The Kinship of Stars

by Julie Ishaya

  The chamberlain remained silent, piloting the tiny craft.

  It must look like nothing more than a small asteroid speeding along, Kieriell realized. And, no matter how old its design, it contained a cloaking device aimed at defeating Nexian sensors. He tried not to believe that he was lost. Hoped that at this moment the tabernacle had discovered the pod's ejection from the Dyssian rock and now followed its silent slide through space.

  18

  Asmodéus stormed into the tabernacle from the lift, ignoring the shorter officer who almost collided with him. He looked around, found the others in the room staring. The heartbeat of the place almost matched his own distressed pace. He had just returned from the green room, having found no one there but that the ejection light over the escape route blinked silently. The pod beyond the aperture had been designed for stealth. Once freed from the primary asteroidal, it would drop down from the underside of Dyss like so much drifting debris, then it would turn over to manual control, leaving the next direction up to the occupants.

  (Asteroid sensors,) the emperor demanded. General Kallian flung him a questioning look, while the surrounding consoles flared with new activity. The neural core glowed with synaptic responses to the emperor's distress. Asmodéus approached the front console and the display of open space. An overlay of red Nexian characters described the current location of the Shiv craft waiting on the edge of the border. (Search for a small formation speeding away from Nex below the field. It looks like an ordinary rock, but look for minute traces of exhaust.)

  Everyone noticed the emperor's disheveled mane, the shadows forming around his eyes anticipating the shift. Asmodéus sensed their questions as he took long, forced breaths to keep himself calm as he waited. Kallian wandered from one console to the other, staring over the shoulders of the staff as they commenced the scanning sequence.

  "General!" someone called from a console closer to the screen.

  Kallian approached, looked down at the board, his features highlighted by the activity. "We have it," he said, turning to the emperor. "Scanners detect an electromagnetic core at work along with metallic compounds associated with ships of an older design. That's obviously not an actual asteroid."

  "Send a recovery ship immediately." Asmodéus' spoken surprised its owner with its low growl. All officers trained their attention on the object making its way toward the border. He sensed their wonder and noted how even Kallian almost winced under the force of the command. The general nodded and approached the emperor to give a solemn bow. "You will take five raptors, General, including your own." He leaned slightly closer to the officer and sent, (As of this moment, I can trust none of my officials who attended the opening negotiations. Something has happened.) He watched the visual of the pod's route pull up on the screen. His teeth ground, his canines lengthening. The tips scraped his gums until he tasted blood. (I think the chamberlain has been manipulated into taking Kieriell.) He pointed to the blip on the screen and its flight path. (It's bound for that waiting Shiv vessel.)

  "But why Prince Kieriell?" Kallian asked softly.

  Asmodéus looked at him, eyes still hard. He couldn't tell the general yet. Recover the renegade pod first, he decided, then evaluate the importance that Kallian know of the prince's ability to teleport. "No questions. Man the fighters now."

  Knowing time was slipping away, Kallian departed at a half-running but dignified pace.

  Asmodéus knew from the nauseating stir in his belly, from the inner humming of his senses. His worst fears began to gnaw at his heart as he watched the screen indicate that the pod was headed directly toward the waiting organism of the Shiv craft.

  Kieriell didn't stop pulling at the ties until long after the view of Dyss had vanished from the screen and only space met with the pod's departure from Nex. Far ahead, a dark opening in the dusting of stars indicated the mouth of Shiv space. The craft's low drone soothed Kieriell's back, and he felt as if he would fall prey to the drug again were it not for the discomfort of his bonds. He gritted his teeth, pondering over how, were he free, he would spring forward and grasp the chamberlain's shoulders. Shake him hard and talk to him until some scrap of sense came into him. How could he, the emperor's most trusted courtier, succumb to psionic manipulation?

  "I thought you were so strong," Kieriell uttered. He spoke more to himself, grasping the creeping understanding of what was happening to him.

  The pilot still made no response.

  Sighing, he looked around the compartment as his eyes adjusted. The rear walls were as jagged and rocky as those of the inner Dyssian palace, cold and offering no hope. Kieriell gave up working at his bonds. The cloth was too strong and the thing on his temple, dulling his senses, wore him into a numb shock. Just ride it out, he thought. He would wait for the right opportunity. Sooner or later he would be untied from the railing in order that he be moved elsewhere, then he would just have to improvise.

  Staring straight out the front screen, he fell into a daze, unblinking as he waited, until he noticed the green light flashing on the console. His eyes narrowed down on the light until it seemed the only illumination on the board. Green-green-green highlighted the compartment, defining the black metal slat-work of a small speaker system on the console. Then a static-ridden voice issued from the speaker.

  "Stealth Pod X-12, you are ordered to pull up from your current path."

  The reception in the old craft might have been poor, but not so that Kieriell didn't recognize General Kallian's voice. The prince pushed himself up as far as he could. "You hear that, Chamberlain?" he coughed out. "They're coming after us."

  The chamberlain's slender hand lifted up to lay against the console.

  Kallian's voice continued. "X-12, respond."

  "General!" Kieriell shouted, "General, we're headed for Shiv space. . ." His cries died as the green light broke off, leaving a narrow, glowing ring in his vision. He blinked away the after effect and shook his head. The chamberlain had shut off the frequency. "You can't just ignore them," Kieriell objected.

  Still not a word.

  Kieriell fell back against the wall. He would send, but the very thought of it boiled up an ache in his head, at the core of his brain. Damn the psionic inhibitor! He jerked his shoulders in a spasm of tight anger. Can't send, he thought, can't teleport. That left no option other than his shadow blade, but even as he started to manifest it, to cut his bonds, the pain erupted in his head again. It dug at every nerve and synapse, nearly plunging him into darkness. As he let it go and braced consciousness he bowed his head. The inhibitor left no part of him free.

  He watched the screen vacantly until he saw an object appearing on the horizon, growing closer on the visual. Its greenish, spiny hull told him all he needed to know. A Shiv craft waited just far enough beyond the border that Nexian law couldn't touch it so long as it did not fire weapons toward Nex.

  Leaden hopelessness sank into his chest. He swallowed down a small groan of dread and tried to blink away the burning in his eyes. He knew that a rescue team—if one were on the way—would be forced to break off the chase.

  Ahead, the Shiv craft opened its side belly, revealing a small docking bay. It had not the grace of a Nexian aperture but a ravenous appearance like a giant mouth, the edges beak-like and jagged.

  Kieriell's pulse quickened to gorge his throat and head. He could see a milky-colored tissue within the opening. The internals of the pathetic creature that composed the majority of the ship's structure. In disgust, he felt his stomach swim. Somewhere inside himself, he found the irony of the entire situation. It shook him with bitter laughter, rose into hysteric gales, and then died with the tears in his sore eyes.

  "My lord," Kallian's voice responded over the tabernacle's com-system. The roar of his fighter bled through as an undertone. "The Shiv craft has collected the pod."

  Asmodéus closed his eyes and grimaced, his teeth still grinding. His own blood still leaked onto his tongue in small sour torrents. "So close to unification," he hissed. "How co
uld the Shiv do this?"

  "I await your next order," Kallian replied.

  Asmodéus shook his head. Reluctantly, he turned to the nearest staff officer. "Link me with Hella," he said. "Send for the crown prince."

  "Yes, my lord."

  "General," Asmodéus replied to the biding silence of the com-system, "fall back into pattern Halcyon. Transmit a message to the Shiv vessel demanding an explanation for their actions."

  Far beyond the field of Nex, the raptors looped back from each other. An accompanying barge came to a halt in their path. As the raptors pulled back around, four took positions that formed the corners of a square pattern. Kallian's slightly larger raptor fell into the center and moved forward to complete a point like that on a pyramid. Kallian keyed in a transmission frequency to hail the Shiv craft. Then, holding the formation, the Nexian vessels waited.

  In the tabernacle, the emperor clenched his fists until his nails, lengthened with the shift, bit into his palms and drew blood.

  19

  He writhed when his captors came aboard the pod and untied him from the railing. He shrugged furiously to pull his arms free and claw at their gray faces. Five of them clustered around him, pulled his arms behind his back. Tangles of his hair stuck to his moist face. "Chamberlain!" he shouted over the rattle and rustle of the Shiv restraint. "Damn you, Chamberlain!"

  The silent figure waited near the console, standing with his head bowed toward the blank screen.

  Kieriell looked out past the pod opening at those horrible fleshy walls, all part of the living creature. Beneath the membrane, synapses fired, tiny blood vessels pulsed. An acrid smell like stale sweat and burnt skin wafted to meet him as he was herded into the opening and there, finally, his struggling ended as his hands were bound in thick steel cuffs behind his back. He was taken by the arms and pulled down the short ramp. The chamberlain followed silently.

  Kieriell tried to hold his breath against the reeking interior, and he gazed around the bay. The outer doors had closed behind the pod's entry to allow for careful pressurization. Across the bay, a membranous barrier spread back from the center, opening a passage from which came a procession of six more Shiv. Four of them were guards, wearing the same uniforms with dull green shells of armor at the shoulders and across the breast and torso. They carried laser staves, and their eyes were hidden behind dark visors.

  Kieriell recognized Rai Jinn next, second to the lead. He noted the plaited hair, the silver rings decorating the long, slender ears. There was the same green-gray jerkin of the uniform. Kieriell swallowed, remembering the experience of his first Shiv mindsting, and then he found himself almost eye-to-eye with the leader of the procession, a taller Shiv whose face was lined with age around the eyes and mouth. The white hair was long and full, almost a mockery of the Nexian emperor's crown mane.

  Observing the fuller but still slender build of this Shiv, Kieriell gaped. The broad shoulders were enhanced with silver-plated guards, but the left arm was not of flesh. Flexible chrome bands formed a simulated muscle structure and other sinew, while threads of wires linked the upper arm to a small plate implanted in the corresponding temple. He wore a draping, sleeveless tunic, and a decorative heavy-jointed clasp held the dark-red cloak in place.

  Kieriell glanced around as his captors all bowed to the new arrival. This could only be one being. It was obvious in the way the steady, yellow eyes watched him. The horizontal pupils narrowed.

  "Greetings, Kieriell Shyr'ahm," the Shiv kai said, a guttural accent lacing the Nexian language.

  Kieriell tried to convince himself one more time that none of this was happening. He wished to wake up, find himself sweating in his own bed, heart racing from the nightmare. But he could be no more awake than this—staring at the gleam of cy-tech in the Shiv kai's left arm, and Rai Jinn standing close as well, both of them examining the young Nexian's face. They knew his fear—how could they not? And they fed off of it like parasites.

  "You don't look very happy to see me, young prince," Rai Jinn gloated, a smirk twitching the corner of his mouth.

  "Quiet," the kai hissed over his shoulder in Shiv clear enough that Kieriell understood it. He switched back to Nexian. "We don't want to disturb our guest too much." He approached Kieriell with a natural arrogance in his composure, and raised his right, fleshen hand to caress the prince's cheek. "After all, he is our savior. Did you know that, Kieriell Shyr'ahm? You are going to lead the Shiv out of darkness."

  "What?" Kieriell stammered then lost his attention to the chamberlain who stepped around beside the kai. He searched his mentor's face for some sign of support, some indication that the elder Nexian had regained control, but the eyes were almost dead, the expression on the face blank.

  Noticing Kieriell's perplexed gaze at the chamberlain, the kai said, "He has given up the fight for control." He pulled away from Kieriell and laid the chrome hand on the chamberlain's shoulder.

  "How did you know about me?" Kieriell asked. His gaze kept following the course of segmented bands in the cy-netic arm. It intrigued him and disgusted him at the same time.

  Rai Jinn spoke up. "Remember, prince, when our minds met?"

  Kieriell blinked and then nodded.

  "Your mind was well guarded," Rai Jinn continued. "Asmodéus had established wards in your psyche, but I penetrated them. In their arrogance, the Nexian regime has failed to notice that we—what they consider the lesser beings—turned our focus toward psionic development. No wards could ever keep one of us out now, so deep down in your mind I discovered a very rare gem, the ability to teleport, and with teleportation within one dimension comes an even greater potential, one which I know you are aware of. After that, it only became a matter of patience."

  Kieriell stared. "Patience?"

  The kai moved forward again, clasping the side of Kieriell's neck so that his fingers ran through the tangle of the prince's crown mane. "The negotiations were our front, boy," he replied, his voice still gentle. "We have been patient with the Nexian attitude for millennia, what was it to wait two and a half more years? The chamberlain is the next closest official to the emperor besides the crown prince. To manipulate him into bringing you to us would leave us free of blame."

  That scorched Kieriell deep in the nerves and heart. He had understood from the moment he regained consciousness in the pod. Now it proved real and true.

  "By your own laws he is to blame, and you are forfeit to us," the kai continued. "We can legally claim you now."

  "He was so strong," Kieriell murmured.

  "Truly." The kai's voice pulled up out of its gentler tone and tightened with confidence. "Our dear chamberlain, he was very strong once. But you see, I was aboard the envoy ship when it first met with the Nexian diplomatic vessel. Under psionic shielding I boarded the Nexian craft undetected and got close enough to your court advisor. Close enough to sting him, and once I was in, I had him and no great distance could stop me." Again he laid the chrome hand on the chamberlain's shoulder while the other stood unmoving, staring at nothing.

  "But how come the Dyssian neural core didn't catch you?" Kieriell asked.

  "I used a subconscious implant to reach him," he explained. "It controlled his motor skills without any surface thoughts, and the palace security of Dyss could never have detected it. I saw through his eyes and maneuvered his body as I willed." He turned a smile toward Kieriell, dull-white teeth bared ravenously. "My main dilemma then was finding a way to get you off Dyss, but then I saw the escape route and the time was perfect. He tried to fight it, and the beauty of it is that he didn't want anyone else to know about it. He guarded his own thoughts well to avoid detection by the neural core."

  As the kai said this, the chamberlain's throat muscles moved, tightened as he swallowed, and Kieriell could see that the counselor's jaw clenched. Tears flooded the eyes, but the chamberlain remained in a state of mute surrender.

  The kai touched at a tear with the tip of his little finger as he continued explaining. "He fought in silence be
cause he didn't want to be seen as weak. After all, he already had this." He traced the line of the scar from the chamberlain's forehead to the cheek, then he raised the cy-netic arm out and made a fist, bending his wrist back. From the blunt of the wrist up through the ball of the hand ejected a long, thin blade of gleaming steel. Straight and narrow, its edges glowed orange with molecularly charged energy. "I disgraced him further, and now. . ." He held the blade out before Kieriell as though he would stab the prince.

  Kieriell bared his teeth, the tension in his back and arms tightening until his cords might snap beneath his flesh.

  "Now I will end his pain."

  Those last words reached Kieriell as though in spaced fragments. He saw the blade arc through the air horizontally, level with the chamberlain's neck. "Noooooo!" he screamed, his eyes shifting further into the serpentine, streaming hot tears. His body found the strength to pull free, and he started forward just as the chamberlain's head hit the floor, locks of hair spilling about the face. The edges of the blade had cauterized the flesh as it went through, leaving only an ooze of blood. The body delayed in falling and stood balanced, shoulders square, the stump of the neck crackling and smoking. A moment later balance gave way, and the form slumped first to the knees, then it toppled with a soft crunch and laid beside the head. The unseeing eyes looked out through veins of hair. The lips were parted as though they still drew breath.

  Kieriell came down on his knees beside the body, threw back his head and exhaled a long shout that deepened down into a monstrous roar unlike he'd ever issued. With his hands still secured behind his back, his fingers clawed at the empty air behind him. His voice died as he refocused on the kai's taunting face and waited just long enough to regain his breath. "I'll—" he spat, "—I'll kill you!" He sprang to his feet and shoved forward, almost tripping over the body. He aimed to use his shoulder to slam into the kai—such a slender frame must easily be snapped in two against a wall—but before he moved much further, the end of a laser staff came down on the back of his skull. He winced with the cracking pain and felt himself pulled back into the securing arms, forced to stand, shaken back into full consciousness to find the kai's blade close to his face.