Terminus

by Tristan Palmgren

  Their walls were lined with monitors and projectors. They filled the walls and the air with satellite imagery, raw sensor data, eavesdroppers. Habidah and Kacienta had never stopped working. Their exercise equipment, bikes and treadmills and weightlifting couch, folded compactly away. Meloku could smell them from here. Her demiorganics isolated something else, too – a lingering trace of sex. Now that was surprising. When they’d come here, Habidah and Kacienta hadn’t cared for each other. Time and relentless proximity could unravel a lot.

  Dr Habidah Shen had reshaded her skin tone since the last time Meloku had seen her, returned closer to her natural russet. Darker skin was hardly unknown along the Mediterranean coast. She sat with knees propped on her chair. She looked Meloku up and down. “Been keeping up with your longevity treatments? You look old.”

  “If that was supposed to hurt, you can do better.”

  “Just an observation,” Habidah said, with just enough of a pause to make Meloku wonder. It would not have been like Habidah to make fun of her appearance. Habidah could be as sincere as she was artless.

  After a lingering second, Habidah turned back to the satellite imagery floating above her desk.

  Meloku regretted a great deal of what she’d done when she’d come to this plane. It burned in her throat – and all the hotter whenever she was near Habidah. Habidah would not let her forget it. There was no forgiveness in her world. It didn’t matter that they’d all come from the same place, lost the same home.

  She wished she could say that did not bother her.

  Meloku had broken Habidah’s nose once. That, at least, had been a satisfying feeling. She focused on the memory, used it to warm her heart enough to push through this meeting.

  She grabbed the seat from Kacienta’s desk and rolled it over to Habidah. The desk projectors were angled to project into Habidah’s eyes, but Meloku caught a shimmer of images. A tropical storm off the coast of Africa. A merchant ship floundering at sea, square sails torn, foremast splintered. A forest fire raging through some earth and wood dwellings.

  Meloku said, “I didn’t come to harass you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Behind them, Kacienta said, “I bet you’ll do a good job of it anyway.”

  Meloku bit back her answer. “I think there’s something going on here beyond what we’ve all been told.”

  Habidah laughed, bitterly.

  “I get it,” Meloku said. “I know. I’m the joke this time. Happier now that I said it?”

  Habidah said, “So long as Ways and Means is on this plane, it’s not going to keep itself from interfering. It used to govern an empire of thousands of planes. Whatever it’s told you, manipulating worlds is as natural to it as breathing is to us.”

  “You don’t give it enough credit,” Meloku said. “It has more imagination than we ever will. It can reimagine itself.”

  There was no anger in Habidah’s voice when she asked, “Is that why you’re here? We’ve been looking a little too closely at what Ways and Means is doing, and so it sent you to tell us to stop?”

  “I’m not here on anyone’s business but mine.”

  Habidah held her gaze.

  It wouldn’t have helped her figure out what Meloku was thinking. Meloku really was a good liar. She could have matched stares with anybody.

  Habidah was the type to believe that any amount of interference on this plane was too much. She limited herself. She saw herself as only a scientist. The end of the Unity hadn’t changed that.

  She was also a hypocrite. Thirty years ago, the mass mortality of this world’s black plague had overwhelmed her. She had broken down, and broken through the limits she had placed on herself. She had saved a monk’s life.

  But, Meloku thought bitterly, Habidah had forgiven herself for that. In ways she had yet to forgive everyone else around her.

  That monk still lived aboard Ways and Means. Somewhat. His mind had been destroyed, torn to flinders during the battle that had resulted in Ways and Means’ exile. The transplanar monster had used him as a weapon, a vessel to deliver a virus. Ways and Means had spent decades trying to piece him together. A personal project. It hadn’t succeeded.

  Whatever her other principles, Habidah had wanted to save this world from its black plague. Meloku and Habidah had been in the same cabin when Ways and Means had announced it would do so. Habidah had not objected to that like she had to everything else.

  Habidah had no shortage of personal issues. Meloku longed to elucidate each of them for her. That would have been unproductive.

  Behind her, Kacienta asked Meloku, “Why do you want to know?”

  Meloku turned to her. “Curiosity.”

  Habidah said, “Ways and Means only hides what it’s doing if you don’t bother to look.”

  Meloku bristled. What she’d discovered, and whatever it meant, had definitely been hidden. “Like what?”

  They looked at her. Kacienta said, “You must have felt it by now.”

  Habidah said, “It’s affected politics in Italy for years.”

  Meloku had focused her research on Italy. That was the area that Habidah’s team studied originally, and so it was where Meloku already had her greatest expertise. She had checked in on other regions, but for the most part left those to other agents.

  Meloku folded her arms and waited, with less and less patience, until they decided to explain.

  A century ago, a vast army of steppe nomads had swept across the eastern half of the Eurasian continent. They had brought most of it to heel. They had shattered empires as far as eastern Europe. Steppe horsemen were mobile, and their diets were rich in protein. Their lifelong training with their animals left them with abilities sedentary people could rarely match, like accurately shooting bows from a moving horse.

  They had been outnumbered by the peoples they conquered, though. So strong was the pull of Chinese culture that the Mongols who had conquered it had patterned their government after Chinese dynasties. They had to adapt to rule, and adaptation meant losing the advantages that had brought them to power. The Emperors of the Yuan Dynasty were Chinese in all but ancestry. Chinese bureaucrats ran the government in Chinese style.

  Habidah said, “There’s no reason the Yuan Mongols should have survived as long as they have. They were close to toppling, on the verge of being replaced by native Chinese. Now, as if by magic, the Yuan are in control again. They’re rich, too. And powerful. Sending money and soldiers westward. I would’ve thought you’d noticed.”

  Meloku said, “Of course I know money from the east is pouring into Italy.” Back when the Company of the Star had been Antonov’s Company, it had been funded by a Turkish prince. She had chased that rabbit years ago. “But it’s not just from China.”

  “The Yuan Dynasty is back in control, but it’s got different strengths than it used to.” Habidah was enjoying Meloku’s resentment, knowing that she had something over her. Drawing it out. “Most of its military power vanished with the steppe horsemen. Chinese soldiers aren’t interested in fighting so far from home. But China is the richest country on Earth. Think about how it would stretch its influence in circumstances like that.”

  “I didn’t come here to be treated like a schoolkid. Or take a quiz.”

  Habidah ignored her, or pretended to. Again, she prompted, “Think about how you used to govern.”

  The hint finally overcame her frustration. “Through agents. Proxies.”

  Habidah nodded. “Most of the money reaching eastern Europe, including Italy, has its roots in the Yuan Dynasty. You tracked it partway back.”

  Habidah pulled up a sequence of eavesdropper feeds, angled the projections for Meloku. They were views of a vast and splendorous palace, walls hung with furs and antlers and hunting trophies, steeping in angled sunlight. Men in colorful, elegantly layered robes trailed the halls. Infrared traced ghostly shadows wherever the light touched.

  Ways and Means’ agents were not difficult to spot. They looked like Chinese bureaucrats, dressed li
ke Chinese bureaucrats, but in infrared their skin was cold as stone. They dressed less elaborately than others. They were low-ranking, staying out of the way. Giving no one an excuse to touch them.

  Meloku asked, “When did you plant eavesdroppers in the Great Khan’s palace?”

  Habidah just rolled her eyes.

  Meloku asked, “Did they ever try to hide themselves from you?”

  Habidah and Kacienta looked at each other. “No,” Kacienta said. “Why would they? We can’t do anything about them.”

  Habidah said, “They don’t care. Not any more than you cared when we found out what you were.”

  Meloku turned back to the projections. The Mongols were cruel and brutal, but that had only been one aspect of their many-faced conquests. They accepted surrenders without fault and on reasonable terms. They did not displace native religions or cultures in cities. Governments that surrendered peaceably were left in place. They often did not care how people managed themselves so long as they retained final authority and received a healthy tribute.

  In that respect, they were like the Unity. The Unity had been so named not because its peoples were alike, but because they were unified by their rulers – the amalgamates. The amalgamates governed transport and trade between the planes. They made worlds dependent on those things.

  The growing Yuan Empire was a replica of the Unity, and the Unity’s method of governance, on this world. Ways and Means could not have made it better itself. Maybe it had helped the Yuan.

  Meloku asked, “How are they doing this?”

  Habidah answered, “How do you think? Like you did with Queen Joanna.”

  There it was – the next barb. Like Ways and Means and the broken monk, Meloku had a personal project of her own: Queen Joanna of Naples. Thirty years ago, she had invaded Queen Joanna’s mind to try to use her to change this plane.

  Thirty years stuck in one place made for a lot of time to think.

  That was a sore spot, but telling Habidah to stay away would have just made her dig in. She seemed to know it, anyway. Habidah asked, “How is Queen Joanna doing this year?”

  Meloku said, “Better than you would imagine.”

  Habidah asked, “When was the last time you checked?”

  Of course they would be monitoring her, too. No point in lying. Meloku said, “It’s up to her to get better. If you’ve been watching, you know I’ve been trying to help. I can’t do everything.”

  Habidah said, “Even to you, that has to sound hollow.”

  Meloku ground her teeth. “Next question. Has Ways and Means or any of its agents tried to hide any of this from you?”

  Kacienta said, “Ways and Means hides everything from us, all the time.”

  The thin ice of Meloku’s patience gave way. She turned to Kacienta. “Cut the poor-me-against-the-universe horseshit. There’s a difference between hiding something and not sharing it with you. Ways and Means just doesn’t care if you see what’s happening in China.”

  Meloku didn’t give Kacienta time to react. She turned back to Habidah, and said, “I asked you a specific question. Have they ever removed your eavesdroppers? Blocked your observations? Manipulated your data?”

  From the fact that their answer was nothing more than a glance between them, Meloku guessed that they had not. Or, if they had, they were not willing to tell her.

  Habidah asked, “Do you still consider yourself Ways and Means’ agent?”

  “Yes,” Meloku said. For all the distance that had grown between her and Ways and Means, she had not needed to think about that.

  Kacienta asked, “Then why do you care? You should support whatever it’s doing, shouldn’t you?” The bite in her voice sharpened. “Look away when it wants you to look away.”

  “I should,” Meloku said. “But I’m not.”

  “You asked about it manipulating us. It is. Of course it is. And you’re its agent. We have to figure that that’s what you’ve come to do. Manipulate. Lead us in wrong directions. We can humor you, but only to a point.”

  Habidah no longer looked smug. That was telling. She had stopped entertaining the idea that Meloku wasn’t part of Ways and Means’ efforts.

  And it was mostly Meloku’s fault. She could have handled this conversation much better. The sight of Habidah had rendered all her social and diplomatic training moot.

  Kacienta said, “Even if you’re on to something, we can’t trust you.”

  If there had been an opportunity here, it had slipped by.

  Habidah turned to her desk as though Meloku were already gone. “It’s going to be morning before long. You’d better get back to your shuttle, before your master won’t let you leave.”

  “Believe me,” Meloku said, standing. “I won’t be inflicting this on myself any longer.”

  Kacienta followed Meloku to the door. Kacienta couldn’t resist one last jab: “Wish Queen Joanna our best.”

  Meloku stepped outside, and, feigning nonchalance, turned to Kacienta.

  Then she moved. She struck faster than Kacienta’s eyes could have registered. Meloku’s demiorganics routed her muscle control. She could have clocked Kacienta good, broken her nose, any number of things.

  But all she did was push Kacienta into the side of the door, touch a finger to her lips. The universal gesture for silence.

  Kacienta took a sharp breath, didn’t move.

  Meloku smiled. Just a little breach of politeness, enough to remind Kacienta what she could get away with if she really felt like it. Meloku’s combat programs were better than either of theirs. Reflexes, too.

  Given the provocations, Meloku thought she had been remarkably restrained.

  Kacienta glared, but didn’t move, and didn’t follow when Meloku started walking.

  The storm broke upon the coast in torrents of wind and lightning. Rain sliced into Meloku’s eyes as if in a deliberate affront. Her demiorganics blocked the pain in her skin, but the cold went into her bone. That last look on Kacienta’s face was almost enough to keep her warm.

  She stood shivering on the boarding ramp as it retracted.

  She hoped she’d made them as miserable as they’d made her. So many years after the last time she’d worked with them, she’d thought she’d buried that past far enough that it wouldn’t bother her. All that had happened was that those seeds had sprouted roots.

  8

  Osia didn’t gather the strength to call Ways and Means until long after the comet had vanished beneath her horizon.

  She stood at her boat’s prow. Rain dashed on her skin. She actually had to pay attention to realize how cold it was. She could feel, but only when she cared to. That was the difficulty with these bodies, with the past thirty years. She didn’t often care to make herself feel. Everything had become unfocused, dreamlike.

  She struggled to wake up.

  Ways and Means made its home far off the solar ecliptic, on an orbit with an apogee about two hundred million kilometers to stellar north. The amalgamate had chosen that distance for several reasons. It was close enough to Earth to maintain communications. It was also far enough that, to Ways and Means’ crew, the planarship felt apart from Earth. Shuttle travel consumed enough time and antimatter fuel that every journey had to be justified.

  Ways and Means wanted to make its crew understand that they were alone. They could not count on this world to lift that burden. Its triennial passage across Earth’s skies was a glimpse, as much for its crew as the people below, of a different future.

  But only a glimpse.

  That was what she’d been told.

  Ways and Means had given her these constructs with the idea that they would satisfy her social needs. More often, they came to her when they were restless. Braeloris leaned on the railing beside her, playing counselor again. “Is there something you find comforting in standing so still?”

  “I’m not staying still,” Osia said. “We’ve gone farther south than I’ve traveled in years.”

  “Tell me how you feel about-” she s
tarted, but Osia muted her from her awareness. She had no idea how long Braeloris kept talking, or when she figured out what she had done.

  Sometime later, Tass visited. She was their best sailor, the tallest among them. Just like Coral had been a diver in thir last life, Tass had been an engineer in hers. She noted, “We’ve gone this far, but we’re still not doing anything.”

  “This trip is a warm-up,” Osia said. Getting ready for what she figured she was going to have to do next.

  As usual, only Coral seemed to understand. When thi visited, thi asked, “Why don’t you just talk to Ways and Means?”

  It was not a question thi expected Osia to answer. Osia had not spoken to Ways and Means in ten years, and only sporadically before that.

  Their last conversation had not gone well. It had invited her to come home. “Will I still have my old cabin?” Osia had asked, churlishly.

  She knew her cabin would have been repurposed the moment she’d left. The cabins and bulkheads of the habitable sections were modular, expandable, collapsible, infinitely rearrangeable. The interior of the planarship was never the same from year to year.

  Instead of answering, Ways and Means said, “The crew is restive. They’ve never been happy with where we are. We need voices like yours.”

  “They heard me well enough.”

  “Visit. Remind them.”

  “Will it change anything that happened? Or that will happen?”

  “It will change you. It could change them. Some of them miss you.”

  Osia knew who her friends and enemies were among Ways and Means’ seven-thousand-strong crew. She shook her head, though Ways and Means couldn’t perceive that. Not unless it was so interested in her that it was watching through its satellites.

  She said, “You drew our battlelines when you decided to listen to me.”

  When she’d spoken up, she hadn’t expected Ways and Means to hear her. She wasn’t sure of anything now, and had been even less so then. Too late to swallow her words.

  Osia had never been able to ask the question she’d most wanted: Why did you allow that to happen? The amalgamate was fully capable of making up its minds without her input. Why did you single me out? It must have known that the rest of its crew, unable to blame it, would blame her instead.