by J. S. Fields
“Jeez,” Nicholas muttered as he stared at the shuttle.
“That the best expletive you have?” Neek sighed and slapped at something in her pocket. A boarding ramp extended from the Pledge’s side. “We’ve got a lot of work to do with you. I can see that already. Starting with your vocabulary.”
Subversion
2060 CE
Spaceports. They smelled the same no matter what galaxy you were in. This one, at least, had a biometal base, so Corccinth could rip a hole in its side and let herself be sucked into the void if the smell got too bad. The permeating odors of bipedal bodies, Oorin mining fumes, and the red, sticky liquid under her foot was worse than that of burnt andal. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be here long, listening to a supposedly pleasant fake water feature as every sort of fur, hair, and scale streaked past.
Corccinth ran bony fingers through her graying hair and then patted her cheeks to check that her thick makeup—the powder that hid her flare markings—was still in place. Most of the beings in the Charted Systems were bipeds, so she was certain she didn’t stand out, but that didn’t help the restless feeling she had of being a predatory nhu in a titha breeding ground.
“Advisor Corccinth?”
“You’re late. I don’t appreciate that.” The query had come in Risal’s primary language. Corccinth had responded in High Uklam. Not only were all the Risalian languages hard on her throat, but there was no chance that any random passersby would know her native tongue.
A thin Risalian—all elbows, knees, and gill slits, dressed in a light-blue tunic that was far too large for hir frame—sat down tentatively to Corccinth’s left on the wobbly wooden bench. It wouldn’t have been wobbly if it had been made from andal. Instead, the wood was red with cream-colored streaks and smelled like pesticide. It was another fine example of why Ardulum had never returned to the Charted Systems.
“My apologies,” the Risalian responded in near-fluent High Uklam. Impressed, Corccinth straightened. She knew second dons on Ardulum that didn’t speak High Uklam that well. “My class ran long, and my crèche mates were detained. I’m afraid I’m the only one who can meet with you today. I’m Pihn, a markin trainee. I’ve been the one corresponding with you via deep-space comm. I know you’ve come a long way. Might I suggest we go someplace less noisy? I’ve booked a meeting room on the fortieth floor, and I can have cooked andal brought in for you.”
Corccinth’s stomach growled, but she frowned. “Tempting, but I have less than two Ardulan hours to return before my next meeting. This isn’t an authorized trip, as you might imagine. So, here will do. It gives me a—” She gestured to the three Oori slicks that were sloshing about near her feet. “—a feel for the climate, as you might say, of your situation. I don’t suppose…”
An unsettling presence flitted across her mind. The hair on Corccinth’s arm stood on end as she scanned the area, searching for its owner. The touch hadn’t been alien at all, but disjointed. Fragmented. Uncannily familiar.
“Where?” she breathed, but then the presence was back, connecting in a solid lock. Corccinth’s eyes followed the invisible mental thread to a shadowed corner. All she could see was a pair of feet streaked with dark veins, but that was more than enough. The presence’s voice—a man’s—turned sharp. Turned pleading. There were no words, only images of cells and hands and the sounds of harsh voices and screaming.
Corccinth shut down her telepathy, her heart pounding, yelling at herself to just take that poor man and put him on her ship, consequences be damned, and fly them both away from the poison of the Charted Systems.
Fly them away from one death trap—and right back into another.
She stood and took a step forward, pointing to the man. “How many are here, on this station?” she asked when her voice finally returned. Her throat still felt thick, the words burning in her mouth as she spoke them.
Pihn stood as well but looked at the floor, and in hir slumped shoulders and hollow cheeks, she saw hir youth and how little hope they both had for what they were trying to accomplish. “Thirteen, at last count. Callis is our biggest system, and the Callis Spaceport our main hub for the Systems. There are over two million beings in this station at any given moment. It’s a terrible strain on the Ardulans, but they…manage.”
Corccinth could only cringe. That seemed like a near-impossible amount, even for a flare.
“For comparison, we usually have seventy-five assigned to any given planet, just for general peace purposes. However, there’s a lot more that goes on at a spaceport where species routinely interact, so only the most experienced Ardulans are stationed here. Of course, not all the systems need a few Science Talents assigned to them. The Neek, in particular, are so insular that we basically leave them alone. There’s only one off-world, and she’s kept on a short leash.” Pihn snorted. “Earth, though. We’ve got our hands full with Earth.”
Corccinth bit her lower lip. “How long, in your estimation, has the Risalian government used them as pacifiers? What kind of chaos will it cause if they were to disappear en masse instead of slowly?”
Pihn looked up at her and rubbed at hir neck slits. “The last component of the Ardulan project was installed in 2040. They’d been tinkering around with it since 1880.”
She looked at hir with exasperation. A light-blue tunic xe might have had, but Pihn was one hundred percent Risalian egocentrism. “I have no idea what those numbers mean.”
Pihn’s neck tinged purple. “Of course. Sorry. I don’t know how to convert it to your calendar. The Charted Systems adopted the Terran calendar when they joined. It was part of the negotiation process, and none of the other systems really cared about such a trivial thing as date keeping. But to answer your question, the Systems weren’t ready for this level of peace. It’s so artificial, you can practically smell it. If you were to take the Ardulans back now, all of them, the Systems would fall apart. And I don’t think it would be long before it spilled over into the Alliance—especially given the perpetual border skirmishes the Risalians have with the Mmnnuggls.”
Mmnnuggls. Bah. Corccinth sniffed and waved a dismissive hand. “The Mmnnuggls can be dealt with easily enough, or used where appropriate. What I’m hearing from you, Pihn, is that it will take years to recover my people. I don’t have years. Ardulum has been rumbling of a move for months now. We have maybe two years at most before it gets up enough energy, or whatever it is the planet needs, to move to a new system.” She narrowed her eyes and pointed again at the dark corner containing the man she refused to mentally touch again. If she did, it would split her apart.
“You’re in a bad place to make demands,” Pihn said defensively. “It was your people that sold the defective Ardulans to us in the first place.”
She really wanted to smack hir across those silly gill slits. “They are not defective!” Three Minorans stopped their chatting on the other end of the circular plaza to stare. Corccinth hissed at them, and their ears twitched as they turned back to their own conversation. “They are not defective unless you made them that way.”
“I’m not part of the genetics operations, nor do I work for Cell-Tal. I’m here to help you, so I don’t appreciate your anger. I agree that your people, unwilling or not, should not be here. I dislike how much the Markin Council relies on their abilities, especially noting their declining birth rates and general poor health. If I could gather them all and put them on a transport home, I would. But that just isn’t possible.”
“Well, what is possible? Why did you invite me here if only to tell me that man in the corner is lost?”
Pihn took a deep breath, reached into hir pocket, and pulled out a thin, rolled tablet. Xe handed it to Corccinth. “Because of this. One of my crèche mates is interning at Cell-Tal. They’ve made a new variant. The genetics of the girl are on the tablet.”
Corccinth unrolled the film with jittery hands. She and Pihn had been in contact for months, and the data xe had sent on the Risalian genetic tinkering of the Ardulan flares was so distu
rbing that Corccinth had not been able to read the files on a full stomach. With the flare in the corner, his mental pleading batting at her mind, she wasn’t certain she could focus at all on the biofilm.
Because really, this was all Ardulum’s fault. They could play the blame game, but in the end, it was the Ardulans who had stranded their kin here in the first place. The previous Eld had needed to decrease the mental load on the planet when they left Neek’s orbit, well over one hundred years ago. Traditional protocol was to cull the flares—the Ardulans who manifested more than two Talents and were generally deemed unstable—but the Risalians had offered a better option. Mentally gelding them, the Eld had stripped them of their Talents, every last one, and sold them to the Risalians, presenting them as mute beasts of burden with limited intellect.
It was appalling. It was nauseating. It was planned. It was methodical.
It was wrong.
And the Risalians had only made it worse. Corccinth unrolled the film and grimaced. This…the genetic code she was looking at right now shouldn’t have even been possible. She could only begin to imagine how the Talent structure of this child would manifest, and every imagining she had ended in mass destruction. And the girl’s mind…andal help her.
“She cannot be brought up by Risalians.” Corccinth spat the words, flecks of spittle landing on the film and absorbing into the cellulose.
“I know.” Pihn took the tablet back, rolled it, and placed it back into hir pocket. “Cell-Tal keeps her in containment with her progenitor on a ship in constant movement. They don’t want her anywhere near the Risalian homeworld until she’s manifested and they can do testing. She’s still a few months out from second don. Thus far, developing normally.”
“She won’t, with those changes. You’ve stripped off all of our protections, as well as all the naturally occurring genetic checks, like limited telepathy after first don. None of the Talent genes are silenced.”
Pihn suddenly looked like a titha that had been kicked one too many times. “And I think Cell-Tal may have found a few new ones, too. My people have gotten too used to controlling populations, and the Mmnnuggl pestering bothers them more than it should. She will be a weapon—more so than any of the others.”
Corccinth cursed and balled her fists into the fabric of her long skirt. Andal damn the Risalians! “How hard would it be to get her off that ship?”
Pihn shook hir head. “Violence would likely be necessary. Likely the ship would have to be destroyed. You’re forgetting, too, her age. If the ship goes under attack and something happens to the mother…”
Corccinth didn’t bother filling in the rest. It was touching, in a way, that Pihn was so concerned for the girl’s survival, but the problem could resolve itself, it seemed, should an attempt to capture the girl fail. She found that comforting, if not morbid, but there were hundreds of flare lives at stake, as well as billions of beings in the Charted Systems. Corccinth trained flares, the ones that had been born since the move, back on Ardulum. While she didn’t like their containment, she did understand its purpose. Until they learned how to deal with all that raw power, they were a danger to themselves and everyone around them. And this girl, this girl, was a nuclear reactor with a gelded mind. She was a titha with an intergalactic laser. Death would be a mercy.
Corccinth unfurled her fingers and smoothed the wrinkles on her skirt. “I have some people that work for me who could disintegrate that ship. I can have them here in three days. We can deal with this issue now and then, after the fallout, return to our original goal.”
“I would prefer a different course.” Pihn’s neck was now bright purple. Corccinth couldn’t ascertain why. Xe had shown her the tablet, after all. Pihn understood the ramifications of such a child. She wasn’t a pet. She was barely Ardulan, at this point, with all the Risalian tinkering. They were in this to save lives, weren’t they?
Pihn pulled a laser gun from hir satchel. It was an oddly shaped thing, with a barrel that seemed too long for regular use. “Do you know much about tramp transport, Advisor?”
“No.” Corccinth wrinkled her nose and tapped two fingers on the black biometal exterior of the gun. “Trade comes to us. We don’t generally go to it.”
Pihn nodded and placed the gun back in its satchel. “The Markin have allowed a small number of vessels to remain outside our Ardulan influence—and marginally outside our laws. The reasoning is somewhat complex, but generally, it revolves around our negotiations with the Neek and their distrust of technology. These beings serve, too, as a sort of touchstone for where the Systems are without Risalian influence. They’re a way to check in, I think. See if we can ease up on the influence. The Risalian endgame is true peace, not a manufactured one, but that takes time. A lot of beings have to forget a lot of old grudges.” Xe pointed. “Walk with me?”
Corccinth nodded, and Pihn led her around several Oori puddles, towards the sound of the fake waterfall. “I don’t follow,” Corccinth called up to hir. “Are you concerned about an early removal of the flares unraveling the ‘good’ your people have done for the Charted Systems?”
Pihn shook hir head but, after a moment, turned back around and frowned. “Yes, to a degree. But also, I want to suggest an alternative. We have beings, Advisor, who could help integrate this girl. They would care for her and her mother—of that I am sure. There is one ship in particular that has the cultural background necessary—and the contact network—to hide the child until she is old enough to make her own choices.”
Corccinth frowned as they went around a bend to a central plaza with not one but three artificial water features. Of course. “According to your reports, your Ardulans don’t make choices. They don’t have free will. Did Cell-Tal change that, too?”
Pihn guided her to the left. “No, but I’m not convinced that narrative is entirely true. They’re still sentient, just resigned. One cannot make choices when there are no choices to make. If the girl grows up in a moral void, what choices will she make when she breaks free of containment? We both agree that the Risalians are not capable of holding someone of her potential. When they try to keep her contained, or when they separate her from her mother, there will be violence. She will learn violence.”
They approached a small alcove surrounded by holographic andal trees, the sound of falling water clearly echoing from a speaker in the wall. Pihn inclined hir head. In the alcove sat a large, bushy Terran and a smaller, better-groomed one. They were huddled over a tablet, occasionally making emphatic gestures. Both wore stained and torn beige flight suits, and the woman, in particular, wore thick-soled boots, which was rare to see in the Systems. Especially on Terrans. They did love their fashion.
Corccinth sent a questioning look to Pihn. Xe motioned to keep walking and waited until they were a good distance away before responding.
“They haul for Cell-Tal,” xe responded. “Primarily to Neek.”
Corccinth’s eyes opened wide in understanding. “Not a Terran. She’s the Neek, then? The only one off-world?”
“Yes. Kicked off her planet because she thinks Ardulum is a fairy tale meant to keep her people from the stars.”
A bubble of laughter burst from Corccinth’s mouth. This was, well, this was delicious. “This is why we’ve stopped seeding in primitive cultures. Gives the Eld big heads.” She paused then, considering. As amusing as it would be to drop a child god on a Neek, the situation did require some delicacy. Corccinth carefully formed her next question. “You want to drop a genetically modified Ardulan on a heretic Neek and a Terran tramp captain? These are the morals you want that girl to have?”
“Yes.” Pihn toyed with hir satchel. Xe took a deep breath and exhaled through hir slits, which eased their coloring into a shade closer to gray. “Anyone else would figure out what that girl can do and turn her over to us. Law-abiding citizens, remember? Ardulans tinkering with their minds. But give her to a Neek with enough entrenched dogma to continuously deny what the girl is and a Terran who cares about galactic politic
s about as much as he cares about combing his hair?” Xe looked up. “They’re perfect.”
Corccinth chewed the inside of her lip, considering, as they walked past yet another holographic waterfall. Having the girl and her mother loose in the Systems for a good number of years…there were a lot of things that could go wrong in that scenario. “You’re not concerned at all about the effect of having two free Ardulans in the Systems when you have your hidden ones everywhere? If they’re making mental connections with me, surely they will with her as well.”
Pihn’s gaze remained steadily on Corccinth. Xe didn’t look away, but hir neck had completely reverted to blue. Xe stopped in the middle of the walkway, forcing dozens of beings to weave around them. Hir shoulders were squared, hir breath calm.
“That’s the plan then, is it?” Corccinth asked, coming up next to hir. “Instead of the Systems’ destruction, you want to engineer the salvation of the Risalian Ardulans?”
For a moment, it looked like Pihn might deflate, but the moment passed and hir confidence returned. “If we do nothing, we are guaranteed destruction. If we do this, then there is a small chance for stability. For your people to go home, to let the Charted Systems find their own peace, and for that girl to have a real life.”
Corccinth’s stomach rumbled again. She had a piece of cooked andal in the pocket of her skirt, but she refrained from reaching for it. The hunger kept her sharp when everything in this conversation was pushing her towards foolish hope. It was impossible, this chain of events that Pihn proposed, but then, she lived on a traveling, sentient planet. She could do things most beings would consider magic. Who was she to say there was no hope? It wasn’t her planet that was being gambled with, nor any of the Alliance.