing fleets monitors had recorded it from every angle what if somebody poured over the hollows we wouldn’t get everything they were saying we never did but maybe we’d discover what the madness had been about and why it had ended as it happened the pe
rson who came up with that brainstorm was virile Hammersmith and once he ran the translation program he discovered that all of those dancing Villani liked all of the retreating Villani all over the world were saying the same thing Andrea court friend hunting partner whip what the hell just happened the first person to ask me that question and exactly those words was Ocean Porrinyard looking pale and chalky despite the mosaic of contusions that turned his face into a contour map I didn’t answer him because I was not yet capable of answering anything with the immediate danger ended the stress and terror of the past few days had a chance to catch up with me all at once and I could only collapse into his arms feeling Skyee’s presence as well as his in the particular way he returned the embrace the echo of her soft cheek was clear within his stubbled one i don’t know everything i said to them in the next few minutes i know that it was half hysterical and that it veered between assurances that i loved them and please for them to forgive me what I’d done huge he whispered back what did you do I just told him I was sorry and wept when I break I shat her above us the Fulani stopped dancing and strode back into the surrounding woods the Skye began to glow with the coming of dawn just a pox sobbed that we should have let her die but I absorbed none of it for a long time nothing existed but Ocean and through him the absent Skye and through them some reason to keep on drawing breath and then my ability to process the world began to return I noticed a filthy and ragged Parkville Ania watching me through wide war orphan eyes and equally battered Fox studying my breakdown with the dispassion of an anthropologist parsing a ritual in some previously unknown culture the limbless foreshortened chuta POC lying on her back and swallowing convulsively as she faced a Skye she must have thought she’d never see again we were all black with mud and dirt and blood pocketful Ania must have known she was missing something her own first sentence the very same words Ocean had spoken was not diluted by the love and respect the Porrinyards felt for me it was rife with accusation and dread what did you do it would also be some time before the diplomatic community discussed what to do about ambassador Worcester Croix he’d broken about a million interspecies laws by preparing a secret fleet for attack on the indigenous population of an independent world but even that she had to admit that he’d used its potentially devastating power for defensive purposes only as far as anybody could tell from the hours of hollows and nur X of the battle the many many Lani who died that day had all been killed by other Vlade Kroy was guilty of nothing more than using unconventional methods to prevent further human lives from being swept up in their madness in the end it looked like the interspecies community would sanction him with a mild rebuke for gathering the fleet and overwhelm any political fallout that might have caused with subsequent high praise for the almost saintly restraint with which he’d used it the dip core or at least those factions inside it that had always counseled a hard line against the Villani would of course have a harder judgment I would never find out all that much about Croix either the nature of the trauma that had turned him into the embittered naked oddity he was or the source of the impulse that led him to heed Skyee’s advice when all his past rhetoric established how dearly he would have wanted to do otherwise questioning him further is impossible because when he received orders recalling him to New London for debriefing he simply closed the door of his temporary quarters the Kison Houghton Embassy and killed himself the Porrinyard s would say he was ashamed of doing the right thing I had no way of knowing if they were right but I believed it because I’d done the only thing I could to stop the killing and had sentenced myself to a very similar hell the flight back to the human teeth was a grim one the Porrinyard s were well accustomed to indulging me on those many occasions when I was in no mood to talk but Parkville ania operated under no such limitations and peppered me with questions I answered with either mono syllables or stony silence she didn’t stop until Ocean informed her that her skills as medical professional would be better served attending to our invalid chat ��poque and even then she retreated resentfully telling me you can’t just walk away without answering questions I thought tell me about it as for Fox her stare had more to do with my promise to find her daughter than with any doubts about the morality of my actions but it was possible to read any number of other accusations into those cold burning eyes I was not surprised when the ambient sound faded to nothing and the hated presence this time damnum assuming the voice of my murdered mother sounded between my ears Andreea court I had not sought them out nor did I welcome them now but the AI source scheduled the worst of their confrontations of their own pleasure so I pulled myself together and snarled you’re a bunch of bastards you know that as the creations of organic life there is little else we could be damned if it didn’t sound like mockery the knowing kind you hear from practical jokers after they’ve just seen you stumble over the obstacle they just placed in your path I hated it from them at the best of times and was in no mood for it now why didn’t you just tell me what you wanted in the first place why did so many people so many Fulani have to die first you should know the answer to that you are only educational to us because of your unfettered free will ordering you to a conclusion even one as desperate as this one amounts to pulling your strings and that would make you just another tool your course must remain your own a requirement that is even more true now than it ever was before I would have ripped the brain right out of my head if that meant I no longer had to listen to their vapid self justifications you’re fucking with me like you’ve always fucked with me you knew that I’d have no choice the absence of any palatable options may have made the choice a difficult one but it remained a I screamed inside my skull they killed my family you bastards they destroyed my childhood and now they broke in infuriatingly kind and still you made the choice you did the only choice you could given the specific creature you are I did not want the respect of the beings who had me who’d lied to me who driven me down a twisting road to a choice that I should not have had to make you’ve destroyed me you know that you’ve destroyed me if you are destroyed Andrea Court it is because that is what you have chosen the only remaining action for you is how you choose to rebuild and then they left me from the point of view of my fellow passengers aboard the borrowed skimmer the entire conversation must have taken less than a second and so it must have made no sense to Fox and Parkville ania when my dry eyes and stony expression were suddenly replaced between one heartbeat and the next with a return to the hysterics that had claimed me in the feign compound only Ocean who knew about the internal dialogues with the AI source and learned how to tell the difference between the lightning-fast changes of mood that could mark the aftermath of those conversations from the mood swings that afflicted me just because of the kind of person I am could tell where I’d been his apprehension deepened huge Andrea what is it over the next few weeks eight of the ten species with embassies on vlad announced that the withdrawals had been declared permanent the grand Romance that had gone along with the mysteries of the ballet had lost its fascination for them in the aftermath of so much death they’d even lost their more practical interest and the potential rewards of decoding the language of the most intelligent organic species in the universe the price for them was too high and so the Kison Houten made preparations to leave and thus a Qatari and the Chi and the cid and the reorg all there would always have to be a dip core embassy on Vaughn as long as so many humans had emigrated there but its mission was cut to the bare minimum no more observations of lani in the field it was just a way station a service center a place for any humans or once were humans to communicate with home one recall would end up staying her path who both resigned his commission and renounced his citizenship in the Republic announcing that he would be content with staying on Vaughn for the rest of his life in the last conversation he had with us before we left he said that he hoped to concil with his disabled human daughter i hadn’t said a word but he made a point of addressing me before we parted he spoke in a voice tinged with pain and redolent of more secrets than I would ever know trust me
he told me you are not the only sentient bent by the weight of a great betrayal the only way to heal is to live I was too bereft to speak so I just nodded a mute prisoner within the cage I’d vote for myself one person who would not ask me what the hell I’d done was Paul Reich oh he had more painful things to worry about on the one and only time I ever saw him again three hours after we returned shoulda puck to her home in the human teeth the skimmer he was flying when he came back was a different model a Qi design if I’m correct and don’t ask me how he got it he held his composure as he knelt over his shattered wife and even as he whispered useless assurances that everything was going to be alright the words that pass between them were a case study in the limited usefulness of any conversation between those with every reason to surrender to despair and the loved ones who must lie about feeling the same way his facade of courage did not crack at any point during their conversation but after he whispered to her that it was time to escort the guests out and left her behind with a promise to return as soon as possible an additional decade had been etched on his features he collapsed against the wall outside the chamber where we’d left her as if depending on it to hold him up it’s not your fault Parkville aeneas said uselessly oh he said with no inflection whatsoever he sounded so much like fox and his inability to process any more feeling that any other context would have left me suspecting that he was mocking her over the next half hour prompted by occasional questions by Ocean but none at all from me he told us how much for how little he’d known about his wife’s involvement with the Fain’s though he’d met cheetah Park briefly on a prior visit to Vaughn he’d fallen in love with her after her estrangement from her people and had married her knowing the nature of her crime he’d been aware of her past and had even known that she was still in intermittent contact with the putative Li missing researchers and that their work on the egg was still continuing but he claimed that he’d never joined her on any of her visits never learned just what was going on in the Fain’s underground Factory all these years he said focusing on some distant point far beyond us she said that this all started with her sin and that when the time for redemption came she’d be the one to claim it Oshin said but when the killing started you want me to say that I knew it was all connected to what she’d done but it’s not that simple between the Villani and the dance pilgrims and the usual bullshit between embassies there’s always been so much going on on this planet that it’s crazy to imagine pointing at any one thing and saying there that over there that’s the reason this is turning to shit sure she told me some things like the AI source connection and how important she thought you were going to be but when the day came I believed her when she said she was only going to help refugees and I believed her when she said that everything was going to be all right he stuck out his lower lip and addressed the floor I don’t think the rest of us were anywhere in his personal universe at that moment there was no room for us in the relentless calculus between the assumptions his wife had made and the size of the price she paid we made love the very first day we met and then not again for many years but there was always a certain inevitability about everything she did from defying her father to loving me I don’t think she expected everything that happened but I think she always had her eyes open I think part of her always knew what her plans might cost there were any number of other questions we could ask any number of answers the man owed us but when he turned his back on us so he could return to chuck the others adopted my own silence I never saw him or cheat Deepak again sometime after our return to New London I read a classified report on the current state of affairs on Valon I can’t explain why I bothered since I’d spent weeks refusing to answer any of the cores insistent questions about that damn planet but maybe something about the title page conveyed it’s terrible conclusions it’s awful lingering finality confirmation of truths I already knew the report began with all the familiar statistics of those last few days starting with the high casualty count among the diplomatic community their contrasting the devastating losses among human beings with the smaller number of dead among the cousin Halton and concluding with the estimate that by the time the outbreak was over more than a third of the Villani population had died as well more sobering was the census that established damn few knew Villani were being born either the crisis had disturbed their lifecycle in some way we could not determine or the lingering trauma that went along with the destruction of their ballet had thrown the entire species into a malaise that made most of them view the perpetuation of their kind as pointless either way their numbers continued to decline the report said that if current trends continued they faced extinction within the century nor would it be possible to continue to learn from them until that happened because aside from matters involving immediate survival the entire species seemed to have fallen silent back on the day itself we received word through Ocean that many the wounded were being taken to the Kison Halton’s abandoned embassy the Kison hatun who spent their lives standing up had never invented furniture aside from what they needed for storage and work surfaces so their buildings wouldn’t make the most comfortable accommodations but the space was being made for us so we went the place was an artificial island in the middle of a wetland region that smelled like orbital habitats I’d known the kind that allow their air purifiers to break down and subsequently grow to accustom to the general funk to notice it until some rude visitor from the universe beyond tells them that the local air bares the aroma of toilet the water was some algae ridden pink goop that had spread up the trunks of the branchless leafless trees that surrounded it on all sides reminding me of skeletal arms struggling to escape the growth that threatened to engulf them the air itself was clammy and infested with parasitic bugs that wanted nothing to do with our alien blood but didn’t mind hovering nearby as if hoping to swoop in as soon as our body chemistry evolved to the cousin Halton this had probably been the most scenic place on the entire planet their loss was not our gain we landed the skimmer just offshore where the water was just deep enough for the mud to qualify as wet then trudged through the crap until we stepped onto the platform itself where we were met by medics from the human and rear Gong delegations won a round shouldered little man with cheeks like parentheses walked right up to me and said councillor Andrea Court supported by Ocean I managed an odd fierce Stegner I’m running the medical team at this site I’m here to tell you that while you will need to be debriefed nobody’s going to bother you until you get yourselves cleaned up looked at treat it rested and fed Ocean said thank you there aren’t separate quarters so much as equipment shelves we’ve padded to serve as beds but I think you’ll be able to manage if you follow me behind us paka Fellini a said one moment she stepped between us touched two fingertips to my chin and physically forced me to look up and meet her eyes her eyes were bright points lighting up a face that did not seem much cleaner after a game attempt to scrub off all the filth during our wait for Royko at his home in the human teeth the dirt was gone but her pores were black her hair a tangled rat’s nest I know you’re in shock and I figured out that you’re not going to tell me what happened down there I do not know whether I should hate you for that but I do know that I should be grateful to you for saving my life at the end I croaked out a week you’re welcome I didn’t thank you I’m not going to I know you’re too self-absorbed a person for that to make a difference it took me a moment to figure out how to respond to that fair enough but I’ve seen other human beings who were where you are right now and I need to tell you that you won’t climb back out this time unless you let your friends pull you out she released my chin good luck counselor she didn’t wait for me to respond but instead let herself be shown into the Kison Houghton Dome it was the last substantial conversation I’d ever have with her though I did run into her a few more times in the days that followed after she’d rushed through her own recovery to join those attending to casualties
Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes Page 27