by Yoon Ha Lee
Khiruev marked the swarms’ trajectories converging on a point in a stretch of space she had thought unremarkable, except Cheris insisted it was the Aerie’s location and the high general believed her. Of the six emblems, the one Khiruev kept returning to was General Inesser’s Three Kestrels Three Suns.
Cheris and Brezan weren’t the only ones having a discussion. There were four servitors: three deltaforms and a birdform. The deltaforms kept flashing rapid lights at each other. The fact that the lights were in the human visible spectrum was almost certainly a matter of courtesy. Khiruev had learned that servitors cared a great deal about courtesy, and had endeavored to revise her behavior accordingly, since the high general hadn’t forbidden it. The birdform either approved of this or had decided that dying generals made a good hobby. Whichever was the case, it hovered companionably by Khiruev, periodically refilling her teacup from the kettle that Cheris and Brezan were ignoring.
“If I’m understanding this correctly,” Brezan said, “the servitors prefer not to take action with so many observers around who might figure out they were responsible?”
Khiruev wondered if Brezan had realized that he tended to direct his speech toward empty expanses of wall whenever he mentioned the servitors, or even when he was supposedly addressing them.
Two of the deltaforms, whom Khiruev had tagged Two and Three because she was tired, exchanged a heated flurry of lights and dissonant chords. Then Three said something in very red lights to Cheris.
Cheris frowned, then said, “That’s basically it. They’ve already evacuated as many servitors as they could, but even so—”
Brezan bit his lip. “Cheris,” he said, “if there are servitors on those defense swarms as well—” He stopped.
“You may as well come out and say it,” she said.
“If they can reduce Kel Command to radioactive static, then surely a bunch of moths—”
Cheris’s hands tensed, untensed. “Brezan,” she said, “that’s a lot of moths. Crew on the order of 300,000 altogether. Even if we had definite information that all six generals were irredeemably corrupt, which we don’t, I’d rather kill as few people as we can get away with. Besides which, those aren’t small swarms, and the hexarchate’s enemies haven’t gone away. Do you really want to do away with that chunk of the hexarchate’s forces? Its senior generals?”
“That’s an interesting argument from someone who’s dead-set on tearing the realm apart,” Brezan said.
“I’m not entirely Jedao,” Cheris said, although Khiruev wondered sometimes. “The point of the exercise isn’t to maximize the death toll. It’s to change the system so ordinary people have a chance. People will die, yes. A lot of them. But we don’t have to go out of our way to kill even more.”
“I want to know how you came to this philosophy after having a mass murderer stuffed up your nose,” Brezan said.
“I’m trying to fix the things he broke,” Cheris said, “because I remember breaking them.”
Brezan slumped. “So we wait? You’re not tempted to sweep in and rescue Kel Command from the Hafn?”
Khiruev roused enough to say, “Sir, not only would they not thank us, General Inesser should be more than adequate to the task anyway.”
“By ‘not thank us’ you mean they’d blow themselves up just to get rid of us,” Cheris said wryly. “Don’t they teach us to avoid full frontal assaults anyway?”
Brezan groaned, clearly thinking of any one of four hundred Kel jokes. “Fine,” he said. “We wait for a better opportunity. But what if one doesn’t come?”
“Then we reassess the plan,” Cheris said. “What concerns me is that we haven’t been able to figure out the Hafn vector of approach. The coverage of the detectors and listening posts is hardly universal, so we’re going to have to wait and see.”
Brezan and Cheris turned their attention to a bannermoth that was having engine problems. Khiruev was disturbed, although not surprised, that she had difficulty following the details. The gnawing cold made it hard to concentrate. The birdform chirped at her, possibly thinking that tea, even if it wasn’t a sovereign remedy, would at least warm her. She smiled wanly at it and took a sip.
“I don’t claim to understand you,” Khiruev said to the birdform, “but considering the length of your service, I hope there’s something in this for you. And I’m sorry I’ve never learned your language.”
The birdform tapped encouragingly on the nearest wall. Cheris looked up briefly, then returned to running through drive harmonic diagnostics with Brezan. The birdform repeated the tapping, and Khiruev realized it was in the Kel drum code: You don’t have to die.
Khiruev blinked.
You can choose not to die.
She couldn’t remember why she had invoked Vrae Tala, except when she could. Her father crumpling into corpse-paper, the clanking bells, her mothers clutching each other afterward while she stood frozen trying not to see what was right in front of her. The cutting disappointment every time she survived a battle. She’d learned to hide it, but it never evaporated entirely.
“I am Kel,” Khiruev said painfully. “Even assuming all of this works, in order to free myself of Vrae Tala I would have to free myself of formation instinct. The clause is part of the whole.”
The birdform mulled this over. More tapping: My people have served without formation instinct. Is our service not service?
“It’s not for me to make that judgment,” Khiruev said.
Would your general deny you this?
You chose Vrae Tala, Brezan had said to her just days ago, trying to explain something as distant as smoke. Would the high general want her to give up what made her Kel?
It was barely possible that you could be Kel without formation instinct. Hard not to notice that Brezan was a crashhawk, after all. But this led inevitably to the question of whether it was desirable to be Kel in the first place.
“I will learn to choose,” Khiruev said, “if the high general desires it of me.”
The servitor’s chirr might have been a sigh. It gestured toward the tea with one of its gripping limbs. Obligingly, Khiruev took another sip. The warmth wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t have to.
SIX KEL SWARMS reached the Aerie and waited to banner.
Cheris and Brezan started arguing about what was going to become of the Kel afterward, especially once Cheris pointed out that a successful decapitation strike would leave Brezan the senior Kel officer.
“I’ll resign,” Brezan said.
“That will leave the Kel leaderless,” Cheris said. “Is that what you want to do?”
“I hate it when you open your mouth,” Brezan said. “The things you say never make the situation better.”
Khiruev took to playing card games with the servitors, on the grounds that no one expected her to function anymore. The servitors usually won. She appreciated that they didn’t throw the games to make her feel better.
Shuos Mikodez finished knitting his scarf. The first two people he offered it to were unable to hide their suspicion that it would come alive and strangle them. With modern fibers it was hard to tell.
Three hexarchs, Rahal, Andan, and Vidona, set out for Nirai Station Mavi 514-11. Nirai Faian was already there.
Thirty-eight days after Mikodez alerted Kel Tsoro of an imminent Hafn raid, Kel listening posts near four large moth construction yards reported Hafn moth formants incoming. Three of those construction yards exploded shortly afterward. Kel Command concluded that the construction yards had been the real targets, as two of them had been the only ones capable of building cindermoths. It dispatched four of its defense swarms to repulse the invaders. Disconcertingly, the listening posts lost sight of the formants.
Cheris and Brezan, upon receiving word of further Kel movements, held an emergency meeting and determined that this would be their best opportunity to strike. Khiruev was not present for the discussion. She had collapsed two days earlier, seventy-nine days after she invoked Vrae Tala, and had been removed to Medi
cal.
VAUHAN ISTRADEZ REFLECTED that, on any other day, he could entertain himself by swinging by one of the Shuos academies and terrifying the everliving fuck out of innocent little cadets. Lucky for them that he didn’t share his second older brother’s predilection for stupid pranks, even if he was serving as his brother’s double. Besides, he had a more important job to do. Mikodez’s physical mannerisms weren’t the hard part. It was the fact that the man was a ferret. To say nothing of the endless hobbies. Istradez was hoping no one was going to force him to knit because he had a positive talent for dropping stitches.
Istradez was aboard the shadowmoth Eyes Unstabbed, typical cheery Shuos name. While there had been no way to conceal the destination from the crew, none of them knew his identity. The ruse wouldn’t stand up to serious scrutiny, but the odds were low that the commander would demand authentication, and as for the hexarchs, well, they wouldn’t have a chance to think about it. At least Mikodez’s notorious eccentricity would work in his favor if he did slip up.
At the moment he was in the bedroom with a tray, sticking toothpicks into honey cookies because it beat having to eat the damn things. He was considering throwing them out, even if it would be out of character, when the grid informed him that they were bound to contact Station Mavi 514-11 any moment now. He supposed he should put his shoes back on instead of padding around in his socks, even if no one could see them.
Sure enough, Istradez got a call from the moth commander. “Yes?” he said as he surreptitiously wriggled his left foot into the second shoe.
“Hexarch,” the commander said, “you asked to be informed when we made our approach to the station. Protocol requires us to unstealth and inform them of our arrival at the checkpoint radius.” She said that last with no particular emphasis. What she wanted to know was if they were here on an ordinary visit or if they were up to fox tricks.
“Do tell me,” he said lazily, “what do we see on scan?”
She forwarded him the readings, which weren’t much help. As a rule, it was hard to see much from inactive or minimally active mothdrives. They’d have to do this the hard way, then.
“All right,” Istradez said after stabbing the nearest honey cookie with another toothpick, “unstealth and I’ll put in a call, let them know we’re here. Would you like me to send you a cookie?” Anything to be rid of them.
“That’s very considerate of you,” the commander said tactfully, “but if those are what I think they are, I’ll never get the pine nuts out of my teeth.”
You and me both, Istradez thought sourly. “Your loss,” he said.
A brief pause, then: “Moth is no longer stealthed. We’re holding position so we don’t make them jumpy.”
A Shuos, make someone nervous? Never. Istradez called the station, asking to be connected to Hexarch Faian. She responded very promptly. “How late am I?” Istradez asked without any contrition. He had wanted to be late—preferably the last to arrive—although she didn’t need to know that. He was already entering a sequence of commands. Even if he missed the others, taking out Faian would be worth something.
“You’re the last one here, Mikodez,” Faian said, brows drawing low.
Splendid. He smiled his brother’s smile at her, even though Mikodez had said that wouldn’t work. “Well, I shan’t delay us any longer. See you soon?”
“I look forward to it,” Faian said, polite by rote.
Istradez entered the final override.
People sometimes got the idea that hexarchate space was so densely littered with shadowmoths that you couldn’t pick your nose without one catching you at it. The truth was that space was big and the damn things were too expensive for the Shuos to use so liberally. You had to power down the stealth system to do anything useful with exotic weapons, including the devastating but slow-recharge knife cannon. To add insult to injury, once you powered it down, stealth took ages to come back up. All of which was a long way of saying that the Eyes Unstabbed would get in the necessary first strike, but no one would make it out alive.
Istradez did feel bad for the shadowmoth’s crew, who hadn’t signed on for a suicide mission. However, even he could see the problems with telling them why they were really here. Besides, he was no Kel, but he had volunteered for this. That had to suffice.
While I’m at it, what good will this maneuver do? he had asked after Mikodez agreed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jedao’s notorious Patterner 52 in its glass case, but he didn’t dare move his head to gawk at it.
The Shuos will come out three moves ahead, Mikodez said. He had returned to his customary terrifying amusement. Are you telling me you insisted on the assignment without thinking it through?
I still want to do it, Istradez said. But I want something from you.
Mikodez looked at him unsmilingly. It has to be something I can give.
An honest answer, Istradez said. This time for real, not because you’re giving me therapy. Is there anything you care about anymore, are you even human, or is it all games and pranks and stratagems? Not something anyone can use against you. I just—I just need to know.
Istradez’s blood chilled when Mikodez stood up, because he didn’t know if this was going to turn into some contest of poison needles or garrotes or guns, and he wasn’t under any illusions that the self-defense training he’d received would help him. But all Mikodez did was sink to his knees in front of him and reach for his hands. Istradez’s breath stopped in his throat when his brother kissed his palms fiercely.
I do my job, Mikodez said. It’s like I told you before. I’ll even send my fucking brother to die if it’s the best way to do the job—His voice cracked, settled. But don’t ever, ever think it’s because I stopped loving you. I don’t want you to go. It’s not too late—
It was too late a long time ago, Istradez said.
The Eyes Unstabbed slowed toward the Nirai station with its rings and lace of sensor arrays, engines, great whirring mechanisms with hearts that were wheels within wheels. Its commander discovered that the crew had been locked out of the controls and attempted to call Istradez on the emergency backup channel. Istradez, naturally, wasn’t responding.
A few minutes before they would have docked at the station, the Eyes Unstabbed fired its knife cannon, scything the station nearly in two, including the central power core. Moments after that, the self-destruct sequence on the shadowmoth triggered, no safeguards, no countdown, nothing.
In his last seconds, Istradez thought that this was overkill, but it was nice to remind the hexarchate that melodrama wasn’t a trait reserved to the Kel. He was looking distractedly at his palms when the world dissolved in a rush of heat and static.
WHEN THE TIME came to reset the hexarchate’s clocks, forty-eight servitors remained in the Aerie. The Kel hivemind didn’t make a habit of noticing servitors, but they had to give the illusion that some of the complement remained. Not to mention someone had to stay behind to make sure the attack went off as planned.
Servitor sin x2, one of the forty-eight, had not stayed behind on account of the sabotage. It had no particular expertise in engineering or demolitions and, in fact, ordinarily served in Medical. The other servitors had urged it to evacuate while it had the chance. The Aerie was not immune to the need for supplies. Servitors had been going out in crates, canisters, any available crevice in the moths’ dark holds.
sin x2 had said, They’re our Kel. Someone should be with them at the end, even if they never know or understand. Then the others, realizing it would not be dissuaded, left it alone.
sin x2 wasn’t under any illusions that the hive Kel cared about it except as an instrument for necessary chores, and sometimes unnecessary ones. It knew that the hivemind became less and less sane with each passing year. Nevertheless, it considered itself Kel. Someone from its enclave should honor Kel Command’s passing.
At present, sin x2 was polishing a collection of musical instruments, one of the oddball duties it had taken up because no one else wanted it.
High General Aurel had brought some of the instruments with her. In the early years she had come here to practice from time to time. The last time she had come in here had been thirty-one years ago. She had played snatches of a concerto. sin x2 paid special attention to the viols, because they had been her favorites.
Servitor tanh x sent the six-minute warning over the maintenance channel.
sin x2 knew High General Aurel was part of Subcommand Composite Eight right now. It whisked quickly through the corridors so it could reach her. The doors were open, as always. It floated in to where Aurel sat on a minimalist metalglass chair. Her posture was beautiful, and her hands still had some of their strength, but the pale brown eyes saw nothing in the room except, perhaps, the limitations of light and shadow.
One minute and eight seconds later, the Aerie roared into an effusion of fire, of heady vapors, of numbers rolling backwards to the new calendar’s pitiless zero hour.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IMPRESSIVELY, ZEHUN GOT past the door to Mikodez’s primary office without getting themselves killed. Mikodez looked up, at first not recognizing the slim figure, the somber eyes, the long red coat. With their hair pulled back from their face, Zehun almost looked as they had when he had first met them, a quiet person with unquiet ideas about how the Shuos should be run. “Go away,” Mikodez said. His voice sounded as though someone had run over it with a rake.
Zehun’s eyes narrowed and they stepped in. The door closed behind them. “You should have said no to Istradez,” Zehun said.
“First,” Mikodez said, “it didn’t concern you.” Patently untrue: everything he did concerned his assistant. “Second, once Istradez offered to go, I had to accept. What was I going to do for the rest of my life, coddle him while I sent other agents to die? Imagine what that would do to morale. That’s bad management.”
“Your brother, Mikodez.” Zehun started to say something, changed their mind. “You’re allowed to have personal attachments. As a rule, the ones who don’t have any are the ones the rest of us have to assassinate for everybody’s good.”