Memory's Blade

by Spencer Ellsworth

  “It is not.”

  The silence hangs between us, Kalia looking petulant. Sometimes I can reduce this girl to sounding like a normal teenager. Less and less lately, but sometimes I can.

  Kalia speaks again. “You never should have promised to let her go free.”

  “There it is,” I say. “Can’t have a conversation without that.”

  “By what authority could you make a promise like that? She’s just as guilty as her husband of war crimes. We deal with her, we show how we’ll react to his return.”

  “John Starfire is dead,” I say. “I shot him off a planet-cracker then blew up the planet underneath him. He’s dead, all right?” Why does she always bring this up?

  “You know what I believe.”

  I know. Kalia says that she has six reliable John Starfire sightings since Rocina.

  It’s nonsense. But as something between a missing, soon-to-return Chosen One and a martyr, John Starfire’s become very useful for the Resistance. And Kalia’s never hidden her disappointment at my failure to produce a corpse.

  In the last five months of cross pregnancy and gestation, I’ve learned just how hard it is to change the reins of power within the galaxy.

  The Reckoning is a movement, not a government, and all our allies—the Hukas, the Necros, the Thuzerians—aren’t interested in forming anything more than a coalition. Well, each one wants a government, but they want something different. The Kurgul nests and the Necros would like a very weak confederation subject to bribes. The Thuzerians would like a strong central government. A religious one.

  We don’t want any of that. But we have to figure something out. The vats, as impossible as it sounds, are still running. The Resistance, depleted, with more than its share of defectors to the Reckoning, still believes and fights. We have the command of the nodes, but they have more ships every day. We’ll win eventually—the crooks of the galaxy are on our side, and that’s an advantage—but what then?

  We’ll have criminals on one side, religious warriors on the other, and the bluebloods—led by Kalia—in the middle.

  “Aranella is more useful as a prisoner,” I say.

  She looks back up, and her face is that mask again, the mask she’s gotten so used to making. “Aranella is never going free, Araskar. You had no right to make that promise. Our next destination is going to have to be the Thuzerians’ system. It’s the only place you can raise that child safely. For better or worse, that’s where we’ll try her.”

  I leave off saying anything there. If there is one thing Jaqi and I are very tired of, it’s believers treating her like the Chosen One. Well, she’s not tired of the part where they’ll bring her fresh food whenever she asks, but otherwise . . .

  “Sleep,” Kalia says. “When you awaken, when Jaqi’s strong enough, we’ll go back to Llyrixa.” It has an air of finality about it. “You two and the child will be safe there. I can finally relax.”

  “Kalia,” I say, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “You will never relax. Neither will I. We’ll always be looking over our shoulder, one hand on our weapon. We’ll always have the voices of the dead in our ears. You choose whether you listen to them, or you live.”

  “Don’t tell me about the dead,” Kalia snaps. “You’re still a cross.”

  The room goes as silent as vacuum for a moment.

  And then she’s horrified. And she apologizes. And touches my hand, deliberately, tells me how tired she is. I nod along and say she’s forgiven. I go back to the birthing room.

  My mind’s made up.

  “Hey,” Jaqi says, as I climb into the bed next to her. “You’re looking like you just went a couple rounds with a Zarra.”

  “With Kalia,” I say, and Jaqi groans. I lean in close to her, whisper in her ear. “Definitely not changing my mind now.”

  Jaqi stokes Dina’s little cloud of hair. “I want this little girl to get raised normal, not in a monastery where folk treat her like she’s made of glass.”

  “Me too.” I nestle my head against Jaqi’s shoulder. “I need to go see her.”

  “Her?” Jaqi looks back at me, her eyes bleary. “Now?”

  “You think I’ll get a chance when we’re surrounded by Thuzerians?”

  “Just keep your wits up, Araskar.” She kisses me tiredly.

  So I get up, and get dressed. Really dressed. Including the soulswords I don’t like wearing anymore. And I walk through the ship. Our ship is under blackout and secrecy warnings tight enough to keep the fleet from knowing whether the Chosen One—Jaqi—is really even here. Which means it’s not far to a prisoner who is also under blackout.

  Aranella.

  Vanaliel, now sporting a pair of synthskin-and-steel legs, guards her. She lights up when she sees me. Vanaliel was one of our most high-profile deserters. She’s devoted her life to paying me back for saving her. “Araskar,” she says. “I’ve asked to pray with her again.”

  “Didn’t go for it, eh?”

  “I used to think she had faith,” Vanaliel says, shifting. “Not anymore.” I nod. The victory has been good for the Thuzerians. They’ve attracted, for once, millions of converts and are opening up new monasteries on worlds all across the galaxy. Gives the Reckoning a few million new soldiers.

  That worries us too.

  “How’s the legs?”

  “Better than new.” She dips her head, in just a hint of a bow. “Praise be to Saint Jaqi the Lightbringer. And the child.”

  “Saint Jaqi’s got a few words for you.”

  “For me?” Vanaliel goes white. Her brush with death really affected this girl. “The Saint wishes to speak to me?”

  “Yes,” I say. “But not via a comm.” I press my soulsword into Vanaliel’s hands.

  This is the big risk. Vanaliel’s our one wild card in the plan. But I’m pretty familiar with Jaqi’s ability to inspire people at this point.

  So while Vanaliel speaks to Jaqi through the soulsword, I enter the cell. And Aranella turns and looks at me. That face. In the shadows, haggard from imprisonment, it looks even more like Rashiya’s. “You’re back.”

  “It’s been a while,” I say.

  “I heard celebrating. Did you have your child?”

  “Yes. Named her Dina. She’s beautiful.” I pause. “I understand.”

  Aranella doesn’t answer.

  “I understand what I did to you when I killed Rashiya.”

  “Araskar, I said I forgave you. What else do you want?”

  “Peace.” I close my eyes for a moment, open them again. “Even when they thought you had betrayed him, the Resistance respected you. I need you to go back and build a coalition. I need peace. The longer this war goes on, the louder the extremists get.”

  “You expect me to go back and preach this nonsense your Reckoning is spreading—that Jorians and humans were the same race?”

  “Believe whatever the hell you want,” I say. “Just respect the cease-fire.”

  “How are we supposed to get past your guard there?”

  “The Saint has pull,” I say.

  Aranella laughs. “I remember the same moment with John. The moment when he decided to take advantage of his followers’ faith, rather than try and run from what they wanted to put on him.”

  “Let me guess. It was the moment he changed forever.”

  “No,” Aranella says, standing. “Just one of many small changes. To the day he died, he was still the man I married, Araskar. He believed. That was who he was.”

  And that’s another thing that worries Jaqi. “Come on.”

  I step outside and face Vanaliel, whose face is streaked with tears. She hands the sword back to me. “I’ll do what she asks.”

  Jaqi is never far from Taltus’s old sword, and it was more difficult to forge a connection between the two, but not impossible. The ship’s ready?

  Node’ll open when I said.

  We’ve planned this.

  I hate what we have to do to Vanaliel. She’ll be the one who deactivates t
he sensory network within our ship. She’ll be the traitor at the highest level of her rank. She’ll be the one who faces Kalia’s wrath, and the wrath of all the other soldiers who believe as she does, because of what Jaqi and I asked. I saved her life because it was the right thing to do, not so I could call in a terrible favor.

  I watch Vanaliel walk away, toward the sensor array.

  And a moment later, I hear the telltale change in the hum of the systems that means the sensory block is in place.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Aranella.

  It’s a relatively quiet walk to the cloaked hangar bay, where sits the shuttle that has been home to Jaqi and me for the last few months.

  “You’ll broadcast Sanctuary Acts refugee codes on every channel the minute you leave the node,” I say. “I assume they’ll be very interested in a stolen Thuzerian shuttle.”

  She nods, looks between me and the shuttle.

  “I hope you find your children,” I say. “Aranella. I really do.”

  And then the strangest thing in all the universe. She embraces me.

  I didn’t expect this one. Aranella’s not very good at hugging me. She’s stiff as a blade, her arms awkwardly wrapping around my back.

  I start to pull away. “I uh . . . I didn’t expect—”

  That’s when she yanks out my short soulsword, and stabs me.

  I lurch backward, grab my long soulsword, draw it halfway, but by then she’s stabbed me three times.

  That’s strange.

  I’m so soft.

  And it hurts. More than any other wound I’ve taken.

  I stumble back, bleeding like mad from the gut wounds. I’ve got my sword out, but Aranella is already stepping back.

  “I’ll give you your peace. But I lied about forgiving you. My daughter’s memories deserve their rest.”

  And then she’s in the ship.

  And I’m on the ground, bleeding from three deep stab wounds.

  Not dead yet. Not dead yet. Plenty of time. Plenty of time, like I told my daughter. I drag myself across the metal floor, to a safe point away from the ignition of the shuttle, leaving blood and offal and probably pieces of my guts on the floor. Not dead yet. Just cut my guts. And by the amount of blood, maybe a few crucial arteries. I don’t have to examine it. My whole chest is aflame with pain.

  But not dead yet.

  This would be a stupid way to die anyway. I took Irithessa with the Resistance. I fought the Shir. I . . . I can’t remember what else I’ve done but I’m sure this would be a stupid way to die.

  I just need to slap the emergency protocol door opener.

  The emergency protocol that Vanaliel disabled.

  It’s all right. I can tell Jaqi. I’ve got my sword in my hand—no wait, I dropped it when I fell. Did I? It’s hard to see. The light of the shuttle is washing everything out. I think I see the soulsword over there. I crawl along the ground.

  I’m crawling, aren’t I? I can’t tell if I’m crawling or holding still now. I think my arms are moving.

  It’s all right. Not dead yet.

  Like I told Dina, we have lots of time.

  All the time in the universe.

  -22-

  Jaqi

  I NEVER THOUGHT I would have a normal life. I hoped. And hope is a dangerous thing in the wild worlds.

  I looked in Dina’s little eyes not a couple of hours ago and I reckoned that was all the hope in the universe. I saw Araskar sitting next to me, thought about how I was really coming to love that sour dude with the scars on his face and how I reckoned we’d be slightly better parents than I thought, and I didn’t mind that I was giving into scary hope.

  Now I’m looking down at Araskar, in an evil big puddle of blood, and not moving. Not moving one burning bit. Turning a funny blue color. Because of what we planned. Because we thought any peace was better than the Red Peace, which, despite me doing a heap of miracles, keeps getting redder and redder.

  “Jaqi, you should come away,” Kalia says. “I cannot—”

  “Leave me alone.” I bend over him, touch his body, and start wondering how exactly I can bring him back. I done it with Z, and Z done explained it to me. I en’t made a new node since I made the one inside Z, but there’s got to be some of them nano-Suits out there.

  Kid, I say to the music in the back of my head. Kid, you there?

  The music is strained, like the instruments are on the verge of detuning. Kid gave birth today too, and is tired, although I don’t reckon there’s words for Kid’s version of them feelings.

  Kid, I need to open up one of them micro-nodes inside this fella and bring through what can fix him.

  The music stops. It’s never stopped before. Kid!

  After a moment, that music, a kind of complicated, low, pulsing thing. Kid can’t do it right now.

  Yes it can! I yell back. I reach out for the music, try to seize it, pour it down into Araskar. Come on now!

  I sing my mother’s field song, and my own voice sounds funny to me. I sing it and I grab the music and pour it into Araskar and imagine a tiny, microscopic node bringing tiny Suits through . . . only there en’t no more nano-Suits, is there?

  “Jaqi.”

  “Bugger off,” I say, and then realize who I’ve said it to.

  Z crouches in front of me. His new tattoos blur. Why? Why am I seeing through these blurred eyes? Something wrong with my eyes?

  “Z, I need some of those fellas what’s in your blood,” I say, and rub my face, getting Araskar’s blood on it. “Them nano-Suits.”

  Z touches my hand with his own bloody one. “Jaqi, I cannot offer you this. I am sorry.”

  “What? You always talking about blood and honor, you can’t spare some blood?”

  “I would pour out all my blood to save Araskar,” Z says. “He is a valiant companion, your paramour, and it is my place to kill him anyway, as he took my honor. But the nano-Suits have gone from me. I gave them over to my people, to heal them from the virus that ravaged them. They went among my family, and then among my clan, and then among other clans, scattering across all of Zarra-krr-Zar, for those who chose survival as a type of honor. Every last nano-Suit has gone to use.”

  “They’re on your Zarra world? I can summon them?”

  “The nano-Suits were exhausted of their capabilities. Few still function.”

  “That’s okay! It’s evil worth a shot—”

  He grunts, and I hate how I know what he’ll say. “I fear it is too late for Araskar, Jaqi. I had only been dead a few moments when you brought through the Suits on the moon of Trace. He has lain here long, and lost too much blood.”

  “No!” I shake my head. “No, hell no! He went through so much, Z. This is wrong. Evil wrong.” I don’t say what I think—and our own fault.

  He thought Aranella had let go of her grudge. He believed her. It’s why we took that chance of shutting down the communication on the ship. We had it all planned. It was going to work, because he kept saying I believe Aranella.

  “Let me carry him,” Z says. “Let me bear his honor.”

  I huddle on the floor while Z picks up Araskar, heedless of the blood that soon soaks him, and carries the body of my child’s father, the fella I loved.

  “This was supposed to be a happy day.” I feel so damn stupid saying it.

  Hope is a dangerous thing in the wild worlds, but I hoped so badly.

  A day passes, and an eternity. I nurse Dina and hold her and don’t let no one else touch her. Other folk talk to me. I blink and stare, and go back to holding my baby. Toq comes in and cries. Z comes in and doesn’t speak, just holds my hand in his big, freshly tattooed one. I just sit there with my baby.

  Dina cries and I change her diaper and we start to get the hang of the nursing business, and finally once she’s asleep I get dressed and wrap her up on my chest.

  And Araskar’s not there. Keep waiting for that slab to come through the door and grimace and mumble something about how he can’t find any more chocolate in the entire
galaxy, will I ever stop asking, how’m I feeling?

  The door never opens.

  I go to Kalia in the situation-room. She’s sitting there touching the guns she got from Scurv, closing her eyes like she’s talking to them.

  “Kalia,” I say, and she snaps out of it.

  “Jaqi, you’re up. How are you feeling?”

  I en’t got time for this. “Kalia, I’m going away.”

  “What? You can’t go away—the whole galaxy is on fire. And everyone will be looking for you. We need you to keep our advantage with the nodes, so we can beat the Resistance—”

  “You en’t going to beat the Resistance,” I say. “Not without some kind of give. Not without peace. I wish we could smash them for good, because they deserve it, but that’s just how it is.” I don’t say, I’m done with hope, but I think it.

  “Jaqi. Come on. What about Quinn? What about Bill? What about everyone who died on Shadow Sun Seven? What about—”

  “Out the airlock with that, Kalia,” I snap. “I did my bit for the lost. You know what’s in the future. Just more war.”

  “Not if we play our hand right.”

  “They have the vats. They have the shipyards. They have more dreadnoughts and troops coming off the line every day. You have to try and make peace with . . .” I can’t say her name.

  “The woman who killed Araskar? The woman who put my mother in some black site labor camp, and I still haven’t found her?”

  “She’s a vile piece of space,” I say. “Any justice, and she’d be out the airlock. But she don’t believe her husband was no Son of Stars. She don’t believe like the rest of the Resistance.” I swallow against the raggedy lump that threatens to shoot out my throat in a sob. “En’t no easy answers in a way.”

  Kalia takes a moment, now. I can see the changes in her already. See the way she touches the Scurv-guns, like they is the ones that understand her. I reckon they do understand her. They just spit out heat, and anger. “I don’t care what Aranella believes. They have to be beaten. Humiliated. The entire galaxy needs to see you with your foot on John Starfire’s throat.”

  That sounds familiar, ai, though I can’t say why. “And then? Even if you beat them, how much you reckon another Resistance springs up? The bluebloods spent a thousand years ruling the galaxy; you’ll find folks who still resent you. Another fight. And another. When peace comes, it’ll be your choice.”