Quyen thought of the Honoured Ancestress’ serene voice, telling her that She could lie. That She had lied, and that the false records were already on their way to the Embroidered Guard. And she knew that it was not a malfunction, but, rather, that the Honoured Ancestress had had to choose between failing its duty of protection or failing its programmed rules. And She had made a decision, in the end. Gone against all that was expected of her.
Like Linh.
“The station itself seems to have no record of anything past fifty years ago. I can only presume you’ve suffered some severe malfunction in the meantime. My sympathies.” The Embroidered Guard’s mouth turned inwards at the corner. “But I see no reason to disbelieve any of this.”
“I need...” She swallowed, aware of her presumption. “If I might have a word with her, before she leaves?” She kept her eyes on the floor, saw it become stained, as if with rust; saw the patches of iridescent colours playing across her skin.
Soon. Soon she would feel the familiar presence, the warmth in her chest. She would no longer feel hollow, emptied of everything.
But it was a lie, and she knew it.
The man made a gesture Quyen couldn’t see. “Fine. You have five minutes.” He stepped away in a swish of silk robes.
Quyen rose, found herself facing Linh across an array of Embroidered Guards who showed no sign of moving. What were they afraid of? That she’d try to run? As if she would. Linh’s face was paler than usual, but perfectly composed. Something had returned to her, a lethal grace akin to Lady Oanh’s, a set cast to her features that gave her the air of a statue in a temple. A magistrate’s face, that of the law, and nothing else.
“I have your package,” Quyen said.
Linh’s lips stretched. It might have been meant as a smile, but it was the most frightening expression Quyen had seen, utterly devoid of anything but a savage joy. “I’m glad, Cousin.”
“You made your intent more than clear, yet again. Was there no more subtle poetry you could have found?”
Linh shrugged. “Perhaps. It doesn’t matter.” She spread her hands. “Was there anything else, Cousin?”
It matters, demons take you. It matters because I need to understand why you did this, why you did any of this. Quyen found her hands were shaking. With an effort, she stilled their trembling.
“Please,” she said, and found herself blinking furiously to clear the tears in her eyes. “I need to—”
“—to control everything, as you’ve always done.” Linh’s voice was flat, but not angry. “To rule the only thing you can rule in your life.”
Her husband Anh, lost in the turmoil of war. The Honoured Ancestress, beyond her grasp now, her memories gone into the darkness. Xuan Rua, who might never forgive her for Huu Hieu’s suicide attempt. “No,” Quyen said. “You don’t understand.”
Linh smiled. And, for the first time, the expression was almost girlish, carefree. “Oh, I do understand. Far too much, Cousin. Some things make sense because they fit into the harmony of the world.”
“Moral principles?” Quyen all but spat, not sure why she wanted to take Linh and shake some sense into the girl. “And you find them now?”
“Perhaps.” Linh’s gaze moved away, towards the tube-door and the ship, and the capital, and the trial that awaited her. The trial that had but one possible outcome.
“For what is worth, because we share blood, though neither of us acted as if we did. Because we are family, and a family might quarrel, but should never tear itself apart. I wish you well, Cousin Quyen. You and everyone aboard Prosper. May you all see ten thousand years of peace.” She turned away, started walking towards the waiting ship, the Embroidered Guards moving with her like a tide.
“Cousin!” Quyen called, as Linh was almost gone. “All the same. Thank you.” The words were like acid against her tongue, like the mem-implants, things she couldn’t hold for long without feeling burnt. “You’ll be welcome among us, should you choose to come back.”
Linh didn’t answer, but Quyen thought she saw her nod. At the last moment, before she vanished within the ship, she turned and nodded to Quyen, from equal to equal. And in her eyes, Quyen saw everything: the pain, the grief, barely held at bay; the fierce anger, and the resolution to be more than that anger, to be more than a failed magistrate, to die for her cause...All of it, flung into Quyen’s mind like the cold of deep spaces, until she found herself shaking, tears running down her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but Linh had moved, and could no longer hear her. “I’m sorry.”
Quyen stood in the rising silence, watching the light pool on the walls beside her. She waited for the moment when the Honoured Ancestress would awake; when she, Quyen, would walk away from the docks, the Honoured Ancestress in her mind, and guide Prosper and its family into the future with her, as she had always done.
She waited for the moment when she would no longer be alone.
***
They let Linh remain in the aft bay of the Mind-ship. After all, with all the doors closed, where else could she go but into the emptiness of space? She stood, watching Prosper slowly recede behind them. The lights, strangely enough, seemed to shine brighter and brighter with every moment, as if the station itself still sought to reach out to her.
A sick mind’s fancy, no doubt. Prosper’s Honoured Ancestress had never cared much for her, and was no doubt glad to be rid of an unwelcomed visitor.
The commander of the Embroidered Guard had told her, stiffly—as if he couldn’t quite resign himself to the necessity of communicating with a criminal—that there had already been pleas in the capital. That she wouldn’t find herself without allies there.
She thought of Lady Oanh, of the vast resources at the other’s disposal. Perhaps she could indeed avoid it, all of it, and its fated ending.
Or perhaps she couldn’t. But her memorial remained and its words, perhaps, in time, would be heeded. Perhaps the Empire would once more be united, just as families that fell out could, in the end, be reconciled to each other.
“That was a noble thing you did,” the commander had said. Puzzled, as if he couldn’t quite understand why she’d refused to drag the station down with her. As if people did that, all the time. But of course, she thought, we’re small-minded and petty, and sometimes, we let ourselves be hollowed out by hatred. And sometimes, we commit the unforgivable.
She watched the station recede away from her, its lights slowly blinking. No, she thought, chilled, it was no illusion. The lights were growing more intense, almost blinding. Not all of them, but the single one in the docking bay, where Quyen would still be standing.
As she watched, it winked, slowly, and shifted to a warm red, the colour of banquet halls, of luck. It held the hue for a full eight heartbeats, before shifting back to the deep yellow of the Emperor and the Imperial Court—her cousin’s wishes for good fortune that Linh would carry with her like a lifeline, all the way into the heart of the divided Empire.
END
About the Author
Aliette de Bodard is a Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award and Sturgeon Award finalist, BFSA winner for Best Short Fiction and a winner of the Writers of the Future award. Her work has appeared in Asimov’s, Interzone, Black Static, Realms of Fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and other venues. Her Aztec mystery fantasies, Servant of the Underworld, Harbinger of the Storm and Master of the House of Darts are available from Angry Robot worldwide. She lives and works in Paris with her husband and more computers than she needs.
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On a Red Station, Drifting Page 13