The Kinship of Stars

by Julie Ishaya

  Adam's gaze followed an alignment of young Valtaerians forced to their knees before one of the taller Shiv. There were all twelve students, while behind them, Shiv guards attended the school's three mavens, including the elderly Ahrden. Around the gathering, five school guards lay sprawled and it was unclear if they were dead or unconscious.

  "They have seen us, my lord," the pilot announced lowly. He focused the screen, clarifying the figure of the kai. Angry yellow eyes looked directly at the shuttle over the rim of the breath mask.

  A tremor of uncertainty moved through Adam's heart, and he set his jaw. "Notify Imperial Command that we are in range," he said. "Take us down. . . slowly. I'll hail them on the exterior audio and request permission to land."

  The pilot's own uncertainty, along with that of the guards, enshrouded Adam, building upon him, and he tried to find one shred of confidence. He wondered where the raptors were located now, and if the ground agents were able to find any means of entry.

  "Imperial Command acknowledging," Captain Fahl'gir's voice replied to the pilot's transmission.

  "Captain," Adam said, "we are preparing to hail the Shiv and land. Has our ground troop found entry?"

  "Negative," Fahl'gir replied.

  Adam's nerves clenched as the plan's foundation remained infirm. But he would be damned before he would fully surrender, and he wanted—needed—to speak with the Shiv kai. "Open the external audio system," he said. He stepped up to the console and looked out the window as the quadrangle grew closer, bringing with it the deadly invaders and their captives.

  Kieriell crept along the wall of the outer ward certain that no one had seen him manifest on the other side of the student guide quarters, and he found the outer ward still except for the sea air caressing his hair. He hurried past the more open area across from the greenhouse and pressed his back to the wall as he came to the archway into the second, more narrow ward. From there he hurried across the grass to the next opening, where the full view of the quadrangle opened up for him, lighted by posts set along the main footpath and against the walls.

  With his back against the wall of the inner ward, he peered around the corner of the arch and scoped the quadrangle, his attention automatically captured by the sight of the Shiv vessel sitting near the center opening.

  The Shiv had wasted no time collecting the students and mavens for hostages. Kieriell saw that they were forced to their knees and guessed that their ages ranged from eleven to twenty by the height of each figure. He recognized the stronger build of Jarren Rashahn in a leisure tunic and trousers.

  The Shiv wore environmentally protective armor and breath masks, which covered their faces from eyes to chin with a visor that gave them plenty of visibility. Kieriell remembered the kai's short speech on the issue of disease on the Shiv world, and he understood the necessity for protection. At least their lack of immunities on Valtaer was a weak point.

  Next he noticed that Siri did not seem to be with her father.

  He heard the kai speaking to one of his officers, but they were all too far away for Kieriell to hear clearly. Taking a chance, he hurried around the corner and out into the quadrangle to the grove of trees near the eastern wall. He found cover behind one of the thicker trunks of a seed pod tree.

  Still he could not hear very well, and as he leaned out just enough to check his distance from the others, he estimated that he was already at the least noticeable place. Another thick trunk stood ahead, diagonal to his current tree, and he probed over the ground for twigs or any other objects that might make noise underfoot. The way looked clear, and he ran low for the next tree. Just as he reached it, however, something rustled nearby, and he threw his back against the bark. A thick, low-sprouting limb brushed his hair, and he reached for it to hoist himself up. Like climbing a ladder, he made his way to the next limb, barely realizing that the shift had produced the talons necessary to aid his climb. He reached a limb with a perfect view to the side of the gathering.

  He could hear the kai clearly now. Sharp spoken Shiv, almost a shout: "What was that? Go see."

  Kieriell watched a Shiv officer carry a laser staff to the foot of the tree. Looking down through the branches, he cringed at what he had not noticed, the body of a school guard.

  The guard must have been in his twenties, the sharp features of his face paralyzed, while his glassy eyes stared straight up into the foliage toward Kieriell. There was some life there, a tiny spark frozen within the wide pupils. The guard's legs were sprawled with one knee bent slightly, while one hand laid at his side, and the other groped aimlessly over the grass, causing the rustling noise. His stunner laid just out of reach.

  The Shiv came closer, looking down at the guard. Slowly, he put a foot over the hand to stop the nervous twitching. "It's nothing," he called back in Shiv. His grating voice reverberated through the breath mask. "Just one of the guards we stung."

  "Leave him," the kai called back.

  Kieriell gave a silent sigh of relief. The Shiv's footsteps hushed over the grass and moved off to rejoin the others. The eyes still stared up at him.

  The kai walked along the line of youths, each of them keeping their heads bowed. "Who here knew the Nexian half-breed Kieriell Shyr'ahm?" he asked. "You, perhaps?" He nudged a young woman, and Kieriell recognized Dara Scath'ahk, the daughter of a Nallian lord. Looking down the line, Kieriell noted the absence of Thalassa Rychaeris, the girl with whom he'd been infatuated when he was a student here. She had been older and graduated the year after he had left for Nex.

  The kai persisted in Shiv, though he must know that not one of the students, or even one of the mavens, could understand him. "You, girl, look at me." He took Dara's chin and forced her face up so he could lock eye contact with her.

  Kieriell knew the kai would get nothing from this. Dara might remember him as having been a fellow student over two years ago, but she knew nothing of him now. The kai's mind probe quickly discovered this, and he made a comment to his second attending officer. He moved down the line, skipping the two boys of perhaps seventeen, who were clad in athletic clothing and covered in sweat as though they had been working out before the Shiv arrival. He moved past three youths, all clearly under sixteen—the youngest of them steeling glances up at him out of fascination and fear—until he came to the figure who was most familiar to Kieriell.

  Jarren's jaw was set, his head up while his eyes were cast down. He seemed to tense further when the kai's steps planted right in front of him, and Kieriell dared to reach out just a tendril of empathy to his friend, to probe over the strength of Jarren's will. He found it firm, but doubtful firm enough for what came next.

  The kai leaned down and with his chrome hand took hold of Jarren's chin, forcing the junior maven's face upward. "Look at me," he hissed. Jarren's eyes, almost on their own, began to roll upward to meet the kai's gaze, while he tried to twist his head sideways. The cold grip held him firm, and a moment later his shoulders began to slacken.

  "This one knew Kieriell," the kai finally told the others.

  Kieriell jolted in his place. All the kai needed to discover was one memory, or a mental image that would give him an essential clue in his quest.

  "You might, then," the kai continued to the youth, "tell me where he lived. Show me."

  "Leave him alone!" Maven Ahrden spoke up, his Valtaerian equally as alien to the Shiv as their language to him.

  "Ah, the old man," the kai said. He lost interest in Jarren, who toppled over on his side, one hand reaching up to lay against his head. The kai moved fluidly over to Arhden and tilted his head in observation. "I'm sure you knew Kieriell. Now, won't you tell me where he lived in the city? Where his family stays?" Then he started to force his way upon Ahrden, grabbing the elderly maven by the throat and looking into his eyes.

  A new noise interrupted him, the sound of a transporter engine high above the quadrangle and descending. The Shiv and their prisoners all looked up, and Kieriell tried to see though the obscuring branches as a large aerial veh
icle moved upon the quad. He knew that it could only be the Dyssian shuttle arriving.

  The kai lost interest in Ahrden and pushed the elder away into the guards. He took several long steps forward as he looked up at the shuttle. The light in the quad danced off the anger in his eyes.

  A signal light on the nose of the craft flashed three times, a benevolent sign though not a show of surrender. The engine died to a hovering drone, and the front of the shuttle seemed to stare at the gathering below. Warm wind wafted down from the thrusters, moved around Kieriell.

  There appeared briefly to be a standoff between the craft in the air and the kai, then a voice speaking crisp, standard Shiv, filtered through the exterior amplifiers of the shuttle.

  "This is Crown Prince Adam Asmirrius of Nex, requesting permission to land and speak personally with the Shiv kai."

  Kieriell almost lost his hold on the limb. His talons dug in before he toppled.

  A loud laugh strained through the kai's breath mask. It echoed upon itself mockery of the Nexian crown prince. "So," he called up to the craft, "the son of Asmodéus wants a word with me?" He paused in thought, and one of his officers moved to advise him against it. The officer's head shook furiously, but the kai ignored him. He raised one arm and signaled while he said, "I've always wanted to meet Adam Asmirrius in person. You may land, but if you make one suspicious move, my men will slay each and every one of these young people."

  Kieriell looked from the quivering, prone form of Jarren to the hopeful face of Ahrden. The other two mavens appeared for the most part confused. Kieriell had studied under one of them, Maven Idu'hn, in his first term at the school before Ahrden was assigned to him. The other, Maven Hadrahn, he did not know much at all.

  As the shuttle began its descent to the side of the Shiv craft, the kai had the students and mavens moved further across the quad to be guarded near the western wall. One of the other students was allowed to help Jarren to his feet and guide him. The shuttle's drone rose and then began to drop off into silence before its side hull cracked open and a wide ramp lowered to the ground. The figure of Adam Asmirrius appeared in the opening, flanked by two guards. They descended and stepped onto the grass.

  "No," the kai said, gesturing toward the guards while he looked at Adam. "They stay. You, step forward."

  Kieriell's heart began to race at the sight of his father. Adam's eyes were red from the shift, and he carried himself with as much pride as could be summoned at a time like this. He signaled for the guards to hold back. The cloak drifted over the grass in his wake as he proceeded forward and came to stand before the kai. Kieriell could see now that his father stood a full head taller than the kai, and the shoulder guards on his cloak insinuated more strength. Having not actually seen another Nexian standing before the kai like this, he suddenly realized how strong his father appeared. No, how strong his father was.

  "I would ask," Adam said in crisp Shiv, "what you mean by this venture, but I already know."

  "Do you?" the kai replied. His eyes blazed above the dull silver surface of the breath mask, and one brow rose slightly. Small tubes running from the lower sides of the mask and sweeping back over his shoulders, appeared to be sensory devices like whiskers or the antennae on some insects. The tubes disappeared under the drape of his cloak. "I suppose then that you are here to defend your wife. That is understandable, but it would be much easier—for you, for her—if you just gave her to us."

  "Why?" Adam stayed calm. "So you can destroy her as you did Kieriell?"

  "Kieriell," the kai spat the name, hands balling into fists. "Kieriell was given the choice to help us, and he turned it down." He stepped closer to Adam who refused to look in his eyes. "He turned down the chance to be the savior of an entire race."

  Adam sighed impatiently. "That wouldn't be because you took him against his will, or that you killed his teacher?"

  The kai said nothing to this.

  From his perch, Kieriell could foresee no end to this conflict. It might continue forever, infinite as the reaches of the grid. He lowered himself onto the next branch down while he still listened, seeking inside himself a means to end it as it had begun: with him.

  "So you came here," Adam was responding to the kai's last statement, "just to take Jenesaazi back to your crumbling world? Did you expect her to survive any better than my son?"

  "Who said that I intended to return to that place?" the kai asked. "Why would I go back there when this world is so lush and perfect?"

  "You abandoned your people?" Resentment boiled in Adam's voice. "And where would you go?"

  "It amazes me," the kai half-chided, changing the subject, "that you should be so certain of my intentions. How did you learn that Kieriell's mother carries the gridcode?"

  "It didn't come from me," Adam remarked as though he had known it all along.

  Kieriell smirked, remembering that he and his father had both been guilty of taking the gridcode's origin for granted.

  The kai nodded. "You admit it, arrogant as your kind is."

  "My kind is not so delusional."

  This prompted another sneer from the kai. "See how arrogant. You think my aspirations are delusional? Why is that?" He shrugged at his own question

  "You speak beside the point," Adam argued.

  "Do I?" The kai felt secure enough to turn his back on the Nexian and wander several paces. "Delusions—illusions." His face turned toward the night sky, one side of the breath mask swirling with patterns from the changing light. "This world is so beautiful that it must be an illusion." The mask echoed an aggrieved sigh, and he threw out his arms as though to embrace his surroundings. "Stars," he added softly. "I've never seen stars from a view like this."

  As if he wasn't mad enough already, Kieriell thought. The toxic brew of self-pity and hubris had to spiral out of control at some point. The other Shiv seemed to sense this too. Perhaps the kai's control over them slackened from his preoccupation with this world not his own. Some shuffled their weight uneasily. Other's frowned, wrinkles drawing in on their foreheads when they should remain expressionless and mute.

  "You know," the kai mused, "there are records of Shiv contact with Valtaer, but then we had a beautiful world of our own. Why keep this from us now? Why keep the grid from us?"

  "The grid is not for just anyone," Adam replied, his angry edge releasing.

  "Then grid encompasses the entire universe! No! The dimensions and worlds beyond a single verse!" The kai spun on the prince and glowered. "Who is it for!"

  Adam shook his head, glancing down as he shrugged and uttered a humorless chuckle. He said, "Just tell me one thing," and advanced a few steps, raising his head, squaring up his shoulders. He looked as though he didn't expect an honest answer, but he asked, "How did Kieriell die?"

  The kai dropped his hands to his sides, and his eyes narrowed. "You wish for closure? Is that it?"

  Kieriell wouldn't let him finish. The kai would certainly lie with intentions of enraging Adam. Standing on one limb while grasping the one in front of him, he swung out. Legs dangled for a moment before he let go and dropped. The grass crunched where he landed in a crouch and then rose, the noise and movement attracting attention.

  Stepping out of the grove, he absorbed the silence around him, felt the awed gazes, the disbelief. He looked at the kai and then at his father.

  "But I'm not dead.

  36

  The Shiv command vessel never took the opportunity to use its destructive psionic field again. With most of the fleet lost, there was little point, and the Shiv recognized this. The moment the sensors indicated that the craft was retreating, Asmodéus made preparations to embark for Valtaer. General Kallian saw him down to the Imperial Harbor, where a mid-sized shuttle waited, its ramp extended down through a connector tube into the corridor that encircled the cavern of the harbor. It was a craft with a fully interactive neural engine like those which Adam preferred for low-profile travel, and its side hull hovered close to the outside glass of the corridor tube.r />
  (I feel as though I'm leaving my kingdom in chaos,) Asmodéus confessed to the general as he took long, quick strides toward the ramp, his pace just short of a jog.

  Ten members of the Imperial Guard Elite brought up the procession, and Kallian kept his head up and his eyes hard in front of the men. (To serve your kingdom well,) he sent steadily, (you must also serve your line.)

  The general's statement reminded Asmodéus of something his former chamberlain might say, and he remembered regrettably that the office remained open. There would be so many pieces to pick up when he returned, so much physical and emotional debris for all of Nex. He gave Kallian a nod and proceeded up the ramp with the Elite behind him, while the general stood at attention.

  Its passengers secured on board, the shuttle's opening slid closed, creating an air lock in the compartment before it began to pull free of the extension tube and raise its ramp. It glided sideways out into the central harbor. The view from the windows soon began to turn about the cavern, past other docked ships, until the front view faced the mouth of the harbor. The giant aperture was already open, and the path clear. Soaring forward out of the mouth and circling around the vast lower region of Dyss, the shuttle arced out further and turned toward the distant line of the nexus. Six raptors fell into the shuttle's flight path and patterned up before the ships sped onward, prepared to meet the worst.

  Adam stared in disbelief while his pulse gorged his doubting brain with joy from his heart. The imbalance of it disoriented him.

  His son was alive.

  The kai did not seem as surprised. His eyes narrowed in the manner of someone who had just found verification to support a long sustained suspicion. "Alive," he whispered. "Of course, that eruption from the fusion well was too abnormal. You teleported out of it before you reached the core."