Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast

by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  “Your performance is always a joy, Xuejiao.” Anoushka makes a small gesture. “Queen Nirupa requires each bidding party to be no larger than three. No ships greater or more well-armed than a hornet may dock into the leviathan. She clearly has concerns about her own safety. As for us, we’ll be keeping an eye for any representative of the Nova Legion or the Seven-Sung Fleet.”

  Xuejiao cocks her head. “The Seven-Sung Fleet was before my time. What grievances do those two have with our admiral? The usual, Lady Numadesi?”

  Numadesi resumes her seat. Under the table she slides her hand onto the admiral’s white-clad thigh, feeling the thick muscles under armored fabric. There are times when she can’t quite stop herself, and the memory of Anoushka sheathed deep in her is very fresh. “The Nova Legion hemorrhaged a great deal of client contracts to us and they hold a grudge. The Seven-Sung Fleet was more . . . thoroughly ruined. They clashed with us over ownership of some energy wells and the conflict dragged on beyond a reasonable point, so the admiral torched their planetary base, most of their troops and their intelligence assets. Word’s that their commander, Captain Erisant, escaped. Eir confidantes and husband didn’t. We’ve been keeping an eye on news of Erisant since.”

  The lieutenant lets out a derisive huff. “It sounds beneath notice—what can one person do? The Nova Legion seems to be faring well these days. Would they have the funds to bid on this?”

  “Likely not. But they may acquire a client who does.” The admiral drums her fingers on an armrest. “We’ll be vigilant. Both of you, review material on our enemies and on Vishnu’s Leviathan when you can, and see to your outstanding responsibilities. Delegate at your discretion, as always. Xuejiao, I’ll go take a look at those spies you quarantined—best to sort it out now.”

  The admiral kisses Numadesi on the brow before she leaves. Numadesi gazes after the door, then turns to Lieutenant Xuejiao, who remains in her seat rather than adjourn to her own duties.

  Numadesi makes an inviting gesture. “Lieutenant. Was there something you required?”

  Xuejiao blinks, once. Her brow creases. “The admiral is really the sun to you. The center of all things.”

  “Should she not be? Is she not the center of all things, the heart that pumps so that all of us may breathe, the gravity well into which we must fall?”

  The lieutenant studies her with eyes that look almost strange compared to the rest of her, in how unmodified they look, how plain: wide and dark, but nothing more. “And to her you’re the absolute complement, Lady Numadesi. The votary who completes her divinity. The satellite that jewels her orbit.”

  Numadesi stands and crosses over, leaning over the lieutenant, making Xuejiao crane her head back to look up at her. “We all devote ourselves differently.”

  The lieutenant opens her mouth, almost snorts. “I feel like you’re threatening me, Lady Numadesi.”

  “You’re well-armed and a soldier of the Amaryllis, Lieutenant. Your martial prowess is exceptional. I’m versed in self-defense but not much more. Of course I cannot threaten you.” She places her hand on the divan’s back, not quite trapping Xuejiao. “It is only that I wish to have forthright dialogue, and you weren’t getting to the point.”

  “I was surprised you didn’t insist Anoushka take you with her.”

  “Ah.” Numadesi draws away. “I’m not much of a combatant, whereas you are deadly. Do you feel you have something to prove during the forthcoming operation?” Being the newer wife and much younger than either herself or Anoushka. She looks Xuejiao over again, at the gleam of porcelain and celadon patterns that make a doll of the lieutenant, the appearance of something other. A charming choice, she’s always thought, the trim of artifice encroaching on flesh. But under that she is young, barely sixty. For recipients of telomere extension, six decades are no time at all.

  Xuejiao’s mouth tightens. “Not precisely. I have been chosen, haven’t I, I am one of her treasures now. My combat records speak for themselves. And I adore her, who doesn’t? There are soldiers on this ship who’d move solar systems to make her look their way.”

  Left unsaid that Xuejiao was one of them until recently, yearning for the same, an agony of desire that went unabated for years. Numadesi is not without sympathy. “When I met my lord, I wanted her on sight: here is a god on earth, war itself made flesh. I wanted to be taken, to be craved, to be had by her not just once but again and again. If there is anything I’ve learned, it is that she loves you as you are, whether or not you feel adequate. She doesn’t take a wife to mold into a shape of her preferences. There’s something in you that has intrigued her, caught her, delighted her. Does that suffice?”

  The lieutenant flushes. Against the ceramic patina the reddening is bright. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t expect you to be kind about it. The way you’ve been with her from before she was even the admiral. The way she comes to your bed, not take you to hers.”

  “A small difference. The rest is the wages of a long marriage.” She lightly pats Xuejiao’s cheek: it is cool, poreless. “You will acquit yourself fearlessly, Lieutenant. Of that I have no doubt.”

  “Because you trust in Anoushka’s judgment.”

  “Yes. And so should you.” Numadesi draws from her hair a bead of red pearl and presses it into the lieutenant’s palm. “This is one of the first gifts our lord gave me. It’s now yours. Take this as a talisman for longevity. The two of us will belong to her forever.”

  Chapter Three

  Two hours into the voyage—all via Amaryllis relays, both for alacrity and security—Anoushka selects her clothing and instructs her wife to do the same. On Vishnu’s Leviathan, appearance is everything. To represent the Armada of Amaryllis she and Xuejiao will be decadent and sharp in the way of bespoke blades. Even her harrier, One of Sunder, will gleam like a stiletto in the dark as it approaches their destination.

  For herself she chooses her signature color, that shade between gold and white, with few embellishments save dark cuff-links and platinum chains. Dichroic petals chase her collar, marking her most recent success, meaningless except to those aware of which world she erased just a few days past. The only weapon she wears openly is a single gun, long-barreled and ivory-tinted. She takes pleasure in presenting herself this way, a monochrome expanse that admits to no past, marked only by her martial accomplishment. The tailoring of her jacket and shirt is exact, fitted to her biceps and shoulders to give her the effect of living statuary. To emphasize what is already obvious: the might of her limbs, the invulnerability of her body.

  Xuejiao has put on a dress that drifts around her like a living sunrise, the skirt long and slit up high—no impediment to movement, nor much left to the imagination—and painted her eyes and nails in gold. Butterflies flutter around her arms and torso, occasionally peeking up between her breasts, glimpses of crimson and purple against her porcelain glaze. “How do I look, commander?”

  “Like a spring song.”

  “Your spring song.” Xuejiao grins and drops into a curtsy. “I’m thinking I could be your secretary, or at any rate someone that looks harmless. More useful than disclosing I’m an active-duty soldier, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It did occur to me to have you put on an act.” Anoushka beckons Xuejiao close and pulls the lieutenant into her lap. She places her hand on her lieutenant’s lithe waist, feeling the silk and the ablative membrane beneath. Deceptively delicate. “You’ll be my aide or, perhaps, a pet concubine I acquired during a campaign. What do you think?”

  Xuejiao giggles and slides an arm around her. “You know which role I’ll play best. I don’t have the look of an aide—not muscular or scary enough to be one of yours. Instead I’ll look sweet and innocuous and easy to underestimate, and everyone will think I’m just a piece of furniture. Especially if I pretend to be drugged up to my ears. Concubine it is. You have a reputation to maintain.”

  “My reputation, I like to think, isn’t one of ceaseless lechery. I have taken only two brides in my life, not two dozen.” Ano
ushka takes a tress of Xuejiao’s hair and inhales: cherry and jasmine. “I’ll have troops on standby a couple relays away; something always comes up and a bombardment threat is a sickle that slices through many knots. I will leave communications and auxiliary redundancies to you.”

  They emerge into real space in good time. The leviathan comes into view. Anoushka gazes at it and waits for anger to assert, for her composure to splinter under the weight of visceral fury. But she does not feel anything; she remains as impregnable as a fortress and her control is iron. There used to be a time when she could think of nothing else, when this creature invaded her rest and her waking, encompassing them and encompassing her—constricting her dreams, binding them like a choking umbilicus. Vishnu’s Leviathan.

  The biomechanical creature outsizes a dreadnought, its vacuum-adapted hide bright with golden eyes scattered along its spine. Segments of armor run along its fins, warping light where they meet the defensive aegis rings. Enormous, more capacious than most stations, greater than some moons. Scores of ship hover near the leviathan, dwarfed into clouds of gleaming hulls and thorned light. She spots the banners of Mahakala, the Vatican, the Javelin of Hellenes, more.

  Vishnu traffic regulation verifies their identity and authorizes them for landing. Each ship has its own discrete berth: no bidding parties may meet and conspire at this point. They are received by a young woman—no older than forty—in filigreed lehenga choli, her throat and biceps heavy with platinum, her nose glinting with a ruby-and-gold stud.

  “I am Savita, eldest daughter to Her Holy Majesty Queen Nirupa, she who is favored by the Preserver’s light.” The woman bows to them, her palms pressed together. Coils of circuitry tinkle at her ears. Peacock lenses glint over her corneas, giving her indigo irises ringed in bands of turquoise and bronze. “It is our great delight and privilege to receive the universe’s finest commander, the Alabaster Admiral herself.”

  Anoushka looks at this woman and visualizes wrapping her hand around that decorated throat, the throat of Nirupa’s daughter. It is a passing thought. “The queen honors us by sending the first princess to bring us greetings,” she says. “We must be one arrival out of many today.”

  “Not so many as it seems, Admiral. My mother, blessed be her name, has been selective in who we allow into our home. Of those who have petitioned to join the auction, we have admitted but one third.” A nod; more circuitry music, metal and duochrome. “You must have come a long way. I’ve personally seen to your accommodation. If anything doesn’t suit your tastes you must let me know, and I will be most pleased to show you around the dorsal decks whenever you desire.”

  The dorsal decks, where all that is beautiful and glamorous is kept, the habitation of those touched by the god Vishnu’s brilliance. Anoushka continues to smile. “This is an impressive welcome, Your Highness. On such short notice.”

  The princess dimples. “When the Alabaster Admiral calls, only the foolish choose not to hear. There’s a saying like that in some parts of the galaxy, quite fervently spoken too. Although I don’t think you’ve had dealings with us before?”

  Again she imagines her hand closing around the princess’ neck. It is fragile—the jewelry is no protection—and she doubts Savita has been trained to do much more than defend herself in the most rudimentary manner. A little sparrow, easy to pulverize. “Indeed. This will be my first time here.”

  Savita looks as if she might say something more, but in the end keeps it to herself. A pair of attendants join her once they exit into the corridor, two people in dark, plain kurtas. Stocky build, identical features. She spots more attendants as they pass into an opaque tram car: all the servants share the same face, the same frame. A few minor variations caused by scars, diet, physical activity.

  Xuejiao’s gaze lingers on them as she pulses a message. Are they supposed to be clones, Admiral?

  Yes. Anoushka eyes the back of Savita’s embroidered, glittering sari. Fair quality for this place. Unremarkable compared to metropolitan stations or wealthy planets. Queen Nirupa has been harder up than she thought. One phenotype assigned per category—very economical. These are the personal servants; the mechanics and cooks will have a different look. Dorsal deck ones have to appear pleasing to the eye, since they are public-facing. The ventral deck menials are much plainer, more . . . primitive.

  Out of the tram, the interior is much less conventional than the docking bay and its adjacent corridors. There the walls are metal, the floor lined with ordinary alloy tiles one might find on any station or ship. Here the walls breathe and a faint vibration travels beneath Anoushka’s feet, the pulse of the great beast, as much a living thing as it is a ship. In place of lighting fixtures, there are bulbs of bioluminescence maintained by small curlicued organisms, leviathan symbiotes in shades of pale dawn. Particulate murals haze the air at half-solid settings, religious tableaus and iconography: Ganesha, scenes of heroes in chariots pulling bowstrings taut, many-armed demons scattering before them.

  So little has changed. She never saw these particular corridors, this set of artworks. But the beast’s breath, its cardiac rhythm, those are as familiar to her as her own. She was much closer to the source, back then, the respiratory and digestive noises a roar in her ears rather than this tastefully muted hum.

  “Queen Nirupa must be very pious,” Anoushka says, both to fill the quiet—her wife is primly silent—and to draw more out of this princess.

  “My mother is as virtuous as a bhikkhuni. She actually spent several years ordained as one before her coronation.”

  Her smile pulls taut. To Savita the expression would look immaculate, polite but free of emotion. “Allow me to introduce my companion. This is Xuejiao, my personal attendant.”

  Xuejiao simpers, prettily and blankly.

  The princess takes one look and wrinkles her nose: she perfectly recognizes the euphemism for what it is. “How many bedrooms will you require, Admiral?”

  “Just one will do, Your Highness. I should hate to be a fussy guest.”

  Their suite has a common area, one bathroom, and one bedroom. The floor has a give much deeper and softer than any carpeting, and when the princess is gone—letting them know the welcome reception is five hours hence—Xuejiao runs her hand along the walls, pressing her fingers into them as though she expects the material to rupture like a boil. “This is . . . fascinating.” She peers at the indentations she has made. “Very fleshy.”

  “The leviathan doesn’t have nerve-endings in most places.” Anoushka lowers herself onto the common area’s largest chair. The furniture is lightly scaled, upholstery like soft suede. She puts her hand to the armrest but does not feel the pulse that she knows must be there: everything is either leviathan tissue or a symbiote. Once, she would have been able to tell. “Nor much of a brain, in fact; less intelligent than some plants. Have you taken care of the surveillance?”

  “Always, Admiral.”

  She double-checks, out of habit: to Nirupa, she and Xuejiao would appear to be unpacking their luggage. Would, shortly, appear to engage in carnal extravagance on the furniture, against the wall, and any other flat surface. On the link she shares with Xuejiao, she unfolds the dossier on Vishnu’s Leviathan and Queen Nirupa, collected by Benzaiten over the last five decades: there is something to be said for the thoroughness and patience of an AI. Xe has imaged most of the leviathan and collected data on its biology, internal topography, the number of servants and mechanics who staff each deck. The damaged areas within the leviathan were caused almost certainly by sabotage, the incident having been both too specific and too devastating to be mere accident or negligence on the engineering overseers’ part. It took out the leviathan’s ability to self-sustain: food labs, hydroponics, fungal cultures, livestock genomes. Benzaiten speculates that even the royal DNA bank was struck, meaning the next batch of descendants after Savita and her sister will have to be created from outsider genes. No doubt the queen has put aside funds for that, DNA that is not only phenotypically compatible but equival
ent to hers in pedigree—some type of aristocracy or monarchy—and flawless across all parameters. Nirupa is a strong believer in inheritable intelligence, against evidence to the contrary.

  Xuejiao whistles as she looks over the sabotage. “Who did the queen piss off?”

  “It’s hard to say. They aren’t often in strife; hiding in lacunal space all the time helps. Whoever did this was aiming for something in particular, and likely not out of a personal grudge.” She pulls up Benzaiten’s log of the events, but while technically detailed, the AI did not include any speculation as to the saboteur’s motives. The downside of an AI ally, though she supposes the absence of bias is its own advantage. “Next, some extra intelligence on our competition.”

  Two hundred and fifty-nine parties, in total, have petitioned to board Vishnu’s Leviathan. Most were denied outright for lacking the funds—Queen Nirupa has not published a specific minimum, but must have taken the financial statuses of each polity or mercenary organization into account. Anoushka pans around the snapshot she took of a Vatican ship—shaped like a winged seraph, tasteless she thinks—and a frigate from the Diamond Republic of Da Nang. It doesn’t appear the Nova Legion is going to make a bid; Benzaiten has done her the courtesy of sending live updates, recent up to twelve hours ago.

  Xuejiao cocks her head. “I don’t want to sound jealous, Admiral, but Lady Numadesi must be working overtime to compile all this. I thought I was one of your intelligence chiefs.”

  A reasonable enough deduction; Anoushka doesn’t usually source her intelligence externally. “We’ve been between relays. One must divide the labor on occasion.”

  Her lieutenant skims the list and pushes away from the wall. “The Vatican will be too busy feuding with the Catania Protectorate—I was investigating them for something else; they excommunicated the Catanians over one minor liturgical point or another. So that should keep two factions out of your hair.” She ticks her fingers off. “Beyond that, there are five polities and organizations whose leadership want you dead.”