I cradled my hand against my chest. “Where did he come from?”
“You need to put that on ice,” advised Gennady. “He came from OMSK.”
“That’s a name?”
“That’s an acronym,” said Gennady.
“What does it stand for?”
“No one remembers.”
“So, you called for help,” I said, attempting to rescue the point, “and Bomarigala answered.”
“He answered, but he didn’t help. He told me to—” Gennady smiled thinly. “He said no. After that, I drifted around for a while, until I witnessed the demise of the man who killed Titania.”
You what?! I thought.
He must have read my expression, because he added, “I gave Baylor the bombs, Oichi, but I had no idea he would do something so drastic. I had a very different vessel in mind for those bombs.”
It took me a moment to figure out what he meant. “Itzpapalotl!?”
“I needed their money—but I never had any intention of turning you over to the Weapons Clan. When the time was right, I knew we’d have to fight them.”
“We could have fought them with the Medusa units!”
“Well—yes, but then you could have pushed me out of the picture, too—which is what you’ve done.” He shrugged. “My part is over. Your part is just beginning.”
Glad as I was to see Gennady, I didn’t believe he had been innocent in the destruction of Titania. Even if he didn’t know what Baylor was planning to do with the bombs, he was observant enough to figure out where they had ended up. Though I have to admit, I would not be surprised to learn that Gennady had hoped to blow up Itzpapalotl. It seemed in character.
The mover finished descending. It hummed for about ten seconds, and then it began to move sideways. Gennady lurched in my direction as the momentum caught him off guard, but he quickly regained his balance. “Your source was right, Oichi—Baba Yaga favored my cousin, Andrei Mironenko. I think she finds me a poor substitute, but my interests coincide with hers more often than not these days.”
“She said it was her idea to make us.”
He studied me for a long moment before he answered. “Baba Yaga is the Engineer. Not just of you, Oichi—of many things. She has been so for all her existence. She will be so long after you and I are gone.”
“Then what is she, Gennady? She can’t be human.”
His nose began to drip blood again. He dabbed it with an encrusted sleeve. “Don’t ever ask her that. I tried to find out once. I attempted to get a DNA sample from her.” He raised his right hand and wiggled his fingers. “Once she finished with me, it took them six months to regenerate my hand. I’ll tell you a couple of theories, though.”
“Please do,” I said. “I don’t want to take the time to regrow fingers.”
“The easiest explanation is that she’s human, but a mutation. Somehow, her line developed an extraordinary longevity gene.”
“So there are others like her somewhere?”
He grinned. “Probably not. Ancient Earth had quite a vicious pecking order. Survival of the fittest, and all that.”
I nodded. “Okay. What’s your other theory?”
He lost his smile. “I think she may be one of the Titans.”
I blinked. “One of the creatures from ancient mythology?” He did not seem to be kidding.
“Myths and legends are what people use to explain what they don’t understand,” said Gennady. “Even modern people, confronted by a deathless woman who commands inexplicable forces, might feel inclined to call her a witch—or a goddess.”
Medusa had said something similar. Having met the Engineer, I found it possible to believe she could have been born with that longevity gene and lived many generations, then encountered avatars from an ancient race of aliens and learned even more from them. Such a creature would amass her assets and guard her secrets. She could start and end wars.
She could engineer a race of people and aim them at the Three, hoping for a powerful alliance. If so, her machinations put Lady Sheba to shame.
Our mover began to slow again. Gennady pushed away from his wall, and I did the same.
He said, “My business with the Weapons Clan ended when Bomarigala refused to rescue me from the void. My business with Olympia has always been dictated by the Engineer. When you and I see each other again, Oichi, I hope it’s under pleasant circumstances.”
Searching my heart, I had to tell the truth. “I hope so, too.”
The last time Gennady and I had been face-to-face, we were on opposite sides of an air lock pressure door, and he was getting ready to blow me into the void. I had been reasonably certain that Medusa would rescue me from that fate, but that had not been what I was thinking about as he gazed into my eyes from the other side of the view window.
Do you know? I had wondered, That I’m not who you think I am? That I’m not going to die?
He had winked at me, just before the outer door spun open.
Standing across from me in the mover, he did it again. “Farewell, Oichi. I wish you the best of luck.”
The doors opened. “You aren’t coming to the luau?” I felt a bit disappointed.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to complicate your first meeting with the Belters. Queenie will be there.”
Gennady pointed. “That way. It’s straight down this corridor from here.”
I stepped out of the mover, and the door slid shut. In another moment, the display lit up. IN USE.
I knew the chance to ask some of the questions that still teased me had expired.
Maybe that was for the best. Some mysteries should persist, shouldn’t they? Especially if I wanted to keep liking Gennady. Otherwise, I might feel compelled to kill him. That would be a very dangerous undertaking, indeed.
I walked down the corridor, my hand (and possibly my heart) throbbing painfully.
* * *
I can’t say I had a spring in my step. The Dancing Movers, the Possible Titan, and the Resurrected Gennady had just given me a crash course in Belter diplomacy—and the picture looked challenging. I had to admit, so far, the techniques required for negotiation had been right up my alley. That was about to change, but I didn’t know it, so I kept walking.
The passage broadened, and opened at intervals to empty chambers. Everyone must be at the far end, past big pressure doors that were wide open. Laughter, singing, and percussive music echoed down the corridor.
This was no tea party.
I heard the traditional music Fire had sent me, with the tom-toms and the boobams and the other things that went clickety-clack. Light flickered on the rock walls outside the doors. When I passed through and emerged into the giant chamber beyond, I realized that any expectations I could have harbored would have fallen short.
Belters crowded the cavern, smiling, laughing, and singing—those who weren’t playing the percussion instruments were dancing, and everyone else was eating. People swayed their hips and their hands, and one fellow spun batons with glowing balls on the end (the cause of the flickering light). I stood frozen in place, overwhelmed with the spectacle. When they noticed me, men and women danced up and placed necklaces made of silk flowers around my neck, and I, who was accustomed to entering any circumstance with careful observance of attire and protocol, wasn’t sure how to respond—so I just smiled awkwardly.
The Belters looked happy, so open and welcoming. Our social protocols on Olympia were stiff and formal compared with theirs. If we treated Belters the way we treated each other, we might seem unfriendly. If we were going to have a working relationship with them, we were going to have to step outside our comfort zone.
I was already there.
I looked for my associates—and spotted them sitting at a table halfway across the chamber, Merliners and Olympians, all having a wonderful time and apparently not worrying about me. Ashur smiled at Mirzakhani, who sat next to him. Cocteau sat on his other side, beaming with ple
asure, much as she had during Ogden Schickele’s garden party, and I guessed she was enjoying more culinary delights. Narm, despite his assertion that real instruments were far too retro, appeared almost reverent as he watched the musicians perform.
Perhaps you won’t be surprised to hear that the Minis were all in their perfect element: curious, happy, and charming as ever. I saw Kitten among the dancers, performing the steps with an ease that I could never hope to possess.
The Belters were beautiful. Their emotions were genuine and openly displayed. I had no idea how to respond. If I didn’t get my equilibrium soon, I might turn around and walk away.
Then I locked gazes with someone across the chamber.
She stood a little apart from the crowd, yet they all seemed aware of her. When she began to walk toward me, they parted for her, as for a queen. She looked like one of them, with cinnamon-colored skin and black, wavy hair. Her face was broad, her cheeks high and rounded. Her wide mouth curved in a smile.
That was where her similarity to the Belters ended, because she wore a suit very much like the one I had seen on Timmy and Argus, and a metal frame that arched above her like wings, except that it bent forward over her head and came to two points that jutted down like the arms of a praying mantis.
She closed the distance between us until she stood toe to toe with me. We were the same height.
“Oichi,” she said, “I’m Fire. This is our custom. I greet you.” She placed her hands on either side of my face, then touched her forehead to mine. The points of her metal frame loomed over our heads.
Fire opened her eyes again and took a step back. “Do you understand?”
I looked closer at the metal frame Fire was wearing. It wasn’t biometal, but it was something very much like it. “Queenie comes from the graveyard,” I said. “She’s salvaged tech.”
Fire nodded, then showed me the full power of her dazzling smile. “Welcome to Maui.”
* * *
“Oichi,” Ashur said with more than a little outrage, “those men were not security officers!”
“You’re right, but they didn’t hurt me.”
“Really?” he demanded. “Then how come you’re soaking your hand in a bowl of ice?”
“Not because of them.”
Ashur frowned, but he didn’t press me. I had to take my hand out of the ice water, because it was beginning to be more uncomfortable than the original injury. Thanks to the painkiller the station commander had given me, most of the soreness had faded.
She had introduced herself just as I thought my neck could bear no more flower strands. “I’m Commander Lana. Welcome to Maui.”
Kitten wrapped herself around my waist. “We gave Commander Lana the gifts!”
“The gifts!” I said enthusiastically while trying to remember what they were.
“We love gifts!” replied Commander Lana, who was tall and sturdy, a woman of middle age whose long, black hair was liberally shot with silver. She wore a uniform that reminded me of our own Security personnel, though her insignia were more obvious. Had I seen them earlier, I would not have mistaken Jay’s dancing movers for the forces Lana commanded.
Cocteau winked at me. “We hope you like the wine, Commander Lana. I can personally recommend it. The coffee as well.”
Lana’s face brightened when coffee was mentioned. “We can never get enough of that. You grow it on your generation ship, Oichi?”
“In the Habitat Sector,” I said. “We make chocolate as well. We hope you’ll visit us.”
“I accept your invitation,” said Commander Lana. “Now, eat, Oichi! You have a lot of catching up to do.”
I sat next to Lana, and Fire took the seat next to mine. Kitten arranged herself around my shoulders, peering through the flowers like a cat in a garden. Dragonette maintained her usual perch on Narm, and Rocket on Wilson, but Teddy had his own seat, boosted with pillows. I stole another look at Ashur, who had already forgotten me for Mirzakhani. I hadn’t seen him smile so much since before …
Before Nuruddin’s divorce.
“Your Minis are wonderful creatures,” said Fire. “Living creatures. Ashur informed me he was the one who made them. That tells me everything I need to know about your people.”
I wasn’t sure she was right about that, but it wasn’t the worst argument I had ever heard, either.
“Queenie is an accidental consciousness,” she said.
“Aren’t we all?”
Fire grinned. “You and I, Oichi—we are born with brains that form personalities as a matter of organic function. Queenie’s personality formed because of her interface with users—people with organic brains, very much like mine.”
The servers piled food on our plates. I didn’t recognize most of it, but it smelled good. “Why is she—why are you both called Queen’s Fire?” I said.
“Queenie was created for a warrior queen. She can tell you all about her, but not that much about the people the queen belonged to. That was early in her existence, and it was a long, long time ago.”
“Thirty thousand years?” I said between bites of something sweet.
Fire looked into my eyes. “Longer. Much, much longer.”
Something about the way she said that gave me the impression I should stop asking how long it had been. I couldn’t resist one more question. “Did the people who made the Three make Queenie?”
“No,” said Fire. “The people who made the Three were long dead, by then.”
Maybe so, but something about the way Queenie had sounded when she spoke to my brain implant was familiar. She might have different origins, but she was still of the graveyard.
Kitten regarded my plate. “I like the orange stuff, Oichi. Have another bite of that.”
“Yes, dear.” I obliged with a small nibble.
“Yum,” she said, and at that moment I looked across the room and into the large golden eyes of a person who was covered from head to toe with fur—not worn as a garment, but growing from her skin.
“Fire,” I said, “is that woman—does she have…”
“She’s a Woov,” said Fire before I could embarrass myself further. “Aliens. Very nice people. Nicer than us, if you want to know the truth. However, those very short sturdy people sitting at the table with them? Human—and the super-tall, skinny people at the other end? Also human. Just different gravity conditions.”
They were all looking at me with open curiosity, so I returned the favor. There was a wider variety of body types on Maui than one could find on Olympia, but there was also a dominant type—people who looked more like Fire—tall with golden-brown skin and thick wavy hair.
Fire saw me staring. “The original Belters of Charon are from Graveyard, from a little town called Odd’s Corner—we grow up there so we can develop strong bones.” She flexed her arms. “We make regular trips home, but many of our visitors are happy to stay low-gravity, and a lot of them live in the Belt now.”
The music, which had been so energetic when I arrived, shifted gears into a more gentle, romantic music played on ukuleles. Lana leaned toward me. “You know who plays a mean ukulele? Jay Momoa.”
Fire leaned in on the other side. “You should ask him to play for you, Oichi. After all, he owes you an apology. That was cheeky of him, pretending to arrest you.”
Commander Lana raised her eyebrows. “I heard you proposed marriage.”
Fire grinned. “I heard he did.”
“Both true,” I admitted. “What is it about that man, anyway? When he was standing close, I thought I was going to faint.”
Both women nodded. “You’re not the first person to react that way to Jay Momoa,” said Fire, “and you won’t be the last.”
I moved the food around on my plate, hoping it would look like I had eaten most of it. “I suppose there are quite a few people who will approach us with offers of business. What do you think of Jay Momoa? He said Lady Sheba paid him to beat me u
p.”
Commander Lana snorted. “Jay wouldn’t do that. He was trying to get you to negotiate.”
“He’s actually got a good reputation,” Fire said, “but sometimes I wonder if it’s too good.”
“Especially after he kidnapped me,” I reminded her.
“Kidnapping brides is an old custom,” she said solemnly, then laughed at my expression. “It’s just—he’s so handsome, so compelling. Remember I told you that my people are from Old Earth? Well, Jay Momoa has pretty much the same heritage, but he’s not from around here. His ancestors settled on a world named after the place that created us, Oceania. His people have a little something special.”
“Like…?” I prompted.
“Like some kinda sexy sauce. He’s good-looking, yes, but maybe he’s got—I don’t know, pheromones? People want to like him—to please him. Hell, I want to do that, and I’m Queen’s Fire. If Queenie weren’t looking out for me, I would have made a fool of myself by now.”
“Admit it, Oichi,” said Fire. “You’ve already forgiven him—haven’t you? Maybe you’re even considering his marriage proposal, just a little? That’s why I always use extra caution when interacting with Jay. I don’t think he’s a bad man. I don’t think he’s entirely good, either. His ethics may be a little frayed around the edges.”
I had thought my own ethics could be described that way. I was beginning to feel naïve. I could snap a guy’s neck when called upon to do so, but if I negotiated a trade deal with you, I would be fair. I might not be forthcoming about all the details, but I wouldn’t cheat a business partner.
“I’m not going to rush to accept anyone’s marriage proposal,” I said. “Even if it seems to be good for business.”
“Smart girl,” said Commander Lana. “Jay wouldn’t be the worst match you could make—but you could do better.”
* * *
The greeting party went on for quite a while longer. There was a lot of food.
Medusa in the Graveyard Page 15