Invisible Sun

by David Macinnis Gill

  “I will get a broom.” Ghannouj shatters the silence. “Then perhaps Durango can help us practice our Dance of Fools.”

  “Hai!” Yadokai yells, sounding a might too enthusiastic. “Riki-Tiki! Music! Old woman! Stack the mats! Vienne! Stop Noodle Arms from escaping!”

  “Stack them yourself, old man. I’m dancing with Noodle Arms!” Shoei yanks me across the floor, even as Ghannouj is cleaning up the mess and Riki-Tiki is cranking up the dynamo on the music box.

  “Mimi?” I ask. “What should I do?”

  “Dance,” she says. “They are trying to assuage your embarrassment, so keep your big yap shut and go with it.”

  Shoei places me in the center of the floor. Her hands are smaller than Yadokai’s but no less leathery, and her head only reaches my chest. “Show me the dance of the kite.”

  I try to escape. “Yadokai didn’t teach me any kite dances.”

  “Ha!” She yanks the hem of my shirt. “You do not get off so easy. Vienne, come, you will be the kite.”

  “What am I then?”

  She pops me on the forehead. “You control the kite, Noodle Arms!”

  “Control the kite?” I ask Mimi.

  Before she can answer, Yadokai turns on the music, and Vienne is bowing before me. For the feast, she’s dressed in a white linen salwar kameez and is barefoot, her painted toes still pink. Her hair is pinned in a loose bun, and her cheeks look fresh scrubbed. It’s one of the few times I’ve seen her out of symbiarmor, and the sight makes me hyperventilate.

  “Breathe,” Mimi says.

  “I forgot how.”

  As I watch, she raises her hands above her head and begins to bounce, then does a round-over, the rhythmic movements of her arms and legs matching the herky-jerky tack of a kite in the wind. She jumps into the air, arms spinning, then lands and executes a tumbling run that ends with her bounding off the far wall and sailing high up near the beamed ceiling, arms wide, sleeves ripping in wind of her own making, the fabric pressed tight against her chest, long hair escaping its bun and wrapping around her face like the tail of the kite.

  When she lands so lightly that the wooden hummingbird floors barely whisper, my palms are moist, and I think my heart has stopped. With barely a pause, her arms fly above her head again, and her hips sway with the beat of the drum. This is a different Vienne—lost in her own body, free, rapt in the rhythm of the music, beautiful in a way that turns my gut inside out.

  “I believe,” Mimi tells me, “that you should be pretending to control her flight.”

  “Not a chance. There’s no way anybody could control that.”

  “Your choice,” she says, “but it would be better if you tightened your slack jaw. Your tongue is hanging out.”

  “No! No! No!” Yadokai howls. The music stops, and the old man stalks over to me, clapping his hands. He shakes me hard. “You should be guiding the kite, not watching it fly away. Did you learn nothing from your lessons? How will you dance the Bon-Odori now?”

  “Uh,” I say, one eye on him and one eye on Vienne as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, her cheeks and lips flushed red. I feel empty and hungry, as if I’ve never had enough to eat.

  “Master.” Vienne exhales deeply to focus her breath. “Don’t worry. I can teach Durango. He is a very fast study, when he wants to be.”

  We’ve faced bullets, Big Daddies, and cannibals together, but none of them was as fierce as the stink eye the master is giving me. Vienne leans toward me, shielding me from Yadokai, and I can feel the warmth of her skin.

  “Old man! Leave the boy alone.” Shoei pushes Yadokai aside, then shoos us to the door. “Vienne, take him for a walk. We will clean up. Go, go. Wait.” She pinches my earlobe. “No funny business, Noodle Arms. Shoei knows all, eh?”

  “Why is it,” I ask Mimi as the mistress slaps the sliding door closed behind us, “I can lead a whole davos of Regulators, but two small, wrinkled monks treat me like a child?”

  “Some truths are self-evident,” Mimi says.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning it is self-evident, cowboy. Think about it, or try, if you can ever get the butt cramp out of your brain.”

  “Mind your own business!” I tell her as Vienne bounds down the steps to the path, barefoot, immune to the gravel.

  I take a second to pull on my boots, then follow her. Soon, when she is out of range of the lights of the temple, only her linen salwar kameez is still visible. She moves quickly down the path, silent, ghostlike, until the rising sound of frogs alerts me to the proximity of the pond.

  “I did not,” Mimi says, “need the frogs to alert me to the location of the pond.”

  “Goody for you,” I subvocalize, and almost bump into Vienne. “Know what? I think you need some dedicated processing time.”

  “I am capable of multitasking,” Mimi says.

  “Right. Which means you can both kibitz and mock me at the same time,” I tell her as Vienne strikes a match and lights a line of three torches on the edge of the pond. “All right, you can stay awake. Just keep it down, huh?”

  Vienne sits on a smooth stone on the bank. She pats the stone next to her. “Take a load off, soldier.” The tone of her voice is familiar. The old Vienne. The comfortable Vienne. The warrior Vienne. Not the flying girl that makes my involuntary muscles spaz out.

  Earth and her moon, like two dancers always at arms reach, fill up the evening sky, close enough to see with a naked eye. It’s hard to believe that a planet so bright blue and alive could have a moon that’s so desolate. Yet between the two, it’s Luna that shines more brightly.

  “When I was small,” Vienne says, “younger than Riki-Tiki, I used to sit right here, skipping stones and wondering what it would be like to grow up on Earth. Imagine having all the water you could drink, all the food you could eat—”

  “All the pox you could catch,” I say. “You know, Earth’s gravity is four times that of Mars. Which means on Earth, your butt would be four times as wide.”

  She gives me a playful poke in the ribs. “Be serious.”

  “I am serious.”

  “Then be less serious. You’re always Durango the chief and never Durango the jack, right?” She tosses a pebble into the pond. It bounces off a water lily and makes a wet plop. “Even when you’re not wearing armor, it’s like you’re still wearing armor. Know what I mean?”

  Me? Wearing armor? As if she’s not the one who gives a steady supply of mixed signals. First, she almost kisses me; then she’s as distant as a moon. Then she’s playful, like now. All these months together, and it still feels awkward, this thing between us. Sometimes, I dream of just sweeping her up in a deep, melting kiss, then I think no, that’s a great way to lose a few teeth.

  So I toss my own pebble into the water and let enough time lapse before I say, “I reckon I do,” hoping that it will encourage her to explain more.

  But no explanation is forthcoming. Her silence ripples on.

  Clouds are rolling in, quickly obscuring the twin lights of Earth and her moon. In the torchlight, I notice a delicate silver pendant hanging from a chain on her neck. Carved into the center of the pendant is a lotus, surrounded by its leaves.

  “What’s this?”

  “I got it when I was a child. I left it here when—when I left.” She tucks it inside her top. “Sorry about the master and mistress. They mean well, but sometimes their enthusiasm for the Bon-Odori lets them get carried away.”

  “They’re not so bad,” I say. “I’ve met worse. At least they don’t carry live ammo. Or eat people. Or dissolve—”

  “So you like them?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “I’m glad. They like you, too. Especially Riki-Tiki. She says that you are very handsome and would make a perfect husband.”

  My voice rises an octave. “Husband?”

  She pats my knee. “Don’t worry. She’s too young to marry, and besides, you’re already taken.”

  The loss of lung function returns, and I rasp,
“I am?”

  “Do you have to ask?”

  The truth is, yes, I do have to ask. Like she said about Stain, it’s complicated. Infinitely complicated. More complicated than the cipher algorithms Mimi is running to decrypt the MUSE data.

  “No.” I arch an eyebrow. “But I like hearing you say it.”

  She grabs my nose and like Shoei, gives it a playful twist. “You’re pathetic! Maybe I’ll tell Riki-Tiki you’re available after all!”

  We both laugh, which releases some of the tension. I’m more comfortable being her chief than being her taken. I’m beginning to understand what Vienne means when she says that life is easier when you can just shoot your problems. The AI Mimi would probably say that my id and superego are suffering from asymmetrical synchronicity or some such nonsense. The real Mimi probably would’ve said that I had the target in my sights but just couldn’t pull the trigger.

  “Hey,” I say after a moment. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me how to do the Dancing Kite?”

  “That’s Dance of the Kite, Noodle Arms.”

  “Which was amazing,” I say. “Check that, you were amazing. Any chance of an encore?”

  She blushes. “How about now?”

  “But there’s no drumbeat to follow.”

  “I don’t need the drums.” She covers my hands. Her skin is so warm to the touch. “And you couldn’t follow the beat anyway.”

  “Ouch. Good one.” I take her into my arms. She smells like orange peels and sandalwood and my scent is more like—

  “Old boots,” Mimi says. “You have analyzed every possible nuance of experience; now be quiet and start dancing.”

  “No kibitzing!”

  Vienne puts a hand on my cheek and rubs the stubble on my chin with her thumb like she’s trying to sand the loops and whorls of her fingerprint smooth. It makes a scratching noise that brings a sly smile. “You need a shave.” She pinches a lock of my long hair in her fingers. Tucks it behind my ear. “A haircut, too.”

  She pulls me closer, then presses her lips to my cheek and then my mouth. I kiss her back, tasting the sweet heat of her tongue, and I feel my body shudder.

  “‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas,’” Mimi says. “‘But not your heart away.’”

  “Shut it, Mimi.”

  We dance in the light of the torches, without a sound, eyes closed, hands locked until Vienne pulls away.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  “Since I became a Regulator, the Tenets have guided my way.” She looks at the stub of her pinkie finger. “Even after we became dalit, I tried to follow them, but then everything changed, and now, I don’t know what rules to follow. How do I know which path to take?”

  The wind shifts, and the high grasses bend to it. I have no answer—I’m a soldier, and the tea leaves don’t speak to me.

  “Today Riki-Tiki told me she plans to leave the monastery and become a Regulator.” Vienne pats the pendant that hangs around her neck. “She wants me to take her as an acolyte.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth,” she says. “Partly the truth. I told her I was very flattered—which I am—and that she would make an excellent Regulator.”

  I agree. “What’s the other truth you didn’t tell her? That the monks need her here?”

  “You’re pretty perceptive for a soldier.” She rests her head on my shoulder. “The monks do need her. The master and mistress aren’t long for this world, and when they are gone, Ghannouj will be the only Tengu. So much depends on Riki-Tiki staying here and caring for the bees. Hopes. Dreams. History. Traditions. It will all be lost if the Tengu cease to exist.”

  I put my arm around her. “That’s a pretty powerful truth.”

  “And there’s one more,” she says. “The truth about me—”

  But I never hear what truth she means, because a second later, the still night is interrupted by distant pounding and frightened shouts of “Fire! Fire! They’re burning the whole place down!”

  Chapter 7

  Freeman Farming Collective

  Zealand Prefecture

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 19. 18:08

  Mars is full of bad ideas, Archibald thinks as he enters the Quonset hut marked with stenciled letters: FOREMAN. The idea of a commune is one of them. People coming together with a common purpose to create farms to feed the masses with no profit motive? It’s unnatural. Humans are by their very makeup a competitive species, driven by greed and avarice to gain power, to use that power to hoard the most valuable resources, and then to create huge profits by selling those resources off.

  That’s why collectivism failed so badly during the Orthocracy. Sure, some places like the Freeman Farming Collective have existed for decades, even centuries, but they never became what the Bishop created them to be. Farming is backbreaking work, and farmers lead pitiful, unfulfilled lives of whining desperation. It would be sad if it weren’t so pathetic.

  “‘Welcome Free People,’” Archibald reads from the sign on the wall. “‘Work is Life.’”

  It might as well say, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” Because that’s what he suspects this place will be: a fresh level of Hell that stinks of manure and unwashed peasants whose idea of good hygiene is bathing in an irrigation canal.

  Outside, the peasants are screaming. Right now, as they’re getting knocked to the ground, restrained with plastic cuffs, and thrown into the back of a Düsseldorf, they probably aren’t feeling very free at all.

  He scans the room, looking for something to burn. The foreman’s desk, deluged with old seed orders, yield printouts, and crop projections, is a teetering mess. Seven steel filing cabinets line the back wall of the Quonset hut.

  “A most excellent pile of kindling,” he says.

  He swings back his cape with a flourish and pulls a bottle of ethyl ether from a holster on his hip. The liquid is colorless but has a distinctive sweet, hot smell that makes his mouth water. It also has a very low auto-ignition point, making it the most astonishing tool for his line of work. He opens the filing cabinets one drawer at a time. Gently, he pours the ether on the files. Then he moves to the desk, where he empties the bottle.

  Quickly, quickly, he thinks as he sweeps across the room. The air fills with fumes as the ether evaporates. His head swims, and his eyes cross. This is the climactic moment, right before the chemical starts to boil, when he removes the match from the box and flicks it into the air.

  He slams the hut door shut, pulls his hood up, and walks briskly away, covering ten meters before the ether ignites, and the subsequent fireball blows out the windows, and glass sprays through the air, raining down like jagged sleet.

  “Archibald,” Duke calls. “Your cloak is smoking.”

  He sneers as he brushes glass shards from his shoulders and puts out the glowing embers. “That’s Mr. Archibald to you.”

  “Mr. Archibald.” Duke opens the door of the Noriker for him. “We’ve rounded up the farmers who owe money to Mr. Lyme. What do you want us to do now?”

  “Do you mean, what is my next order?” Archibald slides into the passenger seat. “My next order is this: We leave the peasants something to remember us by. Burn a dozen huts. Leave nothing behind except ash.”

  After sliding behind the wheel, Duke puts the Noriker in reverse and nearly backs over a trio of Sturmnacht hauling away an unconscious farmer, the light from the fire casting shadows across their faces. He lays on the horn until they move.

  “You have a problem with my order?” Archibald says.

  “No,” Duke says. “Except, we took all the coin they had. Burning down the huts, I don’t see the point in doing that.”

  “That’s why Mr. Lyme sent me, because I do see a point in it,” Archibald says. “Let me explain. When the enemy is on your flank, you distract him by attacking civilians. You round them up, burn their land, and dare them to stand against you. Do this again and again, leaving nothing but ash in your wake. When word spreads, civilians will deser
t their homes. They will flood the cities for shelter. The enemy can no longer chase you because he has to spend his energy and resources taking care of refugees who are frightened, starving, and angry with their government for not protecting them. Now do you see the point?”

  Duke parks the Noriker near a larger Düsseldorf truck. “If we were an army, sure, but we’re just Sturmnacht. You know, strong-arm thugs, mercenaries, and enforcers.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Archibald says as Duke opens the door for him. “The Sturmnacht are an army, the most dangerous in this prefecture. I’m going to make a believer out of you.”

  Archibald throws an arm around Duke and leads him toward the back of the Düsseldorf. “Walk with me while I inspect the prisoners.” Under the covered truck bed, some prisoners are crying, but mostly they are silent, not a bit of fight left in them.

  “You see, Duke, it’s all science,” he explains. “Evolution in action. We are the fast. They are the slow. The fast have always eaten the slow. It’s the only way to ensure the survival of the fittest. Understand what I mean?”

  Duke rubs his head. “Yes, Mr. Archibald. I’m beginning to understand you.”

  “Brilliant! That means you’re one of the fast.” They return to the Noriker. This time Archibald climbs into the driver’s seat. “I’m glad we won’t have to eat you. Tell the drivers to take the prisoners back to Tharsis Two, then obey my orders to set fire to the collective.”

  “Yes, Mr. Archibald.” Duke takes hold of the open door. “Except that I should be driving, not you.”

  Archibald shakes his head no. “I need some personal space.”

  “Mr. Lyme gave me orders to stay with you at all times.”

  “Don’t let the farmers put out the fires.” Archibald slams the door, almost catching Duke’s fingers. As he drives away, he shouts, “I’ll be parked atop the canyon to the east. I want a good view of the show!”

  Chapter 8

  Tengu Monastery, Noctis Labyrinthus

  Zealand Prefecture