Shadow Sun Seven

by Spencer Ellsworth

I’m hungry again. I call myself ten kinds of burning fool for not eating a thing today, and curse the hole in my middle, and drink all my water long before even midnight hits. I couldn’t’ve taken some corn before I left camp? Maybe a handful of greens just to munch on? I could’ve at least changed out of shorts and T-shirt. Nights get mighty cold out here, which en’t a thing I’m used to considering. In the spaceways, inside the ship is warm, outside is death. But they warned me. High winds at night, cold as the day is warm. On those rare times when the moon hits the shadow of the planet and it’s tipped the wrong way on the axis, the night here gets cold enough to kill.

  They warned me, but I’m just a spaceways scab.

  I pull the emergency blanket out of my belt pouch where it lives. I wrap it around myself, but the wind keeps finding a way in. My feet are blocks of ice, even in their boots. I shove my fingers through the edge of the blanket and pull it close.

  Finally, I find a rock to lean against, and dig my butt into the sand. The sand’s freezing. This is like cuddling up to vacuum. The micro-coils in the blanket glow, faint red, putting off warmth, but damn, the wind finds its way under the blanket no matter what.

  The wind dies down, as the sky turns light gray. It’s real pretty. For just a minute, my eyes close, my body warming under the emergency blanket.

  I’m drifting in space. It’s cold, but I can breathe, like you do in dreams.

  All around me, the stars. To my back, the white ribbon of the Imperial belt. The wild worlds are spread out, glittering individual stars around the wide empty patch of the Dark Zone.

  In front of me, a node. But something’s wrong with it. It’s gone dark.

  It’s not a node like I know nodes. Like it en’t opening to another place anymore, but just into a big nothing.

  A voice, a voice made of shivers and ice, of jagged edges and ragged bloody cuts, speaks to me. We know you.

  We watched you. We watched you, when you tore their bodies.

  A voice from a mouth that has swallowed whole star systems.

  I snap awake, my heart roaring, staring up at the gray sky of the moon of Trace. “Devils! Burning devils!” I jerk up, see the last of the stars in the lightening sky. And my eyes go right to the one patch of sky where there en’t no stars.

  “Devils en’t here, Jaqi,” I mumble. “Still stuck in the Dark Zone. At least for now.”

  Until they move on the wild worlds. Like John Starfire promised.

  The blanket’s warmed me, but I feel an all-new cold snaking down my spine. We know you. I didn’t think much of it when they said it to me in the Dark Zone. Figured that was what they said to all their meals, to spook ’em.

  Out here, in the freezing early morning, suddenly that starless patch in the early sky seems too close. Might it be the devils know something about me?

  About the miracle?

  We know you.

  Something moves in the dune next to me.

  I grab at my side for my gun—which is empty. Of course. I shot all my shards off at them Kurguls today, and we weren’t exactly on a catch of shards before. If a Mataka found me, I’ll have to hope he’s a lousy shot—

  No, en’t a Mataka. It’s a critter. A blue snakey-headed thing, slithering through the sand, with the help of two small padded feet. Its floppy yellow kill stretches behind it, leaking purple stuff.

  I jump to my feet, and yell at the thing like a damn idiot. “Off! Go!” I en’t never seen a wild critter but them horses. It’s probably got poison and claws and spits venom from ten feet away and—

  The blue, snakey thing takes one look at me, squeals and drops its meal, splits the other way, burrowing into the sand three dunes down.

  I start laughing. “Jaqi, you damn fool, you faced the devil himself and you got scared of a critter.”

  I walk over to the prey critter it left here. Poor baby something—all floppy skin hanging off a little frame, four filmy yellow eyes staring out a bulb at the top of a tube-shaped mouth, all above a massive purple rip beneath that mouth.

  It’s still twitching, but I recognize them twitches at least. Seen plenty of sentient corpses. Meat in the body seizing up in death, that is.

  I touch the dead thing on its head, despite my reckoning that this may not be the cleanest idea I ever had.

  I don’t feel a thing.

  I close my eyes. The image from my dream comes to me—floating in space, reaching out to touch a node. Music, pouring out of the node.

  Finding nodes and moving through them, without the benefit of codes and node-relay talkers—that’s the only thing I ever been good at. What’s that got to do with bringing folk back to life, and the Dark Zone, and—and music?

  Music. I can almost hear it again, them sounds like real instruments and them pulses and beats like sound from the heart of a star.

  The dead meat jerks under my hand.

  Well shit. “Did you just—”

  No, the critter’s dead. En’t it? Not moving.

  We know you. The voice comes back to me, and I hate how cold I am of a sudden. They was waiting for me. I can’t say how I know. But I know, sure as I know the feel of a node.

  A distinct sound rings through the desert air. I know that. It’s a horse’s whinny.

  Search party? The hole in my middle groans, saying it might be a fine thing to go back and have some real matter, but I ignore it—well, first I take off the blanket and wrap the dead critter in it, as I might as well try cooking the thing up, if I’m going to be out here for a while. How hard can this be?

  I step into the full morning sun, into a breeze already warm and bringing sand.

  And I see Z and a horse, not a hundred paces off under a tall rock, the horse grazing on what little ragged, sand-fringed grass sticks out of cracks in the rock.

  As if I needed more reminders of a miracle.

  “Jaqi.” He’s dismounted to let the horse graze. “I am sorry. You should not have seen me.”

  “You been following me?”

  He nods yes. Like this is normal.

  “You let me freeze my ass off last night, and let me sit here without a single bite—”

  “At home,” he interrupts, “our youth often sojourn by climbing the Great Rim, where the cliffs are so high that the great black drakk does not even dare the crags, where the wind is the icy breath of space itself. Among the high places, a soul is born. I took my own climb when I was very young. I served as a shadow, following other young people, later. I thought I might do that for you, when I saw you leave last night.”

  “I en’t Zarra.”

  “You have made a kill, and seek to cook it. That is a thing to be proud of.”

  He’s proud of the dead thing in my hand? I toss it down on the sand. “Wasn’t me. Stole this off a critter what made the kill.”

  Z makes a scowl and a sound that I’m sure is a Zarra sigh. “There is little meat on that creature, but I can show you how to gut and skin it.”

  “Uh . . . okay, slab.”

  “Or, if your walk has finished, I have packed jerky.”

  “Real matter? Oh, thank all gods and goshes and Starfires.” I toss the dead thing out into the sand, hoping that poor snakey-headed predator will come get its dinner back, and grab some sanitizer from Z’s saddlebags to clean my hands, and then some jerky at last. “Who else come?”

  “No one knows you left, Jaqi.”

  “So they’re still back there? I reckon I walked pretty far.”

  “You walked in a circle. You are three miles from camp now. At your greatest extent last night, you were five miles away. If we go over those rocks”—he points to a line of ragged rocky hills, rising not far from us—“it is only two miles.”

  “Oh.” I guess that en’t much? I don’t bother asking him how far three miles really is planetside. Everyone gives me a funny look when I ask things like that.

  “Is your walk complete?”

  I swallow jerky and water, and find the words. “I don’t want to go back, Z. All that bow
ing. Thinking I could do miracles.”

  “You did do a miracle. You brought me back.”

  “Don’t remind me! I en’t got a clue how I done that.” I turn away from him—and gnaw on more jerky. “Hell, that makes it worse. I should have been able to save everyone.”

  “Jaqi, I—”

  “Don’t speak, slab. Don’t tell me all about how I’m the oogie of space and the son of starlight and get me thinking all wrong. That’s what got Toq taken! Got that poor kid killed, and what are we supposed to do against the whole damn Mataka nest?”

  “What else is there? You cannot run.”

  We know you. Damn, I wish I had never remembered them words. “Don’t tell me what I can do.”

  “Jaqi.” Now this is something I en’t never heard from this slab. Pleading. “What do you want me to say?”

  I chew the jerky. “Just talk to me normal, Z, not like no special oogie of space. Like I’m a normal girl.”

  He thinks extra-frowny thoughts for a moment and then says, “I am not very good at talking to girls.”

  That right there makes me laugh. “Finally you said something normal.”

  He laughs as well. I never heard this fellow laugh. It’s a good sound.

  A moment later he’s kissing me.

  I been kissed before, but I never been swept up in arms as big as ships and kissed by a fella twice my size. Takes a minute to get my head and kiss him back, by which time he’s broken off and staring at me.

  “What?” I say. “That was well by, slab. Why stop?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “You trying to find a way to work blood and honor into this?”

  “No,” Z says. “I simply want you.”

  Part of me wants to tell him not to bother with a scab like me, a fool don’t know what she’s doing, but he starts on that kissing again and, well . . .

  I en’t never been one to get picky.

  I pull away and gasp, “Everything works, aiya? It’ll work ’twixt you and me?”

  “Ah, uh . . .” Z clears his throat. “More or less.”

  “Good enough.”

  Finally this day is getting better.

  -4-

  Araskar

  JAQI IS BARELY A MILE AWAY. And the music is still fading. I wish I could say what did it. I cannot figure what might get her to change her mind, to turn around, but—

  For one second, it changes. The music roars off her, the walls of soaring strings, the rumbling deep chords in the foreground. Percussion rattles at a fast pace.

  Then it fades again.

  What is she doing?

  Kalia walks next to me. A couple of Mataka drones walk behind us, their guns no doubt pointed at our backs, because they cannot be anything but bastards.

  Kalia has told me about her last conversation with Jaqi, though I suspect she left something out. “So she must have gotten scared when I said we should read the Bible. She ran away.”

  “You think she doubts everything we believed about her.”

  “I don’t know if she really believed it in the first place,” Kalia says.

  That could be a problem.

  Jaqi seems distracted, because the music has settled to a low hum, still with those out-of-tune notes and changes in meter. Is she talking to someone? Did someone else find her first?

  “I shouldn’t have pushed Jaqi,” Kalia says.

  “It is what it is,” I reply. I notice that Kalia is holding her Bible to her chest, the book dirty and ragged, sand stuck to the spine. “No use in regrets.”

  “It’s just—I want it to be true.” Her voice falls, so quiet I can barely hear. “I don’t want my brother to have died for nothing. And I thought we could find my mother, with Jaqi’s help.”

  “Your mother’s alive?”

  “I have no idea” She keeps her voice very composed for a scared kid. “She was visiting some of our off-world holdings when . . . the Red Peace. My father said she was safe. But then, he said we would be safe too.”

  I am not sure what to say to that. I’m sorry? There’s a whole galaxy full of the dead that I’m sorry won’t make up for.

  We crest the ridge of rocks between the camp and Jaqi, and—

  I freeze. The music has changed. It’s definitely sped up, although there’s no mistaking that kind of beat. Rather ecstatic noises, noises that, to me, sound a bit like instruments squeaking out a legion of bent notes. I know exactly what Jaqi is doing.

  “Wait,” I say.

  And now a low, stomping beat, under the bent notes. The kind of thing you might associate with a hot, crowded club where sentients can rent a private room for an hour. “Just wait. It should only be a few minutes.”

  “What are we waiting for, Araskar? Is she relieving herself? Can you tell that?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, that is definitely it.”

  “We’re on the nest queen’s time, cross,” one of the Matakas yells from behind me.

  “Drink some water,” I say. “Take a break. It’ll just be a few minutes.”

  It’s more than a few minutes. “She’s really taking her time,” Kalia remarks.

  Not really, all things considered. They’ll be done any second. Unless they try to go again. “Yep,” I reply.

  Eventually the beat tapers off, quick pulses slowing, music settling into a steady warm harmony.

  I try very hard not to think of Rashiya. Even though I can feel her memories as she breathed into my ear, as she pulled me down into bed, as she ran a finger down my scars.

  We start walking again, toward the source of the music. We descend the rocks, curve around a few more formations and trudge over a sand dune and I make some noise to warn Jaqi—

  And we come on Jaqi and Z, both of them half dressed, him with his scale trousers half buttoned, Jaqi without pants, wearing only her shirt, and pointing warm shard-blasters at us.

  “Drones, you best not—wait, Araskar? You’re alive!” Jaqi runs to me as if she’s about to hug me, and stops herself. “And Toq? Is he here? Is he—”

  “He’s fine,” I say. “He’s sleeping. I made a deal.” I motion toward the Matakas behind us.

  Jaqi glares at them. “A deal with those scabs.”

  “Had to do something.”

  “How did you locate us?” Z asks.

  “I, uh . . .” Oh hell, they’re going to figure it out. Jaqi, at least, is going to know I got in her damned head again.

  Sure enough, she nods. “Oh right, that music. What special stuff comes off me.”

  “Yes.”

  Jaqi meets my eyes, despite the fact that I’m trying to look at the ground, or the sky, or Kalia, or something else . . . and Jaqi breaks out laughing. “Aiya, slab! Reckon it had a good beat! Hope you danced!”

  I think Kalia’s going to say something, but she doesn’t pipe up, so I speak, as awkwardly as the teenager I never was. “You coming back, ai?”

  She cuts off the laughter. “I have a choice?”

  “No,” says one of the drones, but I hold up a hand.

  “The nest queen won’t care whether or not you come. You weren’t part of the deal, Jaqi.”

  “What’s this deal, slab?”

  “A prison break,” I say. I move closer. Speak so only she and I can hear. “There’s one person in the prison who survived a year in the Dark Zone. I think they might know a thing or two about the Shir.”

  And to my surprise, she pipes right up. “All right. I’m in.”

  “You’re in.”

  “Reckon I need to talk to someone about that Dark Zone.” She takes a hefty drink of Z’s water, and looks out at the desert. “Can’t run no more. They’re gonna find me, en’t they?”

  “I think we’ve run as far as we can.”

  * * *

  Jaqi

  “Shadow Sun Seven.”

  Araskar’s laying out the details of his plan, and we’re all paying attention, and it might even be a nice story around a fire, if you ignore the three dozen Kurgul drones around
us.

  The fire we made at twilight illuminates what Araskar’s drawing in the dirt for the Matakas’ benefit. Toq clings to my leg. Kalia en’t spoken to me yet. Reckon I can’t blame her, not after what I said. I wouldn’t want to speak with me either.

  Araskar points to his picture in the dirt. A giant bug. He’s talking about this mission, this catch in a prison, he’s using to distract the Matakas. “The head, here, is formerly known as administrative headquarters for the prison. Docking control, the warden’s offices, and the brain for all the mag-locks everywhere in the system.”

  “You can remotely disable everything from there?” Swez asks.

  “Not everything,” Araskar says, and those Kurguls rattle their vestigial wings. Reckon there’s only one worse sound than that in all the galaxy, and that’s the sound of atmos escaping your ship. “I can turn off the incinerator and then you can get in through a dispersal tube. Then someone small enough to go through the maintenance tunnels can disable individual mag-locks on the mining levels. They use Reveks to do the maintenance. The Reveks are the size of these children.”

  “Why not Suits?” Taltus asks.

  “The Empire didn’t trust the Suits, and I’m guessing the reformed prison isn’t about to start.”

  “Mining,” Swez says, and his wings rattle furiously, while his little inkblot mouth puckers up. “Really, it’s cutting the hyperdense cells out of what used to be the things’ lungs, and then storing them without letting them expand. Dangerous work.”

  “Not a place for loose shards,” Araskar says. “But you can be precise, can’t you?”

  “Too much of a gamble here, cross. We’re getting in through the incinerator? How are you going to get into the head?”

  “I will take that Zarra”—Araskar points to Z—“in through the entrance. We’ll pretend to be a pit fighter and his manager.”

  “There’s a reward out for you, cross,” Swez says.

  Araskar shrugs. “They’ll have trouble filling that reward. Lots of crosses with my face and a few scars.” He points to a new burn on his cheek. “Look, you’ve given me new scars just since we met. Should be a great disguise.”

  Z breaks in. “I have heard of this place, from when I was fighting in the pits. Shadow Sun Seven runs a weekly fight, and the money is good, but the word is that the fight is run without honor.”