by Rachel Caine
“Anything you won’t eat?” I added.
He shrugged. Great, he’d gone nonverbal on me. I got some food at random and heated it, then made him some tea. Hopefully the food and warm drink would relax him and let him get some sleep. The last thing we needed was for Marko to break all the way down; that would put Typhon right over the edge.
And me. I was barely holding myself together as it was.
I plopped the tray in front of him, opting for tough love. “Eat it all. Drink up too. You owe it to Chao-Xing to look after yourself. Otherwise, we won’t be able to take on Lifekiller when we catch up to him. You’ll need your strength to end this. We all do.”
I called Suncross while Marko was finally sleeping, and Bea was off pursuing a bright idea about something we had in storage that she thought might be useful against the Phage. I didn’t want any witnesses for this conversation, because I needed everybody to think I had my shit nailed down tight.
But I didn’t, and Suncross knew that.
“Zeerakull,” he greeted me, and I could tell by the nonverbal cues I’d started to pick up that he was both happy to hear from me and hung way the hell over. “Greetings.”
“Sorry to wake you up,” I said. “But we need to talk about what’s coming next.”
“Victory?”
Even he didn’t sound that sure of it. “Bad news over here.” I took a deep breath. “Xyll got Chao-Xing.”
“Got . . . ?”
“Invaded. The thing’s inside her, wrapped around her spinal column. Our med bot can’t separate them without killing them both.”
“Then, sorrowfully, you must give Zhang Chao-Xing a warrior’s death,” Suncross said, and both sets of eyelids blinked again: one lightly frosted, one totally opaque. I wondered if it was code. If it was, nobody had given me the key. “As horrible as such may be, do not delay in this. If you do, she will become a merciless killer of her own kind. Is the worst fate of all! Unimaginable.”
I didn’t want to tell him that humanity had plenty of merciless killers of its own kind running around and always had; it was part of our history that apparently didn’t sit too well with other species out here. Most other species protected their own; they didn’t prey on them. We were weird like that. “Your people have never come across a separated Phage that thinks and talks for itself, right?”
“Such a thing is impossible.”
“Well, it isn’t, because Xyll was doing it. Talking to us. Learning our language. It was even able to influence the rest of the Phage on our behalf, at least a little. And toward the end, it was learning manners, saying please and thank you. Xyll even fought to defend us when the killer robot attacked.”
Suncross stared at me for a few seconds before he replied, “Zara Cole, you have been victim of a clever ruse, I think. The Phage cannot do this. Lifekiller must have meant for this to happen. Our people call it a poisoned spring; does this translate?”
“Trojan horse,” I said. “We have a legend of soldiers who failed in conquering a city, then left a huge statue on wheels as a tribute to the city’s god. It was hollow, filled with soldiers. The people rolled it into their own unbreakable gates, and the soldiers came out and killed them all.”
Suncross, despite his kill-em-all attitude, seemed shocked by that. “Surely must be a story of rare villains!”
“Kind of?” I held out both hands, palms upraised. Take it for what it is. “We see it as clever, I suppose. But also, pretty shitty.”
“Exactly so. Your Phage was a Trojan horse. Sent to you cut off from the hive, so you would take pity and bring it within. Then it destroys.”
That made a certain awful kind of sense. Maybe Lifekiller wasn’t just some mindless eating machine, spreading drama in his wake; maybe he was a strategist too. Maybe what I saw in Xyll was what I’d been meant to see, and instead of me spotting Lifekiller’s weakness, he’d spotted mine.
That was a chilling possibility. I didn’t like it at all, because it meant that Lifekiller wasn’t called a god-king just because it was powerful; it was also smart.
Smart was bad.
Potentially disastrous. I was all for being the plucky David in this Goliath fight, but damn. If Xyll really was a weapon prepared by Lifekiller, it had already done its work and would keep on doing it, and the Bruqvisz’s advice would be right. If Chao-Xyll was going to become an unstoppable serial killer, I had to cut her down before we lost anyone else.
But what if Suncross is wrong? What if Lifekiller didn’t plan this, didn’t even suspect it could happen? What if Xyll really was something new, and so is Chao-Xyll?
Man. These were heavy dice to be rolling.
“Zeerakull?” Suncross’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. “I am sorry. Is hardest thing to do. I will gladly die in battle against enemies. I would hate to die doing battle against friends. And you are my friends. Chao-Xing also.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. So listen, you’re my last line of defense here. If Chao-Xing kills me, kills Bea, takes over Nadim . . . you have to be the one to stop her. Understand? Save Nadim. Save Typhon.”
“Zara!” Nadim sounded horrified. I wished I’d asked him not to listen to this call, but too late now. “If I lose you and Beatriz, I have nothing. I would not wish to continue!”
“Don’t give me that,” I said, and I meant it. “How long do Leviathan live?” He was silent. He didn’t want to say it. “You see stars being born, and stars die. You live hundreds of human lifetimes. We’re fireflies to you. Creatures born and dying in a season, and while we’re here we’re beautiful. So love us with all your heart, but let us go when it’s time, and don’t you ever think that ends your life too. I mean it, Nadim. Now say it.”
“I can’t!”
“You have to. If we fall in this fight you need to go on.”
“But—”
“Typhon did. And he will again. We’re here to show you what we are, but what we are isn’t eternal. You can love us and let us go when our lives are over. You can love someone else. I’m not mad about it.”
I did mean it, even though yeah, I had a touch of jealousy thinking of some other human, some other species of crew walking Nadim’s halls, touching him, bathing him in their emotions. But that was what had to happen. Not during my lifetime, or Bea’s, but sometime. And he needed to understand that losing his first lovers didn’t mean the end of love.
He got it in a way I hadn’t expected. “As you once loved Derry, but then loved me. Will you love me for the rest of your life, Zara?” He sounded hopeful. Wistful. A little desperate. “Because I know I will always love you. Always.”
I’d never even thought of myself like this, as the true love of someone’s life, but here it was, in all its searing glory. And I didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” I said. “I will love you for the rest of my life, Nadim.”
I hadn’t heard Beatriz come back, but she quietly said, “And so will I.”
I turned and kissed her, and both of us dropped in a blazing golden emotional spiral into bond with Nadim, with each other, all of us melting together into a glorious perfect moment. Like sex, but better than that brief, explosive moment of pleasure. This lasted. This lasted forever, or as long as forever could be for mere humans.
I don’t know how long it went, but when we finally parted in sweet afterglow, Suncross was still on the screen. He’d propped his chin on one of his four hands, but now he straightened up again and his ruff flared up to its fullest, richest stretch and hue.
“I am honored to be witness to a true bonding,” he said. “Congratulations, Zara Cole, Beatriz Teixeira, Nadim. Do you wish to take a name?”
It was, I intuitively understood, the final step to sealing us together. I turned to Beatriz. “It’s your turn,” I said. “You name us.”
Her lips parted in surprise, and I resisted the urge to kiss her again because she was so damn kissable. “Bezardim,” she said. “What do you think?”
I did kiss her, then. And felt Nadim wrapping around us both. “I
think it’s perfect,” I said.
“I do too,” Nadim added.
And then we were one.
“I congratulate you,” Suncross said. “I will write of this and we will sing the songs of Bezardim across the galaxies. You will become legend, my friends.” He fixed me with a stare. “Remember what I told you of the risks. Do what you must. And soon.”
Then he was gone from the screen.
I hugged Bea close. “Later, okay?” I told her, and kissed her just under the ear. Felt her shiver and loved how that resonated between all of us. “We’ll make this real.”
“It’s real now,” she said, and framed my face with her warm, soft hands. “I love you, Zara. I love you, Nadim.”
Nadim didn’t have words for this, so he bathed us in color and warmth and sweetness, and I said it back with just as much intensity.
Then I smiled and kissed her on her cute nose. “Work,” I said. “What did you find?”
“Remote emitters,” she said. “And I have an idea of how we can fool the Phage into destroying themselves.”
“That’s my girl.”
FROM THE PLANETARY RECORDS OF LUNA COLONY
Hello, Colony residents. We have a beautiful Earthrise on the horizon today. Temps inside the dome will remain constant at summer cycle, and the artificial day remains in effect to match. We’re coming up on fall cycle in just another week, so look forward to cooler temps, autumn color in the e-trees, and of course our traditional Fall Festival, complete with Old Earth traditions like pumpkin eating and Haunting Night!
Rumor Control Patrol reports that chatter about the unscheduled visit of the two Leviathan guests to Earth has subsided, thanks to the incentive packages offered. Once again, Earth reports that these Leviathan were here purely for information exchange and to take on replacement Honors for the Journey after what we all know happened with the rebels on board the Leviathan Nadim.
Nitrogen ice cream will be served at all parks today from midday until scheduled dimming of the lights. If you’re going out on the moon’s surface today, please avoid all military marked boundaries; some exercises will occur. Enjoy your day, Citizens! And remember: we’re here for YOU!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lost Patience
WE WERE JUST twelve hours from catching up to the Phage, and hard at work on Bea’s idea, when EMITU called. After sleeping for ten hours, Marko had joined us and we’d gotten a pretty solid framework together and attached emitters all over it. Might not work, but then again, it just might. Spectacularly.
Trojan horse.
I answered the call when EMITU started demanding attention. “Yeah? What’s going on? Is she—”
“My patient is now awake,” EMITU said. “But not currently verbalizing. Quiet emptiness / A human, chimera twists / at the perfect star.”
“Did you just haiku at me?” I asked.
“Perhaps I did. But is it not appropriate to the moment?”
“You weren’t kidding,” Marko muttered. “It really does that.”
“You think I’d lie about haiku?”
He’d been looking better than the half-wild, half-dead guy who’d loomed at me in the hallway, but now some of those shadows came back. “Is she getting better or worse?” he asked. I suppose that was directed at me, EMITU, anyone who wanted to take the question.
I certainly didn’t want it, oh hell no.
EMITU said, “The patient is physically well. Better than well; the symbiote seems to be repairing what damage she had very effectively.”
“And we’re real damn grateful,” I jumped in before Marko could say anything to piss our AI doc off. “Has she shown any signs of, uh . . . aggression?” That was the only reasonable way to put it. I didn’t want to put ideas into EMITU’s head, or Marko’s either.
“No. My patient—I am not absolutely sure of the pronoun to use at this point and will ask politely when opportunity presents—seems to have calmed quite nicely.” EMITU seemed to consider for a second. “Though that may be a developmental phase, to be sure. Or just that there’s currently no fleshmeat to murder. Would one of you like to volunteer to test that theory?”
He seemed to take a real gruesome delight in that. Marko and Bea both opened their mouths; I was sure Bea was going to say no and Marko was going to volunteer his shaky ass, so I quickly said, “Yeah, that’s my job.” When they both started protesting at once, I talked louder. “She got hit because she took my place. When Xyll was wounded in the hallway fighting with Jury, when it turned into Proto-Xyll . . . it went for me.” I touched the back of my neck. “I think it was going to enter me, maybe tagged me with some pheromone. But it took Chao-Xing because she got in the way of its second try. I owe her this.”
“Couldn’t that mean it would try for you again?” Bea asked. She was scared. I didn’t blame her; I wasn’t feeling all that confident either. So I passed the ball.
“EMITU? What do you think, could the, ah, symbiote leave her body and try to invade me?”
“No.” The bot sounded decisive. “It has interfaced quite thoroughly with the limbic and nervous systems, and even if it wanted to leave its current host, I don’t think it could sustain itself outside of that body. It’s tuned to Chao-Xing’s metabolism and particular genetic makeup now.”
That was some relief. Not a whole lot, to be honest. But I made Bea and Marko keep working, and while I went toward Medbay, I dropped into bond with Nadim.
He was not happy with this. You can’t risk yourself like this! He thundered it at me inside my head, and I sent him back a mental picture of dialing it back. He checked himself. Slightly. I can’t afford to lose you now. None of us can.
Not my call, I said back. We need to know if Chao-Xyll is dangerous or not. And if anybody has to pull that trigger, it has to be me. Understand that?
He did. Didn’t like it, but he also knew Beatriz would hesitate, and it would scar her far worse than it would me to carry out an execution. As for Marko . . . well. Not even a question; we couldn’t let him carry this load.
We argued about it some more, but I could tell his mood was shifting from anger to deep anxiety. Wasn’t sure that was any better, but I sent him as much confidence and comfort as I could as I stepped into Medbay, gun already drawn and ready at my side.
Chao-Xing lay in the bed, quiet and looking mostly normal—mostly. I couldn’t pinpoint the change for a second until she looked directly at me, and then I felt an uneasy seismic shift inside.
It was her eyes. Her eyes weren’t hers anymore. They’d gone paler, a color like spring honey. Human, but just a touch too bright, too much.
She opened her mouth and garbled noise came out, like she was relearning how to talk. It wasn’t English, wasn’t Chinese, wasn’t any language at all, just . . . sounds. Unsettling ones.
I’m not calling her Chao-Xing anymore, I decided. Chao-Xyll it is.
C-X—lucky for me the nickname still applied—seemed confused by the lack of clarity, and a little frustrated. She—they?—sat up, and the sheet that had been lying over bare skin slipped off. And I saw more changes. C-X was . . . armored. A kind of organic black extrusion that covered skin, or replaced it, I didn’t know which. It was smooth and wrong and wicked sharp on its curves, like it could cut your eyes just by looking. Spines too, from shoulders tapering down to tiny cutting teeth at the wrists. At least from the front, C-X’s body still had a lean, slightly feminine curve to it, but a little less than before. Whatever was going on inside her, it had happened fast.
My gaze lingered on the black chitin growing along the back of her neck. Her hair was falling out in clumps, and if I was the betting kind, I’d lay odds on the shell continuing up the back of her skull. Her features didn’t look the same either. Already, she had less flesh on her bones, so her cheeks, chin, and jaw seemed carved from stone. As I studied her, a series of uncontrollable twitches ran through her, arms jerking as she tried to do . . . something. Hell if I knew what.
“Is she seizing?” I asked, as EM
ITU whirred into action. Like the bot, I wasn’t sure what pronoun applied to C-X now, but she was still the woman I’d grown to respect deeply, even if she was also something more.
“I cannot say for certain. Stand back, please.”
EMITU tried to sedate her, but the meds weren’t working. She ripped the restraints from the table and shoved the bot away, pure brute strength. If I had any sense, I’d shoot C-X now, but even with her running amok, I couldn’t pull the trigger. Tremors set in, and I fought the urge to cry as I registered the sheer confusion and anguish in her eyes. She didn’t want to do this, but she couldn’t stop either.
I have to stop her.
With trembling hands, I brought the weapon up. But before I could shoot, C-X stumbled to the wall and started banging her head on it, turning that impulse toward violence on herself. At first, I thought she was really trying to hurt herself and I wheeled on EMITU. “Find some damn medicine to put her out!”
The bot stood still, however, listening to the percussion. “It’s a message. I think that’s Morse code.” EMITU spelled out the letters she was tapping with her head, slow and relentless. “H-E-L-P M-E.” Over and over, she tapped out the same message until the bot found a combination of chemicals that calmed her down.
Even with enough meds to sedate an angry rhino, she still wasn’t unconscious, but she didn’t fight the new and improved (and hopefully stronger) restraints we used on her. Her eyes didn’t blink anymore; she had the blank, dead stare of a creature in terrible pain, and it just about ripped my beating heart from my chest.
“She can’t tell us, but . . . based on her test results, how much is she hurting right now?” I asked EMITU. Since she’d done this for me, I had to know. Had to.
“I do not have the parameters to personally judge a meatsack’s pain, but the level of massive physiological change my patient is currently enduring appears to be equivalent with inhumane tortures humans have enjoyed administering in times past. There are also levels of mental discomfort that I am not equipped to gauge.”