Empress of the Sun

by Ian McDonald

  ‘In your world, Mr Singh, do you have anything to compare with this?’ Captain Anastasia had asked, when Everness had flown out through the Smoke Ring to join in kris, the duel of honour, with the Bromley flagship Arthur P. ‘No,’ he had answered. It had been true then. This was something beyond. On Everness he had been amazed by the sensation of being lighter than air, drifting silent and unseen over the winter world. Aboard Death Falls, with crystal-clear glass beneath him, in front of him and on either side of him, he felt as if he was flying. Flying fast and free. If I had a secret superpower, it would be this, Everett thought. If you could fly, why would you ever do anything else?

  Sharkey had been less impressed. ‘Who puts windows in warships?’ he had sneered before curling up on an oddly shaped Jiju couch and going to sleep.

  That’s nice for you; you have a good sleep, Everett scowled. He was still furious with Everness’s weighmaster. Sharkey had thrown the decision of whether or not to surrender the Infundibulum on to Everett. Yes, the Infundibulum was his; yes, no one else had the right to make that decision, but Sharkey was an officer and an adult. Responsibility was his job, and guilt the price of his decisions. You don’t load that on to a teenager, no matter what your Down-South Daddy taught you about standing on your own two feet and shooting your own food. There was no other decision that Everett could have made, but that didn’t mean that he was the right person to make it. What hurt him the most was the deep needle of guilt in his heart. He was the bad guy. He had no other choice but to be the bad guy, but he still felt dirty and dark inside: darkness walking. Everett Singh: betrayer of worlds. Was this the lesson Sharkey had wanted to pass down to Everett – that sometimes all adults have is your choice of darknesses?

  Everett was still guilty and dark and very, very angry. And that made him all the more helpless, because he knew that when the Sunlord fleet found Everness, he and Sharkey would need to work like family.

  The birdsong chorus of Jiju voices throughout the cruiser shifted tone and rhythm. Something had changed: there was something new. There. Everett pressed his hands against the glass. The sense of speed, of pure flight, was dizzying. Ahead: a knot on the horizon, the apparent size of an insect. Such was the speed of the Sunlord fleet that in an instant it had leapt into focus: Everness entangled with three alien aircraft. ‘Insect’ was the right image: the ship looked like something from a particularly savage David Attenborough documentary: a beautiful caterpillar paralysed, trapped and digested by three grasping predators. Closer, and now Everett could make out details of the capturing craft: they were like airborne steel squid, elegantly patterned in tiger stripes that constantly shifted colour: red and blue, purple and green, red and white.

  Everett shook Sharkey. He woke with a yell and Everett found himself looking down the barrels of a shotgun.

  ‘Sorry, brother.’ Sharkey flicked the gun away. ‘Bad conscience.’

  ‘We’ve found Everness.’

  Kax came down the staircase from the upper deck and joined Everett and Sharkey at the observation bubble. The Genequeen skysquid were trying to carry away their prize at best speed, but Everness’s sheer size and ungainliness meant they could not possibly outrun the Sunlord navy.

  ‘We’re hailing them and informing the Princess Jekajek Rasteem Besheshkek of the judgement of the High Magisterium.’

  ‘What is that judgement?’ Sharkey asked. He slept as lightly as a cat; in the few seconds since Everett had surprised him awake, he was fully alert and focused.

  ‘That your ship and all its crew are honoured guests of the Empress of the Sun and enjoy the status of diplomats from your universe to the Worldwheel.’

  ‘“For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners … our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding,”’ Sharkey said.

  The Sunlord ships were slowing, opening into a horseshoe formation around the lumbering Genequeen flotilla. The skysquid maintained heading, speed and their grasp on Everness. The skyqueens held position and velocity.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Everett asked.

  ‘Princess Jekajek Rasteem Besheshkek is considering our judgement,’ Kax said.

  A movement beneath his feet made Everett look down. In the lower hull dozens of small hatches were opening like the individual flowers of a bluebell, or a hyacinth. The air buzzed with motion: nanobots. Each of the ships in the Sunlord fleet was following suit, sowing thousands of nanobot seeds.

  ‘Okay,’ Everett said. ‘What’s happening now?’

  ‘Princess Jekajek Rasteem Besheshkek has rejected our judgement,’ Kax said. ‘We are exercising our legal right to enforce compliance.’

  ‘You can’t! They’ll kill them all!’ Everett shouted. The swarms of nanobots dived on the skysquid. At the final instant they reshaped themselves into spear-points, each the size of a family car, aimed squarely at the tentacles. Those tentacles sprouted smaller tentacles. They met the Sunlord blade missiles in a storm of flashes and sparks. The Sunlord strike hit hard: two severed tentacles released their grasp on Everness’s hull, slipped and fell to the forest canopy. The Sunlord spears dissolved into their components’ nanobots and reformed into super-speed sword-missiles. The Genequeen close-in defences detached from the main grasping tentacles, reformed in sword-missiles and streaked out to meet the attackers in a mid-air flying sword battle. Cut, stab, parry; thrust and dodge; a hundred sword-missiles duelled back and forth in the airspace between the two fleets.

  ‘“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,”’ Sharkey said with reverence. His eyes were wide: he was in awe. But Everett had seen another thing, beyond the flashing blades. Those tentacles that remained were tightening their grip on Everness. Everett could see the ship’s skin bulge and strain around the constricting coils.

  ‘They’re going to destroy the ship!’ The observation deck would give Everett a front-row view of the death of his friends. A flash, a sharp fast shadow out there in the sky, then Sharkey threw himself at Everett, hit him hard, smashed him up against the rear of the observation bubble. His ears popped, wind and noise hammered him. Everett scraped his hair out of his eyes. The front of the glass blister was gone, neatly sheared off. The sword-missile that had cleaved it in two looped away.

  ‘Whoa. Thank you.’

  The wind was brutal, a lashing hurricane, whipping tears from Everett’s eyes. He struggled to his feet against the shrieking gale.

  ‘Come on, here. Here.’ From halfway up the staircase to the upper level, Kax offered a hand. Crew gave respect and moved out of Kax’s way as she brought Everett and Sharkey to the upper bridge. From the gallery Everett could see the entire battle spread out across the sky. Sword-missiles and nanobot swarms clashed and slashed. A Sunlord skyqueen spiralled slowly downwards, a thread of smoke unravelling from its starboard hull. One of the skysquid that had held Everness was gone, but the other two held on with a death-grip. Sword-missiles dashed and parried, steel flashed, another severed tentacle spun away from the airship. It was thrilling, it was terrifying and Everett knew how it would end: with the total destruction of the loser. He had seen it when Kax fought her rival to the death to become Princess of the Sun Throne. It was the Jiju way.

  Everett had ended that fight. He had thrown Kax the shotgun. There had been no other way. She would have died. He had done right, but he did not feel right. He never would feel right about death. There had to be a better decision than death, between a choice of darknesses. There had to be a better way, a cleverer way.

  ‘Sharkey, you’re the weighmaster – is there a way of opening the cargo hatch from the outside?’

  ‘There’s an external switch. But it’s on the bottom of the ship, underneath the hull.’

  That was the first part.

  ‘Kax, you’re in command here?’

  ‘As a member of the Royal Family, yes, I am the highest-ranking officer.’

  ‘Can you bring us in underneath Everness? Lik
e real close? Close enough to hit a switch underneath the ship?’

  Kax exchanged a flurry of song with the bridge officers.

  ‘It can be done.’

  ‘I can get you the Infundibulum.’

  *

  Omis were so predictable. Sen went straight to the hammock, tipped the sheets on to the floor and took the T-shirt-wrapped object hidden under the bedding. Clever about some things, Everett Singh, not so clever about others. The T-shirts, the hammock, the latty smelled of him. Slightly sweet, slightly like honey with a stomach-lifting undertone of sock-and-jock. Sen tucked the Infundibulum under her arm like a rugby ball to her chest. Everness shook again, sending her reeling into a bulkhead. Sen felt every creak and strain, every grate of the squidship tentacles across the hull as if they were on her own skin. They would crush it like an egg, like the skull of old Gadger Ree, the Knights of the Air’s legendary drinker, who had fallen asleep on the railway line.

  Another ship was going to die.

  Sen froze as memory, strong as a blow, took her back to that first escape pod, falling free from the burning hulk of the Fairchild, hanging there against the storm clouds, burning, burning, until the parachutes opened and hid the terrible sight.

  She was cursed; she drew misfortune to her like the spire of Christ Church Spitalfields, the patron church of the Airish, drew lightning. She was Dona Darkside, the Airish Saint of Scapegoats, Fortune and the Weather. She was Sen Shipkiller.

  Sen stopped to take a last look into her own latty. The clobber, the mess, the make-up and smelly stuff, the magazines and the little box where she kept the ideas and clippings and bits of shiny things for cards. Almost, she took the box. Rugby players looked down from the walls of the latty; imaginary boyfriends, muscled sports gods. Save yourself, Sen. A last look, but not the last thing. Sen stopped a moment at the head of the main companionway. She could still smell the blood. The Genequeens had healed her body but it still remembered the pain Charlotte Villiers had worked so easily on it. Sen slapped open the armoury cabinet and took a thumper. No one would hit her like that ever again. A slap on the red button armed it. Sen clattered down the main companionway. Everness rang to a barrage of booms. The ship’s spine groaned and twisted: debris rained down on her from the high gantries.

  Everness was dying. Sen froze, helpless with horror and grief. This was how it would end: three humans in a tiny pod swinging over an artificial alien world.

  ‘No!’

  With her one free hand, Sen tried to wipe away the tears. They would not stop.

  ‘Sen!’ Captain Anastasia stood in the hatch of the escape pod, a brass egg held in a drop-cradle over empty space. Mchynlyth had opened the emergency hatch. All they needed was her. She could defy them. She could refuse to leave. They wouldn’t abandon her. The ship would make it. The ship always did.

  ‘Sen!’

  ‘Ma! I’s here! I’s here!’

  Down the companionway, across the cargo deck, the batteries still half-repaired under her feet. Past Mchynlyth’s engineering cubby. The latches that held the cargo containers. All those runs to the cold north, the impellers at full thrust driving into the wind from the pole. All those warm nights when she slept down in her special place on the cargo hatch and let the warm night wind of Amexica lull her in scents of juniper and sage.

  Emotion stopped her in her tracks.

  A Jiju figure appeared from a stairwell, tall and lithe and oddly jointed, pointing a globe-topped staff at her head. Between her and the escape pod.

  ‘Sen, give me the Infundibulum,’ the Genequeen said in Sen’s own voice. Jekajek Rasteem Besheshkek: the Jiju who had healed her, the Jiju who had taken her voice and language, the Jiju who had put the whole terrible history of her people into Sen’s head.

  ‘No, I won’t. You shall not have it.’

  ‘Sen, the Sunlords will kill us all. Every last one of us. It’s what they want. It’s what they’s always wanted. They rule the sun. You’s seen it.’

  The images, the endless wars, the cycles of building and destruction; they had not been an accident, a leakage from brain to brain. Jekajek had placed them there for this moment. Sen would see and understand the Sunlords and their plan over millions of years to be the sole rulers of the Worldwheel. Sen had seen. Sen understood. Sen understood much, much more.

  ‘I don’t care. You get that? I don’t care! You can all burn. All of you. This is mine. I’s keeping it.’

  Jekajek hissed and stabbed her staff at Sen. Sen’s fingers were quicker than the Jiju’s thought. As the nanorobots took the shape of Jekajek’s will, Sen’s finger had pulled the thumper’s trigger. The soft, heavy stun-bag hit the Jiju hard in the centre of her narrow chest. The staff flew up in the air and fell with a clatter to the deck. Jekajek went reeling back towards the open emergency hatch. Her arms flailed, her crest rose, her eyes went wide. Then with a long piercing whistle, she went over.

  Sen stared at the open hatch. Then she threw the thumper away from her. It skidded across the deck and followed Jekajek down through the hole.

  ‘Sen!’ Captain Anastasia held out a hand. ‘You’re all right. You’re all right. Come to me.’

  ‘Ma, I …’

  ‘Come to me.’

  Everness groaned and shook, but Captain Anastasia’s hand was firm. Sen gave another cry and ran to the hatch. At the very last minute she grabbed the Jiju staff, then dived into the soft padded nest of the escape hatch. Captain Anastasia sealed the door behind her and armed the launch button.

  ‘What are you doing with that unholy thing?’ Mchynlyth nodded at the Jiju staff. Its amber head rippled with swirls of gold and chocolate.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sen said. ‘I kinda heard something in my head. Like it was talking to me.’ When she picked up the staff Sen had felt a warm glow flow up her arm, over her heart, into her head like a spray of Christmas bells. The things Jekajek had put in her head, the staff heard them. The staff was calling to them. ‘Ma, Jekajek – I shot her, she’s …’

  ‘You did what you had to do, Sen. You’re safe.’

  The launch button glowed red under Captain Anastasia’s hand. The escape pod rang like a bell to a barrage of distant booms. Sen pulled the Everness tarot from the zipped pocket on her shorts and turned the deck over and over and over in her hands. The pod shook savagely, Captain Anastasia looked up at the sound of a series of terrible wrenching groans, as if the bones of the ship were being pulled out one by one. Still she held her hand over the launch button.

  ‘What are ye waiting for?’ Mchynlyth shouted. ‘If the ship goes down, she takes us with her!’

  Sen pulled her knees close to her chest and tried to push herself down into the impact padding. It was happening again. The soft leather, the safety gel, the smell of leather and brass and grease, the shaking and the shocks and the not knowing what was going on out there. It was happening again and she could not do a thing about it.

  ‘Speak to me,’ Sen whispered and turned over the top card of her deck. Two Bad Cats: cut-out cats with hypodermic syringes for claws, in the back of a open-topped car. ‘What?’ Two Bad Cats meant fun that could backfire on you; enjoy now, pay later. Pleasure with a sharp edge. Meant nothing. The cards had stopped speaking to her. She was losing the trick. It was all the stuff Jekajek had put in her head, the stuff that sent chords of electric music through her brain every time she looked at the Jiju staff.

  The pod lurched, metal screeched and tore. A long, slow scraping from the top of the ship’s hull all the way to the bottom. Sen, her mother and Mchynlyth all looked at each other.

  ‘What was that?’ Mchynlyth snapped. ‘What. The hell. Was that?’ His eyes were wide and wild. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. He leaped for the door, tried to wrestle Captain Anastasia away from the lock. ‘My pipes! My pipes are out there! I cannae leave my pipes!’ Sen grabbed Mchynlyth’s legs and dragged him from the hatch. His skin was grey with pallor. His hands shook. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just … I’m a wee bit �
� claustrophobic.’

  The pod, the entire ship trembled to the longest, hardest shaking yet. Still Captain Anastasia held her hand over the red launch button. A terrible, shrieking rip, like every soul in the world being torn in half. Booms. Thuds. Another long, shredding screech. Then silence.

  ‘Ma …’

  Captain Anastasia held up a finger. She looked up at the lights.

  Silence.

  Sen was holding her breath. Mchynlyth was holding his breath. Captain Anastasia was holding her breath. Sen strained for sound, any sound.

  A clunk. A whine.

  Mchynlyth looked flabbergasted. ‘That’s the …’

  Captain Anastasia shushed him. He mouthed the words cargo hoist. A pause. A second whine. A clunk. Closing, Sen thought. Even her heart was too loud. What was that? Did she hear? Footsteps. Two sets.

  Footsteps.

  Captain Anastasia threw all her weight on to the release lever. The hatch locks hissed open. Sen seized the Jiju battle-staff. Ideas for how to use it formed in her head; the nanobots turned them into physical shapes. Captain Anastasia swung open the door. Shafts of light beamed through a dozen rips in the ship’s skin, like a cathedral hit by a tornado. Standing in the light before the emergency-pod hatch were Everett and Sharkey.