by Rachel Caine
“How are Marko and Yusuf holding up?”
It felt weirdly like C-X and I had become team leaders for our respective crews, though I wasn’t sure how that came to pass. Nobody ever voted us in; that was for sure.
“Yusuf is better both mentally and physically. The work is good for him, keeps him distracted. Marko . . . isn’t handling the guilt well.”
I didn’t have to ask; she must mean from us stealing Lifekiller’s alleged corpse and letting Bacia wake him up to ravage the galaxy like in the old days. Yeah, Marko was the type to take it hard—he’d believed all the propaganda about the Honors program. Sometimes having no ideals left to shatter made for a smoother ride when shit got rough.
“Anything we can do?” I asked.
“Stay on mission. I know you think I’m lacking in empathy, but if we sit around trying to hug Marko into feeling better, millions of people could die.”
“Actually, I’m with you. I wasn’t going to suggest a sing-along.”
Her mouth quirked in a faint smile. “Maybe we’ll make an Honor of you yet.”
“Bullshit. I hate rules.”
“Fair enough. How’s Starcurrent? Ze didn’t look good when we left Greenheld.”
“Not great.” That was enough info, I figured. She could read between the lines as well as anyone. “Let’s wrap this up and get moving.”
“Agreed.”
My screen went dark. It would be hard to maintain video contact moving at the speeds we needed to hit to reach our destination in a reasonable amount of time. Considering how much harm Lifekiller could do while we recharged, I wanted to fight. Feeling powerless was an awful way to end the day.
Stretching, I glanced around Ops and found that both Bea and Starcurrent had vanished while I was troubleshooting. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d eaten or showered. Food first, though. I headed into the kitchenette and grabbed a random food pack. That made me consider: if we were never going back to Earth, the supplies would run out, and not too far in the future either. That was a sobering thought. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life subsisting on the tasteless “nutritionally adequate” protein cubes I’d eaten on the Sliver.
Opening my pack revealed a brown and glutinous stew. It contained bits of meat or maybe soy substitute, sweet potatoes, chickpeas . . . well, whatever. Made me reconsider the damn protein cubes. I gobbled it down and headed for my room. Nadim was moving, but not fast enough to get us to the binary stars as quick as we needed to be there. Part of me feared that he’d drift into that dangerous dark sleep again and I’d have to use the shock device on him to wake him up; it was a genetic defect that we both had to deal with, but I hated hurting him. My stomach rolled just thinking about it.
I took a long shower, properly caring for my hair and moisturizing my skin; damn, I needed that. I could excuse crispy ends and ashy elbows in the middle of a crisis, but I was getting attached to pampering myself. Afterward, I put on the thin clothes I’d picked up on the Sliver, colorful like a superhero suit, comfortable enough to serve as pajamas. Then I lay down on the floor, connecting to Nadim with my hands and feet.
This would comfort both of us.
I slid into the bond and Zadim stirred, soaking in the shimmer of energies on our skin. We hurt too, but we’d had worse. The real problem was this thick, enveloping exhaustion that made it feel as if we could just . . . stop. Being, breathing. We sensed the darkness hovering, and it might be sleep from which we wouldn’t awaken.
Normally, there was only joy and exploration, quicksilver pleasure, but now we felt weighted, our tail made of some impossibly dense metal, dragging us down. The armor on our skin scratched and bound us, more anchors in the guns embedded there. We let out a soft, mourning call over these sorrows, and Typhon answered.
He had been carrying these burdens for far longer, and in the bond, we almost understood him. Almost.
Our energies dwindled more, scant reserves for such a long journey—and the bond broke. I lay half-dazed in my small body, sprawled out on the floor. Before, I was tired. Now, I couldn’t think of a word big enough to encompass this exhaustion.
“Do you feel any better?” I asked.
“You shouldn’t have given me so much.” But Nadim sounded stronger, more alert.
Dizzily I wondered if energy exchange had always been possible or if this was new. It seemed like our connection was getting stronger all the time, constantly evolving. It was possible that one day, I’d get swallowed up in this entirely and maybe wouldn’t come back out as myself again. The incredible part was that it didn’t frighten me at all. A small shiver trilled through me, not enough to make me pull away from Nadim, the first person to love me unconditionally.
Bea was the second.
I’d do anything to keep these two safe, anything at all.
After a few close calls with the Phage and four days of nonstop travel, we finally reached the binary star. I stood by the wall that Nadim made transparent on my approach, sensing my desire to see the view before I told him.
A girl could get used to having all her needs met without ever having to ask.
The twin stars shone in pulsing light bursts, one coral, the other celadon, both like gemstones surrounded by the swirls of the asteroid belt. This rocky field didn’t sustain life, but it was wild to think that, given enough time, planets could form. Cradle of life, right in front of me.
I never got tired of the wonders out here, and it was even better when Nadim was healthy and rested. Right now, he was still weak from constant battles and I was fighting my nerves over letting Lifekiller run wild. My body hurt all over, not from combat but from constant tension. Toward the end of our run, I was even sleeping with my hands balled up, so I woke with aching fingers. The last four days, I’d spent time either training in the combat sim or scanning for any sign of the god-king.
Hell if I knew what I’d do if I spotted him, because our Leviathan couldn’t chase him down without power, but we could warn people, maybe? “Hey, Nadim?”
“Yes, Zara?”
“Is there anything like an emergency broadcast system?”
“A what?”
Right, he probably wouldn’t know. “It’s an old Earth way of spreading news quickly. It used to come on television, but as technology evolved, warnings went to people’s phones and then later their handhelds.”
“Then you’re inquiring about a system that connects all ships and outposts across all cultures? There’s nothing like that.”
“What about Leviathan song? Could you pass on info about the god-king that way?”
“Only to other Leviathan, and the others are so far away. Too far.”
“You can’t hear anyone nearby?” That was probably a pointless question.
But Nadim hesitated. “It’s possible . . .”
“What?”
“That there are others, but they are afraid to sing, after the Gathering.” A frisson of brightness sparked through me, whispers of hope that Nadim was fanning to life against all reasonable expectation.
“Have you talked about this with Typhon?” I asked.
“He only tells me not to waste my time or energy on wishing.”
“That sounds like him.”
Even though that sounded encouraging, it didn’t solve our early-warning problem. I put it on the back burner. Wasting time was against my religion, so I moved to the next thing. When I’d let Xyll live, I thought it might offer some insight into the Phage, give us an edge we desperately needed. Since then, I didn’t have the time to learn much about it, other than the fact that it could tap into the hive mind and cause trouble. I spun from the viewport and went in search of our resident Phage cell.
Thankfully I found Xyll in its room, though it had done some major redecoration. I’d thought the webs were bad, but now there were . . . pods too. Or maybe cocoons? It had made weird-shaped furniture out of the sticky thread it extruded. It had tweaked the lighting too, so it was gloomy as hell in here and it took my ey
es a minute to adjust.
“You visit?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell it I was here to do field research on what made it tick, what it wanted, and how we could ultimately destroy its kind. “Uh, sure. You have everything you need?” That wasn’t what I wanted to ask, but I had to start somewhere.
“Needs are met.”
There was no way to read its expression, and the translation matrix didn’t provide for tone, but it had to want something. That was basic for all sentient life. They wanted food, peace, profit, security, love, some damn thing. And if I could figure that out, oh shit. Learning what Xyll wanted—enough to awaken it from its mindless eating frenzy—might help me rouse the rest of them to free will. Maybe we didn’t have to annihilate them if we could turn them into proper, rational beings. The Phage would be much less dangerous as separate cells thinking individually.
“Before, when I gave you the flaff, you said it was home food. What’s your home planet like?” I sat down near the door, trying to act like I was ready for a deep conversation.
Xyll approached in chitters and clicks, and I swallowed hard. Bea would be screaming by now, and I did draw back against the wall, hopefully not enough of a movement for it to notice. Trying to establish rapport here.
“Home planet?”
“Yeah, um, where you were born.”
“Born in the black,” Xyll answered.
And for some reason, that struck me as sad. I mean, I wasn’t expecting a heartwarming story with a family or anything, but I thought its kind came from somewhere. But these things dropped offspring out in vacuum? That was . . . hardcore.
“You don’t have anywhere to go back to, then. Do you spend your whole lives wandering?” Wandering and eating, damn. Oh, and reproducing, can’t forget that. I wasn’t about to ask about its mating cycle, though. If there was a benevolent force in the universe, I would never learn how these things got down.
“Wandering? Yes. We roam, before. Now they go where they are told.”
Right, the god-king changed everything.
Damn, I still hadn’t learned anything helpful. I touched the wall behind me, lightly calling Nadim’s attention. I knew he was listening—he always was unless I asked him not to—and asked, Any ideas?
I understand what you’re trying to accomplish, but they make me . . . His revulsion churned through me, souring my gut, accompanied by a barrage of images. Yeah, Nadim couldn’t help with this, and Bea would rather not.
“What about you?” I asked.
“What about?”
Was that an actual question or was it repeating words? I tried to clarify. “You’re not bound by the hive mind anymore. What do you want to do?”
“Want? What is want?”
I’d never had to explain such a basic thing. “It’s like, when you’re hungry, you want food. But there should be more to life, right? I haven’t thought about the future a whole lot, but now, all I really want is to travel with Nadim and Bea. Keep having adventures.”
Maybe not on this scale, but damn if I could picture myself living on a planet forever after this. I might die of missing Nadim.
Xyll spun a fresh rope and twirled up it, circling above me, and maybe I was reading into it, but this felt like a thoughtful pause, like it was digesting what I said. Finally, it answered, “Home.”
“You want a place to belong.” There might be an unoccupied planet someplace where we could stash the Phage. The way they ate and bred, though, it probably wouldn’t be long before they depleted all the natural resources. Could they get back to vacuum on their own? I guessed probably not. But Xyll was managing its flaff without problems, so the rest might be able to learn. I imagined dumping them on some terrible planet with a shitload of uncontained flaff. Hell, it might even work, if we could awaken the rest of the Phage.
“Belong. Yes. Would also like to be . . . not Xyll.”
“You want to be somebody else?”
“Not alone,” it said.
I remembered it telling me that Xyll meant “alone” in Abyin Dommas. Okay, so this thing wanted a friend and a place to go back to? If this was a cute, cuddly alien, it would be an easy get with that plan. But a nightmare was clicking above me, and I could see all the spikes on its insectile legs. Still, I had to try to put myself in its position.
“Tell me about flaff. How did you know about it? Why did you call it home food?”
“Born in the black, but the big mind remembers, long before this one was born. Flaff on that world, endless flaff.”
Now I was getting somewhere. There was a Phage homeworld, and it seemed like Xyll had access to a sort of . . . collective unconscious?
“Why did you leave that world?” I asked.
“Taken.”
The god-kings had rounded up their kind to use them. It stung a little when I started connecting this to how the Leviathan rolled up and got humans involved in their secret war. Nadim stirred uneasily in my mind, softly protesting that mental connection.
“Could you find that planet again? It was your people’s home before. Maybe it could be again.”
My mind was racing. If Xyll said yes, this seriously might solve the Phage problem. I’d always been good at building stuff. Maybe I could build a signal device that would call the Phage to their homeworld and—well, I didn’t have it all figured out yet. Getting them down to the surface might be a problem . . . and it was weird that I was trying to find a nonviolent solution, instead of imagining how to wipe them out. My psychologist back at Camp Kuna, Dr. Yu, would be pleased to hear it; probably this qualified as personal growth.
“Cannot. The big mind remembers what, not where.”
Ah well. My idea wasn’t completely worthless. Might still work with a different planet and a bunch of flaff.
This was all the time I could stand in Xyll’s company, though. My skin prickled with goose bumps from watching its movements, no matter how lonely it was. Right now, I’d rather be drinking that stuff Suncross loved so much that tasted like corrosive drain cleaner.
“Okay, well, good talk, Xyll. I’ll visit you again later. Let me know if there’s something special you want to eat.” Other than us.
“Visit, yes? You return?”
“Sure, definitely. We’ll be here for a bit while the Leviathan power up. I can stop by.” If I thought of something else I needed to ask.
I rushed out, losing control of the filter I was using to keep Nadim’s discomfort at bay. His repugnance flooded me as I leaned against the wall, breathing hard. Normally I got a little spark of pleasure from touching Nadim, but his emotions were all bleak right now and whirling like a black hole.
“It’s wrong to hate, Zara. But I hate them. I remember the Gathering and I hate them. I never wished to learn this.” His tone was soft but anguished.
I put my cheek against the wall and closed my eyes. “We don’t get to choose what lessons we learn. I’m getting more Leviathan by the day, and you . . . are becoming more human.”
“Is that . . . good?” he asked, hesitant.
“No matter what you learn or who you become, I love you the same, Nadim. Are you feeling any better?”
“My wounds are healing. But . . . I’m worried.”
“Me too,” I said quietly.
With a faint sigh, I headed for Ops, but before I got there, Bea came at a run, grabbing my arms. “Zara, you’re not going to believe this—we got word from Earth!”
At first, I hoped she had good news for a change, but the tears standing in her eyes dispelled that idea. I wrapped an arm around her instinctively. “What’s wrong?”
She took a steadying breath. “You’d better just see for yourself.”
LETTER FROM THE FILES OF TORIAN DELUCA, OF EARTH, WRITTEN TO THE HONORABLE ABEN RANCE TRENT, HIGH JUDGE ADVOCATE FOR NORTH AMERICA AND CHAIR OF THE HONORS PROGRAM.
Received your reply today going on and on about the “sanctity of the program” and “preserving the necessary impartiality of the Honors system.”
/>
I don’t care.
I don’t care about your damn Honors program, not one bit, except what it can do for me. And what it can do for me is this: put out the word about what I outlined before. And make damn sure my man gets aboard one of those monster ships to hunt that bitch who screwed me. I want her dead. I’m not somebody you can cross. I don’t care how far you run, and she’s run the farthest. I want her and you’re the way I get her.
Look, High Judge Advocate, we both know the things I have in my files would bring down bigger people than you. If I publish everything, they’ll put you in space all right, just not in any ship. They’ll fire you straight at the sun.
So put my man through. Rubber stamps, gold seals, all that crap. Get him on the next Leviathan who darkens our space, and let him do his job. He knows what he has to do.
You’d better know too. Or things will get very, very bad here for you, fast.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lost for Words
WE WENT TO Ops, where Bea already had the message queued up.
BEATRIZ TEIXEIRA and ZARA COLE: you are hereby formally stricken from the Honors program. You are in unlawful occupation of a Leviathan and must return to Earth jurisdiction to face punitive action for your negligent, criminal behavior. Failure to submit will result in escalation to “dangerous fugitive” status, and the Honors program will dedicate all resources to hunting you down to secure the safety of your Leviathan. Compliance is imperative to avoid potential harm to you or your partner vessel.
“What the hell.” It wasn’t even a question on my end, more of a reaction.
Bea looked equally stunned, and the tears she’d been holding fell freely. “They think we’re criminals.”
That was a laugh; after all, I’d been in a rehab facility and straight out of the Zone in New Detroit when they’d tapped me for the program. Crim was the closest I’d come to an actual occupation. Then I put myself in Beatriz’s shoes; she was a studious straight arrow, and for her, this must feel like the end of everything.
“Hey, don’t cry. Big deal, so they call us names. But what can they do about it?”