Analog SFF, December 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Gojraan! Don't go ahead of me! Kumko called.

  He gave no response. Haisho called out to him, but he ignored her too. Kazo saw his beacon, a tiny flickering spark, rise above the growing rim of Gleipnir. As he paused and began to dive back down, fast, faster, Kazo saw out of the corner of her eye her mother move past her, toward Gojraan. Gojraan's beacon went deep, deeper.

  Too deep.

  His ululating shouts of joy suddenly broke off—a moment's silence—then his voice, tight, almost a grunt: Umm ... it's, uh, sticky down here and I ... I ... I'm not rising back up.

  Immediately Kazo leaned forward and shot ahead, toward him. A hundred meters ahead of her, Haisho shouted, Samraatju, all of you, go up, get out of here, go up fifty kilometers, you'll be safe there, even as she too rocketed toward Gojraan.

  But Gojraan was kilometers away, and Kumko was closest. Kumko's beacon streaked ahead and angled down.

  My belly, I can feel my belly twisting, Gojraan called out, obviously panicked. Tidal forces.

  Spread your arms and legs as wide as possible, called out Haisho.

  I know that, you stupid dog, I'm doing that, I'm still sinking!

  Haisho and Kazo quickly gained on Gojraan, but he was deep, hundreds of meters too deep now. They were only a couple of Schwarzschild radii from the event horizon, the gravity well tilted very rapidly here, as evidenced by the tidal forces tugging at their bodies, and even a hundred meters could make a difference.

  Do something! cried out Gojraan.

  Kazo chanced a glance behind her. She saw the other Samraatju siblings soar to a higher elevation. Not a word, not a sound came from them.

  Kumko! called Haisho, and Kazo's attention snapped forward. In the glare of the neutrino flux she saw her sister's beacon arcing down toward Gojraan, going deeper and deeper ... Something squeezed at Kazo's heart, something not a tidal force.

  Kazo drew her arms and legs in tight and began sinking, and at the same time leaned forward, head down, willing herself toward Kumko. Kumko was closing on Gojraan now. Kazo and Haisho, traveling as fast as they could, were too far away.

  Kazo saw Kumko's beacon down in the soupy glare, as Kumko went deeper than Gojraan. Then Kumko suddenly spread wide her blister, and she bounced off the thick neutrino flux.

  Almost there, Kumko called up to Gojraan. Be careful of the instability, you're going to have to damp it down instantly, all the while keeping your blister as full spread as possible. Almost there ... I hope you are as good at this as you think you are....

  A moment later Kumko's blister collided with Gojraan's. His blister was visibly knocked upward, Kumko's momentum transferred to him. Gojraan cried out with shock, and Kazo imagined him frantically trying to stabilize the ripples surging over the surface of his blister. But he must have succeeded: his beacon rose higher and higher.

  In the meantime, Kumko, who had bounced downward, sank.

  Kumko! shouted Kazo.

  Sorry, Kaz, Amma, sorry, I've lost all my vee. Let's see ... no, damn it, I don't have enough forward vee to vector up ... damn—sorry, sorry....

  Kazo called out, Hang on, I'll be there ... But then Haisho cut her off: Kazo! I forbid you!

  But...

  I will not lose two daughters today!

  Kazo's stomach filled with ice at those words. Shocked into silence for a moment, she shook her head and shouted back: Mother! I can't ... we can't abandon her!

  They were over Kumko now, who was more than a kilometer below them and sinking fast. Her beacon was barely visible. Kazo spiraled around and around. Haisho said nothing. Gojraan, meanwhile, had struggled back to their elevation and was quietly rising.

  Kumko! called out Kazo.

  Don't! Don't try! Kumko called. Her voice was staticky, roughened by the thick neutrino flux about her. Amma's right, you can't ... sorry...

  And those were her last words.

  * * * *

  Kazo lay in the dark, narrow confines of her cabin. Her whole body seemed to ache. She turned on her back and raised up a hand to grab at the dark. So close and yet her fist closed on nothing. Her tears puddled and cooled on her face.

  Apilak called her, but Kazo turned over, wiping her face on the bedclothes, and told her to go away. What did Apilak know anyway? She was a machine, now at least, and maybe always (Kazo wasn't sure and wasn't rude enough to ask); she didn't have a body to ache at such loss. In Kazo's head her words were saturated with sarcasm and anger. Displaced anger, that's what Apilak would call it, Kazo thought, and sniffed through her tears. She tried to dredge up anger in an imagined conversation with Apilak, and then knew what Apilak would say to that: Kazo's real anger, at Gojraan, at Haisho, at Kumko herself, was too frightening to face.

  Gradually, Kazo gradually became aware of a timid tapping at her cabin door. It had been going on for some time. Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap. Majnu's code, physically tapped out, something no spy program could intercept. Her hate flared red for a moment, before it was swallowed by loneliness. She stood up and opened the door a crack. Majnu was already walking away, head down, dejected. “Majnu!” she whispered hoarsely.

  He spun and ran back to her, his face long and solemn. She did not open the cabin door fully but stood behind it, only showing her face. Majnu brushed his long black hair out of his eyes and stared at her. There was a long silence. “Your eyes,” he said finally, “they're so red."

  "I've been crying, you lout,” she said, halfway between a sob and a laugh.

  Another long silence. Kazo stared into Majnu's face, her eyes so sharp and hard that he looked down at his feet. “Old Samraatju, my father, is here,” he mumbled. “Aboard the Umialik." He glanced down the corridor.

  Kazo's naked arm snaked out and grabbed the edge of Majnu's loose tunic. “Come on, come in."

  He sat down on the bed and she closed the door, snipping off the quavering quadrangle of light. “Dark in here,” Majnu commented quietly.

  "I like it that way.” Kazo did not sit down next to Majnu, but leaned against the cabin door. She could hear Majnu's breathing.

  "He's talking to your mother,” he said abruptly. “About compensation for your sister."

  "You say it so casual: compensation." She thought of more things to say, hurtful things: It's so like you superrich. And: As if she was just a commodity to be replaced if broken or lost. And other things. But Kazo knew they were not really true of Majnu. He was not the one she wanted to say them to.

  Majnu stopped talking. He just sat on the bed, breathing, like the sound of two silk cloths rubbing. Kazo stayed on her feet, her back against the cool smooth surface of the cabin door, her body seething and aching.

  "Say something,” she finally said. Majnu was silent. “Say something stupid, so I can hate you. I need you to say something stupid so I can hate your entire family."

  "You can do that anyway,” he said quietly. “You don't need any words from me. You should hate me. Should hate us all."

  "I want you to make it easy for me."

  Silence, then: “Isn't it easy already?"

  More silence in the dark. Kazo said, “No. You make it difficult."

  "How?” Majnu sounded genuinely puzzled.

  Kazo sighed loudly. “Don't be thick."

  "Huh?"

  Kazo closed her eyes—unnecessary in the dark, she thought for a moment—and said, in a tight voice, “Because, because you make it impossible to hate you. You, Majnu, despite who you are and where you come from and despite your family and your superwealth, you are kind and gentle and caring and sweet and thoughtful. Do you think you were adopted? Because no one could hate you. Not me. You make it difficult, Samraatju Majnu, because I've fallen in love with you.” Kazo swallowed and licked her lips. She pressed herself against the door, her heart beating fast, feeling naked, feeling out of breath as if out in the vacuum of space without an environment suit or a blister.

  She heard the sound of cloth rustling, and then she felt the warmth of Majnu's body and the salted perfume of his
body as his arms enveloped her. He said nothing, and she loved him all the more for that, he stood next to her and wrapped his arms around her.

  He held her for a long time there, in the dark, against the door, and he held her for a long time more as they lay together on the bed as she sobbed. He held her as they both slept. Then when they awoke, he gently kissed her face and all over, and they made love, and he held her again as they lay, naked and perspiring, on her bed.

  Majnu nuzzled and kissed her bare shoulder. “Gojraan hates me,” he murmured.

  "What?"

  "You said no person could hate me. Gojraan does. Of course, Gojraan hates ev—"

  "Gojraan isn't human. He's a monster. Count his chromosomes, bet you find some terataploidy."

  "Hmm, that's a good point. It makes me feel better. If he's not really human—"

  "Feel better why?"

  "Oh, I once tried to hire an assassin to kill him. I felt a little guilty later. And Father was really angry with me. Of course, Father's terrified of assassins—"

  "Wait. You hired an assassin to kill Gojraan?” She suddenly became aware of her own, cool nakedness in the dark, and she drew the bedclothes up around herself.

  "Oh, that was years ago. And the person I tried to hire wasn't a real assassin, but one of Father's own servants. Quite childish, really."

  Kazo shook her head. “I guess what they say is true: that the superrich truly are different from, well, everyone else.” She sighed. “And if you keep talking about Gojraan and plots to kill him and so on when we're naked—” she shuddered “—I will hate you."

  A moment late Kazo sat bolt upright, gasping.

  "What? What is it?” Majnu asked.

  "Get out!” she shouted. “Apilak—on my link—she says your father knows you're here—get dressed, lights on!—” both blinked and shielded their eyes in the sudden glare “—hurry, some spy program, Apilak's already destroyed it, but, oh, hurry, get out, get out!"

  Only half dressed, Majnu gathered his pants under his arm and went to slip out the cabin door. But when he opened it, there stood his father.

  * * * *

  Kazo only saw Old Samraatju for a few moments. Later her mother came to talk to her. Haisho sat on Kazo's bed, her iron face solemn and serious and smeared with mourning white. But while her mother talked, Kazo remembered vividly Old Samraatju. A body of stick limbs and thick stomach wrapped in silk pleats. A face worn and crumpled behind cloud puffs of white beard and underneath a black Tarindhu skullcap, his skin pale and translucent and webbed with blue veins. Only his eyes, black marbles, seemed unfilmed by age.

  "Kazo!” Haisho said sharply. “Are you not listening? Do you not understand how grave your mistake is?"

  "My mistake? Majnu's not a child, easily seduced—"

  "He is the flesh of his father, like his brother."

  "So don't strike or sleep with either one?"

  Her mother's face sagged and she sighed. “You should know better. And now, now that we have lost your sister..."

  Kazo bounced to her feet, shouting: “Yes! She's dead!"

  "...and after I had warned you, when you struck Gojraan..."

  "And Kumko died to save that, that, that selfish blob, that insignificant piece of shoe dirt! Is her sacrifice erased, forgotten, just because I slept with Majnu?"

  Haisho sighed again and rubbed at her eyes. “You do not understand."

  Kazo stared down at her. “What, old Samraatju's philosophy? I understand it. I see it clearly in the fear in his children's eyes. What I do not understand is why you give in to him.” She knelt before her mother.

  Haisho placed her hands, knotted and cool, on Kazo's face. “I do it only to protect you.” She took a deep breath. “You do not realize the depth of Samraatju's anger. It is ... irrational."

  Kazo felt a sharp stab of fear in her stomach. “What is it, Amma? What does he demand?"

  Her mother closed her eyes before replying. “He wants your memory edited. All memory of the boy removed."

  Kazo recoiled. “That's ludicrous."

  "In return, he promises...” Haisho's voice lowered to a cracked whisper, as she changed the tense of the verb, “...promised you will be safe."

  "You agreed?" Kazo's words came out sharp and shrill, nearly hysterical. She pushed away her mother's hands and staggered back to her feet. “I can't stay here—I have to go—I'm sorry, I have to leave, Apilak will have to put me planetside somewhere, anywhere, Apilak!"

  Haisho was standing now too, trying to grab Kazo's shoulders. Kazo shook her off, shouting, “Apilak! Apilak! Help me! Don't let them cut Majnu out of me!"

  "I had to, I'm sorry, you don't know the old man, he would have you killed—"

  "Don't touch me! Don't touch me! Apilak!” Wailing, Kazo crumpled into a corner of her cabin.

  Haisho slowly crouched down beside her daughter. “I would rather he cut out my own heart. I would have offered that. But he agreed nothing would be done until after the supernova. Editing out is harder than editing in. It might damage your skills, and they need you to guide at the supernova ... Kaz, please forgive your mother.” She reached out a hand gingerly, as if to stroke her. But Kazo screeched and shrank away. Haisho withdrew her hand, then lowered her head. After a few moments she stood.

  "We leave immediately,” Haisho said. “The supernova is in a few days.” She turned away, paused at the door. “To lose a few memories is better than to lose your life."

  But at those words Kazo fiercely shook her head. No.

  * * * *

  On the journey to Maishaitan, Kazo remained in her cabin. She spent most of the time in the dark, strapped to her bunk against the freefall through attask, her stomach in turmoil more than usual, crying, then raging against her mother, against Old Samraatju, and against Majnu for not standing up to his father, then crying again.

  They stopped twice on the way, spun up the ship for gravity and meals. Haisho silently left them outside the door to Kazo's cabin.

  The only one who spoke to Kazo was Apilak. Kazo tried to resent her as well, to blame the ship's captain.

  And in some part I am to blame, Apilak agreed soberly. I did not intercept Samraatju's spy program, which was stealthier than any I had encountered before, and it reported Majnu and you together. I am so sorry, Kazo...

  Kazo only sniffed as she lay in the dark.

  I destroyed the spy program immediately, Apilak continued, although it tried to escape. Samraatju was very angry with me over that. And he came very close to canceling our entire contract. I was very angry with him for introducing a spy program on my ship. I argued with him, tried to argue with him on your behalf, on behalf of you and Majnu. Apilak sighed, like the rustling of leaves. He is old and calcified and does not see the need to listen to opposition.

  Kazo snapped, “Careful, Apilak, he might have another spy program listening in."

  Oh, he does, Apilak replied, and Kazo's heart froze. Apilak continued: We argued over the contract, for a long time. He has very clever advocates, and he pointed out that the contract can be interpreted as allowing, “for security,” spy programs to monitor any activity relating to him and his flesh. Which includes his children.

  "You could cancel the contract."

  Haisho and I considered that. It is not a simple issue. Samraatju's contract with us is very exacting. When we signed it we, meaning your mother and I, agreed to Samraatju's penalty terms for abandoning service without reason. After all, a supernova is a rare event and he would be unable to find...

  Kazo interrupted. “'Without reason'?” She did not suppress the venom in her voice.

  According to the terms of the contract, yes. And the penalties for abandoning the contract are severe, so severe they would not only impoverish me—I would lose the Umialik—but also your family as well, to a degree you do not seem to appreciate. Your mother had instructed you to read it.

  "So,” Kazo said, the words clumped in her dry throat, “it's a choice between abandoning the contract an
d abandoning me."

  Haisho and I are trying to save you.

  "You'll be saving only part of me!” Kazo shouted. “They're going to cut him out of me! Do you understand? The good girl may be saved, the dutiful daughter, maybe that's what Amma wants, but the part of me that loves, that laughs, that smiles, the real part of me—you're abandoning that! Just like Kumko!"

  When she stopped shouting, the silence sighed, like the rustling of leaves.

  * * * *

  As she plummeted toward the heart of the doomed star, Kazo closed her eyes. In the dark, she remembered Apilak's words, her sister's face, the touch of Manu's fingers on her skin.

  After arrival in the system, the Umialik had looped tight around the swollen red giant star, a few million kilometers above the photosphere. Kazo waited dully in the deployment hold, waiting with Haisho, both heavily laden with self-sustaining supplies. After the supernova, the tourists would have to wait a month to travel far enough out to be picked up.

  Haisho said nothing to Kazo. Kazo's entire body felt numb.

  The Samraatju poured in through the hatchway, pulling themselves along handholds in microgravity: Sundshri and Kushri first, then Gojraan, followed by Majnu, who bounced off the edge of the hatchway and collided with Gojraan. Gojraan shrugged him off, quite unlike Gojraan, Kazo thought, underneath the weight of her sorrow. Then it became clear why.

  Immediately behind Majnu came Old Rajraan, accompanied by two smooth-faced bodyguards. Even in the microgravity Rajraan moved slowly, hand over hand, looking like a shriveled beetle in his shell underneath all his supplies. But his eyes, dark and alert, watched his children as a spider does a fly. Rajraan merely glanced at Majnu, who flushed and ducked his head, ashamed of his clumsiness. The old man pulled himself beside Gojraan.