“You do not command us on the matter of our personal honor, Araskar Cross,” X says.
“Final goddamn word!”
Z bends down, and speaks right into my ear, damn him. “I am not a soldier. I am a warrior. A warrior is commanded by honor’s demands.” And after a minute, “I am sure I have killed more than you in combat.”
I really don’t like Zarra.
I pilot us in to Shadow Sun Seven.
* * *
Jaqi
You get through okay? I grip the sword by my side. Feels funny, wearing a sword, for all that I was made to do so.
No answer from Araskar.
Oh, yeah, he told me them swords can’t talk through a node-relay. Hell. They ought to be able to.
I let go of the hilt. It en’t like I’m in a hurry to talk to him. I miss Z. Wouldn’t mind talking to him. Or getting him alone. But even Araskar would be better than this. Kalia and Taltus have found something worse than bowing.
It’s Bible study.
“It’s the wording here, in the Genesis of the Empire,” Taltus says, pointing to something in that Bible. “He is a cleaver, a weaver, a gatherer of souls, who unites and divides.”
“That doesn’t talk about how she brought Z back from the dead, though,” Kalia says.
“Hey,” I say, “anyone seen any good holos lately?” They look up from their books. “You all seen them Scurv Silvershot holos? Bill watched them every night. Finest shot in the galaxy.” They all look up and blink. “You seen the one where Scurv and Ariel Singh rob the memories from the big automaton, the thing what’s in the center of the galaxy and they remember every single thing ever happened but they can only remember it if they keep off the whiskey, and they can’t?”
Kalia doesn’t answer. She hasn’t spoken to me directly, about anything but scripture, since we left the planet’s surface.
“I haven’t seen it, but you just told me the whole story,” Toq says.
“Do not speak that name,” Taltus says. “The real Scurv Silvershot is a wicked murderer, who killed Saint Valir. No one should lionize such a criminal.”
Well, en’t that a way to kill the conversation. I grab a set of coveralls and say, real loud, “I’m going to take a look at the controls. Seemed a little touchy before.”
“Jaqi,” Kalia says, “Wait. I have an important question.”
This is about the first thing she said to me since I blew up at her. “Go on.”
Taltus speaks. “Jaqi, sss, when you brought Z back, sss, did you have the sense of crossing a great gulf?”
When I don’t answer, Kalia adds, “Like you were reaching out? Or calling him back?”
“Why you ask me about that?”
“We’re trying to figure out what the scriptures say about you,” Kalia says, “so we can figure out—”
“Kalia,” I say. “I—look, I’m mighty sorry, I just en’t in no mood for Bible time.”
She nods.
“I’m mighty sorry.”
She don’t answer me.
“Go look at the ship, sss,” Taltus says. “You will study with us later, yes?”
I finally get to leave. Hell, I’ve been in some stinky recycled-air rustriders, but this one has a thicker atmos than I ever tasted.
I pass by my room, which Z and I were in not three hours ago. A much happier time, that. The room stinks. Sign of a good party.
Course, it all went spacewise once Z started talking about the miracle, in his own way, and what he figures I am.
* * *
Z and I lie on the floor, slick with sweat and totally starkers. The plates that hold our last meal lie next to us. Were the table not bolted to the floor, it would have had some trouble, too.
“You learn this in them pit fights?”
He turns, pulls me close with those big old arms. “I did not learn how to make love. The knowledge lives in my bones. We are the oldest people in the universe. We taught lovemaking to the stars, and they burn still because of it.”
I slap his bare hind and he grunts like I don’t get how serious he is. “I need some water, slab. You best let me go. Less you’re ready to go again.”
“It would be unmanly to try and feast again so soon, when the belly is so full.”
Who talks like that?
I drink some water from the bottle we took off the moon of Trace. Last of the good planetside water. Recycled piss after this, though a girl couldn’t be choosy especially after she had the workout I just did. I reckon them Zarra crossed with humans or Jorians at some point, because while we didn’t fit together exactly, everything worked.
“I ought to ask you a question,” I say, going back to the floor to sit aside him.
“I will answer what I can, by honor.”
“You and this pit fight? You worried?”
“It is what I can do for the mission. Araskar’s plan is wise. The Matakas give us resources, and we speak with this prisoner who is so important to John Starfire.”
“It’s another pit fight! Last one had that Necro-Thing what did you in!”
He bares his teeth. “That creature was . . . filth. If I must die in blood and honor, I shall, and it will be for the good of this. The Reckoning.”
“Can’t believe I came up with such a name.” I run a hand along the muscle of his shoulders, trace the tattoos. “You en’t got to be in such a hurry to get killed, Z. You got a future.”
“You agreed! Araskar’s plan is wise.”
“It’s an evil good plan, but we don’t need you in no pit! Taltus could hold himself fine in a pit, and he knows the spaceways ’round con men. You need to watch your life, now it’s been given back.” He starts to speak, but I stick my hand out to shut him up. “You ought to have little ones, what you can pass your stories to.”
“Children? Jaqi, we cannot have children, not without using a vat.”
“En’t got to be me. We got X right here. I been thinking of, uh, inviting her in.” He goes quiet. “I en’t picky, you know! She’s a nice slab her own self.”
I joked before that Z only has three facial expressions. I think I just found the fourth.
It’s somewhere between smelling something weird and a little sad.
Did I say something wrong? I figured he’d be ready and rutting to be with another Zarra, ’specially if I’m rutting for her too. “En’t a thing, I’m just talking about trying the girl out. Have a party. See where it goes.”
“Jaqi, my people mate for life.”
Hell, what now?
“To one person.”
“Hang it now, I didn’t sign up for no—”
“It is done now. We do not—share.”
I stand up, looking down at his big old self. “I en’t one—uh—not to be shared.” Aw, hell, Jaqi, why don’t you ask these things afore you jump to it?
He stands up, his horns clattering against the ceiling, hunching over me—then sits down again. “What did you think this was?”
“A bit of fun! I didn’t sign up for no life sentence!” I grab my clothes and pull them over my sweaty skin. It takes a hell of a lot longer than I would like, so I’m still getting them on when he speaks. “You know me well enough to know I don’t take a tumble as no wedding vow.”
“It is my people’s way. Our lives are short, and so often wasted.”
“Wasted how? You reckon this is waste—”
“Wasted by drugs. By alcohol. By foolish resistance to Imperial forces.”
“And what’s better than—”
Z holds a hand up. “I wasted myself in the fighting pits, looking for petty honor. But your cause is just. The ancestors met me at the River of Stars, and when you called, your call was so powerful they chose to send me back. I have watched my people waste themselves for petty vengeance or anger. This matters. I must be one with you now, Jaqi.”
“Oh hell. Don’t go there.” He moves to pull me close to his naked self, but I put a hand out and stop him. “Just . . . just come out of them pits alive, now
.” I sigh. “I like you, Z. I en’t ready to get spousal, though!”
“I am sorry.” Didn’t expect that. “I . . . I did not think to tell you. As far as I am concerned, it is decided.”
“No it’s not, fella. We’ll talk it over when you get back.” I want to hug him, but I’m also real fired up at him. “Give me this, then. Promise you’ll stay well enough to come back and work this out.”
“I will promise that.”
I hope he’s listening to Araskar. Seems to me those are two fellas meant to get into trouble together.
-6-
Araskar
ON THE INSIDE, SHADOW Sun Seven is all new money laid over rot.
New, shining bulkheads, in warm blue plasticene, have been place against walls that were previously just bug-mouth. They flash advertisements for various things available, apparently, in the lower levels—Stall 17-B: The Best Fried Curliqs in Space! Stall 183-ZZ: Come See the Qurruq Dancers, Worth Traveling to the End of the Floor! The place stinks. It’s the kind of stink you notice right away, but everyone must be used to—the stink of the Ruuzan Threg’s slow decay, the meat left on its exoskeleton that still hasn’t been entirely cleaned out. Smells like bad food, booze, every kind of rutting known to sentience, the burn of holoshow bulbs, and that everpresent stink of the rotting insect.
“We must go with you to see the Butcher,” Z says, as we bounce along in zero.
“Absolutely not.”
We pass inside the field, suddenly held firmly to the floor by Imperial Standard Gravitational Force. It feels good. None of the art-grav itch. Brand new, Keil Quality field of the highest degree. Holds your feet to the floor and lets you walk with a nice pressure on the bones.
“When will you see the Butcher?”
There’s a few stalls set up for those waiting on customs. I use a little bit of the Matakas’ cash to get a chunk of Routalais chocolate. It’ll make a nice present for the kids—if Jaqi lets them see it. The bluebloods probably had it after every meal growing up, but she’ll go mad for this stuff. You taste subtle shades of rich chocolate in everything for days.
“Why do you buy that?” Z asks. “We cannot waste time!”
“Don’t tell me; sweets aren’t honorable?”
At customs, another fat Kurgul drone—by the tattoo, one of the Hukas nest that Swez loves to hate—is taking weapons. Z pulls his belt knife, as does X, and they put them in the box. I take my large soulsword and set it in, and, under his eye, the small one too.
“Here’s your tag; redeem it when you leave.”
Damn. How am I supposed to keep in touch with Jaqi? I look over at Z. “I thought these places let you keep a sidearm of some kind,” I say.
“This is unusual,” Z says, “but we are sitting on miles of hypercompressed oxygen; I imagine a loose shard can be death.”
“Soulsword’s no danger for that.”
“You don’t like it, you can turn right around,” the fat Kurgul says. “Out the airlock.”
“No,” Z says. His eyes catch mine, and say what we’re both thinking. With everything else going on, we’ll have to find a way to steal these back too.
We step through the gate, and I say, “So, no plan.”
“Let us see what we hear in the bar,” Z says.
“I could use a drink.”
“Drinking is not an honorable use of our time. But I suppose it is what soldiers do.”
Not going to hit him, not going to hit him . . .
We sit in the bar and watch the fight, me nursing a beer and Z and X nursing water. We’re not watching the actual fight—the windows that look into the fighting pit are adorned with betting bars, loaded with sentients trying their money on the fight. Instead, we see highlights, constantly running on the holo feeds above us, their projectors hanging from endoskeletal struts that once helped to keep this bug together.
This was all the creature’s throat once. After that it was exercise yards, and other facilities for the benefit of the prisoners. The on-site hospital has been turned into gaming rooms and fighting pits, and treatment centers for the fighters. The cafeterias are restaurants, where the tourist can refuel, then go back to betting on pit fights.
The prisoners are housed below, in a block of cells built into the oxygen mines. I imagine life has gotten a lot worse for the prisoners, without those facilities. And I can imagine that, with the market collapse that followed the Resistance’s takeover of the Imperial Exchange, Boss Cross really doesn’t care what happens to the prisoners, as long as they get money.
I look back at the pit fight. A heavily armored bipedal sentient is clambering through a rather nice-looking stand of fake trees, while Slinkers wait for him on the other side.
“We had to clear a nest of those things out of our camp on the moons of Keil.” I point at the Slinkers on the screen. Slinkers are terrible, man-sized segmented black things that are mostly made up of a stinging tail, except for four spindly legs, each one ending in a claw they can hook to keep their prey in place while they sting it. They sing when they’ve enclosed their prey—a weird, shrieking, twisting song. “My slug Helthizor called them ‘wankers.’ Whenever they would sing to scare us, the whole camp would yell, ‘Quit wanking!’”
Z and X just give me another frown. Perhaps this is the Didn’t Know Araskar Had Friends frown.
“Don’t worry, they’re all dead,” I mutter.
X takes a dutiful drink of her large cup of water. “How will you sneak in to see him? The Faceless Butcher is cunning. All know this.”
“Diplomacy.”
They’re still staring at me incredulously—at least I think that’s incredulous. Incredulous frown or just Irritated Frown or just Regular Frown We Woke Up With?
“Let me try this. And don’t move,” I say to the Zarra.
Just as I get up, the grubby Szz comes around again. “Drink up, friend!” he gurgles. “Come on now. Drink a pink.”
I stop, and for half a second break out into a fresh sweat. “What did you say?”
“Drink a pink with this one. Have a brain bullet with your booze. Come on now.” He waves the drink at me. “Dissolved right in there. Good for hours.”
Sweating. All over. My body is hot, blazing—no, I’m cold, about to shiver, like I’m naked and about to feel the touch of a lover. I know the smell, woven through the alcoholic sweet smell of this drink.
A drink and I would’t have to think about Rashiya dying, wouldn’t have to remember anything, wouldn’t have to think about Jaqi and Z judging me for what I’ve done . . . A drink and the music would come back. I wouldn’t have to wait for Jaqi.
“Araskar?” X puts a hand on my arm. “Are you disturbed?”
I’m still staring at the drink.
“I will not sit here being dishonored while you freeze up!” Z snarls at me.
That gets me moving at last, and the Szz’s hairy snout swivels from me to Z, confused, until Z says, “Peddle your poison elsewhere, filth!” and that gets him moving as well.
Barely been two weeks since I sent my pinks out the airlock with the ashes of my poor troops, killed in action by Jaqi. Only been a few days since I last sat and melted into the music of the universe. My body twinges, little flutters and beats up and down my arms, in anticipation of the first pill melting on the tongue.
No. Not ever again.
Why do those words sound so weak?
The central surveillance area, where the warden’s office once was and where the boss now resides, is a long pillar going through the immense tunnel that was the monster’s throat. The central eye of a prison—everything would have centered around this one artificial pillar, which, I’m guessing, connects up to a similar central control area in the mines.
And there’s a blob, near the closest entrance into the command structure.
A bulbous blue tendril comes up and it gurgles something into the translator. “You wait outside like anyone else,” the robot voice says over the gurgles.
“Boss wants me h
ere,” I say. I shouldn’t be this shaky when trying to make a deal. “We spoke earlier. Information about what went down on Swiney.”
“Doubt it,” the blob gurgles. “Go on.”
“No, try him. Come on now.” I should make an offer. I pull a few Imperial bills from my pocket.
The blob eyes the cash in my hand. “What’s that for?”
“For lots of things,” I say. “Could be for a favor now.”
Something shatters loudly behind me. I turn around and stare, along with the guard, at a very changed holo.
Some dumb drunk has managed to fall into the pit. The holo shows him, an awkward Zu-Path, looking stupidly around. The holo then switches to show two Slinkers, backing off the prey they were hunting, and the whole room fills with their eerie song, that screeching, high warble like the wind.
“How the hell did that happen?” I ask the guard. “You bought the best creatures money could get but lousy plasticene?”
The blob just stands there.
“Aren’t you going to do something?”
He gurgles something that sounds foul, but translates only as “Those stings will kill me too.” The translator attached to the top of his body crackles and he says, through the translator, “Patron is at fault. Charged the glass to see if it would hold him.”
“The glass doesn’t hold the patrons?”
A Slinker pounces, and the poor drunk scatters away, screaming, but he doesn’t see two more climbing up the fake rock behind him.
The armored pit fighter won’t save him; he’s moving slow and stupid, as if the Slinkers got through his armor.
The Slinkers’ singing fills the air, high shrieking as they surround the poor Zu-Path. Twisting, warped song.
I turn to go to the pit. No one’s going to help this poor idiot, and I’ve seen enough innocent idiots die. At least I know how to kill Slinkers; keep moving so it confuses their sense of pressure, and make sure to cut off the stingers.
And then the whole crowd of drunks roars, as the ones gathered around the hole are shoved aside and two figures appear in the pit.
Two tattooed figures.
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