“Kid, just tell me your name.”
Gabe mixed together his own name and Zorro’s. “Gabriel de la Vega.”
“And yours?” she asked Kaen. “Name? ¿Nombre?”
Kaen said nothing.
“Citlalli,” Gabe offered. “Se llama Citlalli Pulido.”
The guard noticed Kaen respond to the name that was actually her own. “Good enough.” She stood up from behind the desk. “Follow me. We’ll finish your intake procedure in the morning.”
* * * *
The detention center was really just a warehouse. Chain-link fences split the one big room into separate sections, which made it look massive and claustrophobic at the same time. The air was dry and cold. Sunlight never baked the ground in here.
Many hundreds of kids covered the entire floor, trying to sleep. Silvery mylar blankets covered the kids.
Everybody in here is young, Gabe thought. Really young. So where’s Dad?
Kaen and Gabe each got a folded mylar blanket of their own. Then they got separated, Kaen to the girls’ half of the center and Gabe to bunk with the boys. They had no chance to speak first, and they wouldn’t have understood each other anyway.
The guard shut Gabe into a small square of fenced-in floor. Gabe stepped over and around the other boys to reach an open stretch to lie in. Then he tried to get comfortable, but that wasn’t really possible.
The smaller lump of blanket to his left was sobbing and trying to hide it. Gabe made a low shushing noise, the same noise he always made to comfort his twin toddler siblings. The younger kid snuggled up closer. His sob-hitched breathing turned to snores.
“You’re good with the little ones,” whispered the kid to the right, his Spanish thick with an accent Gabe didn’t recognize. “Excellent. I nominate you for babysitting duty tomorrow.”
I’ll still be here tomorrow, Gabe realized with slow certainty. I’ll still be stuck behind warehouse walls and razor wire in the morning.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Sure. I’ll watch him.”
The other kid stuck out a hand. “Gustavo. Call me Gus.”
Gabe took it. “Gabriel. Call me Gabe.”
“Let me give you a quick rundown of the place,” Gus whispered. “This could wait until morning, but I’ll probably get transferred in the morning. We get moved around a lot.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “Okay, the first thing to know is that permisos are a lie. A bad rumor. Practically everyone in here comes believing that the U.S. grants children a permanent pass if we ask for sanctuary. But they don’t. They just toss you back—fast if you’re from Mexico, and slower if you hiked here from farther south, but either way they’ll throw you out again. And the guards get angry if you ask them about permisos, so don’t ask. Especially not Huppenthal. He’s the worst. Tall white guy. Look for the name tag. If it says ‘Huppenthal,’ do everything you can to avoid him. Don’t even make eye contact.”
“Got it,” Gabe whispered. “Avoid Huppenthal.”
“And take care of little Tavo there. Especially if I get transferred tomorrow. Find somebody to take over watching him before you get yourself processed and transferred. He’s tough. Made the crossing all by himself. They picked him up in Texas by the side of the road. But he’s also three, and he has trouble sleeping. Usually. Nice to hear him snoring now.”
“I’ll watch him,” Gabe promised. “His name’s Tavo?”
“Octavio,” Gus told him. “Little Octavio Fuentes.”
It took all of Gabe’s diplomatic skill to smile and nod rather than scream at the distant ceiling.
Octavio Fuentes. Three years old. That’s thirty-six months, not thirty-six years. Translation glitch. I came looking for Dad and found a toddler. Which means that Dad might still be free, still crossing over the coyote trails. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that I’m a tremendous idiot. We’re stuck. Kaen is going to hate me. I’ve created a serious intergalactic incident by getting another ambassador arrested.
Gus rolled over and away. “Buenas noches, Gabe. Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos.”
“Buenas noches,” Gabe mumbled. “Welcome to the U.S.A.”
He closed his eyes, slipped into a trance, and traveled.
* * * *
“Be welcome, Ambassador.”
“Greetings, Protocol. Is Kaen here?”
“Ambassador Kaen is currently entangled, and she is expecting you. Please proceed.”
“Thank you, Protocol.”
Gabe walked through the wide expanse of the Chancery, surrounded by the games and negotiations of his fellow ambassadors rather than fences and walls, armed guards and razor wire. He felt like he could breathe again. Then he wondered what he could possibly say to Kaen. Breathing became much more difficult.
One of the clouds shifted to make an arrow. It pointed up.
Gabe looked up. Flying ambassadors circled and soared above him. Most of them had wings. Gabe didn’t.
“Okay, then,” he said. “So now I need to learn how to fly. Does anyone else down here know how to fly?”
Many of his colleagues did, but their help was not helpful.
“It’s not so much about wanting the sky as it is forgetting about the ground.”
“Picture the way matter bends space, and change how you see that shape. Just fall whichever direction you want to go.”
“You want to fly? Why would anyone want to fly? The hidden and burrowing games are much better than all of that ball throwing and cloud hopping. Don’t fly. Learn how to dig.”
“Just think happy thoughts.”
Gabe listened to several offerings of contradictory advice. Then he stood on tiptoes, clenched his hands, and focused hard on the clouds above. Nothing and more nothing happened.
“Learning how to breathe underwater was so much easier,” he said to himself. “I already knew how to swim. I just needed to convince my lungs that they were far away and safe from drowning. But I can’t fly, and my whole body knows it. I’ve got to convince every single part of me that I can.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Sapi said from somewhere above him. She dropped down lightly to the grass. “Stop arguing with all of your various bits. This is a dream, remember? You’re dreaming an entangled dream. Haven’t you ever dreamed about flying?”
“Hi, Sapi,” Gabe said. “No, I haven’t. Or maybe I have. I don’t know. I never remembered my dreams before coming here.”
“You poor, sad thing,” Sapi said. “Well, come on. Kaen is waiting for us. The thing about a flying dream is that there aren’t really any mechanics involved. No flapping limbs, no imaginary wings. Just movement and intention.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do!” Gabe protested. “But intention isn’t producing much movement.”
Sapi pressed all of her fingertips together. “Calm down, close your eyes, and hold both hands up in the air.”
He did. “Now what?”
“Now shut up and be patient. I’ll need to take a running start.”
Gabe waited. He kept his eyes closed. Then Sapi grabbed both hands and pulled him into the sky.
* * * *
Kaen sat waiting on the topmost cloud.
Sapi dropped Gabe beside her. He expected to sink through the mist and plummet back down to the Chancery floor. He tried very hard to expect the opposite, just in case his own expectations would determine what happened next.
He sank partway into the cloud before it felt solid enough to sit on. Mist swirled around him like slow fog creeping across graveyards in very old horror movies.
Star clusters filled half of their view above.
Absolutely nothing filled the other half.
“What is that?” he whispered.
“The heart of the sky,” Kaen told him.
“The center of the galaxy,” Sapi clarified. “This is the view from the Embassy, perched on the edge of the great, big, supermassive, Sagittarian black hole—the violent swirl of nothingness that we all spin around. And these stars are the oldes
t stars, all dead and dying. The first galactic civilizations started here. They ended here. They’re all gone now, everything but the Embassy.”
Gabe watched the riotous and overwhelming view. Long streams of fire erupted from suns while they consumed each other.
He glanced sideways at his friend.
“Hi, Kaen,” he said.
“Hi, Gabe,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“I am deeply unimpressed with Terran hospitality,” she said. “And those silvery blankets are useless. But yes, I’m fine otherwise.”
“Good,” Gabe said. “And I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot. You’re used to traveling between suns, and I got you stuck in the middle of a petty border dispute in the desert.”
“We’ll find a way out again,” Kaen said. “And if we don’t, then Speaker Tlatoani will send more ships to find me.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Gabe said, “much as I love the idea of space Mexicans swooping down on Arizona.”
“Then let’s find a way out.”
“Okay. Try to avoid a guard named Huppenthal in the meantime.”
“How will I know any of their names?”
“They’re wearing small name tags,” Gabe explained. “Which you can’t read without translation. Okay, then. Look for name tags clipped to the front of their uniforms, here. Avoid anyone whose name starts with the letter H. That’s two parallel lines with one perpendicular line between them. Like this.”
He made an H with his hands. Kaen copied it with her own.
“Understood,” she said.
They watched the heart of the sky.
Sapi amused herself by sinking down into the cloud and popping up again in random places. Then she moved slowly closer to Gabe and Kaen and tapped both of their shoulders, hard.
“We have alarming company,” she said.
Gabe looked where she pointed.
Omegan hovered at the edge of the cloud. He waited there, unsure of his welcome.
Sapi looked ready to flee. Kaen looked ready to fight.
“Wait,” Gabe said. “Please wait. Let’s find out what he wants.”
Sapi punched his arm. “Ambassador Gabe, I am always impressed by your infinite stupidity.”
“Please,” Gabe said again.
“No,” said Kaen. “Whatever he knows, the rest of the Outlast will learn.”
“That is no longer true,” Omegan said. He hovered cautiously closer. “I come alone. I speak alone. No one else watches through me. I represent no one other than myself.”
“How?” Kaen demanded. “All Outlast overlap with each other.”
“And the worst punishment that we have is to be severed from all others,” Omegan explained. He kept his voice soft and low, but Gabe heard pain behind it. “This was my punishment. I told you about the lanes and how we move through them. I tried to warn you before the attack aboard Calendar. So I have been severed. I no longer qualify as a sentient person. They meant to cut me off from the Embassy as well, but that part of the punishment did not succeed. Obviously. I am still here. I come to you alone, in absolute solitude.”
Kaen crossed her arms and spoke with effort. “We have no way to know whether or not you’re telling the truth.”
“Then tell me nothing,” Omegan pleaded. “Make sure that I learn nothing more about you, or your location, or your capabilities. Listen instead. Listen to me. And understand that I already know. Our warships travel through the lanes, all of them together, all bound for the Terran system. They are coming for you. They are hunting the three human ambassadors, the three who seek to shut the lanes against us. One of you moves through the lanes now. They will hunt her down. Two of you are still in the Terran system. They will hunt you down. One single Outlast is already hunting you down. His name is Psain. He sabotaged the sun inside Calendar while others attacked you there. He remained hidden in the aftermath, and he followed you down to the planet. He will find you. He tracks the energy signature of your entanglements. And he was very close behind you when I became severed and isolated. I cannot see him now. I don’t know where he is, but I’m sure he is close. Keep moving. Keep running. Don’t let him find you. Leave the whole system behind if you can, because every one of our warships will be there soon.”
PART FIVE
AMBASSADORS
22
Nadia woke. Darkness and silence spread around her like a solid, immovable thing.
“Rem?” she asked. “Hello? Are you there?”
The floor felt more smooth and level beneath her suit-gloved hands. She climbed to her feet. Then she opened her eyes, just to see what would happen.
Pale lights floated and flickered all around her. Nadia didn’t understand what they were or what they meant. She closed her eyes again.
“Ambassador Emeritus Nadia Antonovna Kollontai,” said a very familiar voice. “Be welcome.”
“Protocol? Hi. Greetings. I’ve missed you. Am I in the Embassy now? I must be, since you never leave. I was in the Machinae lanes just a moment ago.”
“You are likely still in the Machinae lanes,” Protocol told her. “Your entanglement signal is fluctuating strangely. And you are not using any single sensory remote to receive that signal, as the current ambassadors do. You are using all of the remotes. How strange. You currently perceive the untranslated Chancery.”
“I’m not currently perceiving very much about my surroundings,” Nadia said. “But this was the plan. Sort of. Not the Embassy visit, but borrowing everyone’s signal and using them all to map out new and exciting synaptic pathways in the speech centers of my brain. I need to talk to the Machinae.”
“And have you succeeded?” Protocol asked.
“No,” Nadia said. “I did make contact. I got some sense of sentences and shades of meaning shooting off in all directions . . . but it knocked me unconscious. Now I’m here.”
“Perhaps I can assist you,” Protocol suggested. “It is my purpose to facilitate communication. And it would be gratifying if the Machinae sent me ambassadors again. They have not done so for a very long time. You might ask them, if you succeed.”
“I’ll ask,” Nadia promised.
“Then I will adjust the remotes and allow you to borrow their signal pathways more easily. Please be patient.”
Nadia waited and considered the idea of an untranslated Embassy. No playground. No fields and forests and water and swooping, soaring games in the clouds. Just a big, dark, empty space filled with little lights, each one a remote carrying entangled, imaginary dreams. That’s all this is.
She shook her head and stamped hard on that thought. No. Not true. Translation is never just wishes and lies. We aren’t all wandering around pretending to understand each other. We do understand each other.
Ambassadors moved through the vast expanse of the Chancery. Maybe the place looked very different to every one of them, but they still met, and spoke, and played, and understood.
“Brace yourself, Ambassador Emeritus.”
“Poyekhali,” Nadia said.
She opened her eyes and watched the swirling motion of ambassadors, unable to properly recognize the sight. The remotes did not resemble anything else. Then, suddenly, they looked like stars. And then every single one of them went nova.
23
“Am I understood?” Omegan asked, his voice small. “Am I believed? You must run. You must wake up now and run. Psain will find you soon.”
“We can’t run,” Gabe said, his voice small. “We’re trapped where we are now. Both of us. And my people are trapped. We can’t leave this planet, or this system. We don’t know how.”
Kaen held her own wrist where her bracelet used to be.
She can’t contact the fleet from here either, Gabe thought. She can’t tell them to leave now, to start running. They’ll be trapped inside Ceres when the Outlast arrive. He felt a thousand guilt knives stab his stomach.
“Then I regret what you will soon suffer,” Omegan told them. “I should leave you
now. I should not remind you further of the suffering to come.”
“Wait!” Kaen called out.
Omegan waited, uncertain.
Kaen waved him closer. “Ambassador, please join us.”
Gabe, Sapi, and Omegan himself all stared at Kaen.
“I am no longer an ambassador,” Omegan finally said. “I do not represent my people, or speak on behalf of my people.”
“Ambassador Omegan,” Kaen said again, her voice solid and insistent. “I invite you to join us.”
Omegan came to sit beside them.
“This is aaaaaawkwaaaaard,” Sapi sang under her breath.
“Shush,” said Kaen. “Ambassador, tell us more about Psain. Tell us what he’s likely to do when he finds us.”
* * * *
Gabe woke. He lifted his head to peer through the dim light and the chain-link fences. He saw a sea of mylar blankets and sleeping kids. He saw two border patrol guards near the wall.
He closed his eyes to see the Embassy and stars dying in the galactic center. The transition came easily this time. He still felt the blanket and the hard floor beneath him. He also felt cold wisps of cloud against his face.
“Nothing,” he said. “Kaen?”
“Nothing here,” she said, her eyes still closed.
“We prefer to attack in overwhelming numbers,” Omegan explained, “but Psain is alone. He must hunt for you alone. He will be cautious, and try to move unseen and unnoticed. He will come very close to you before striking.”
“Then he might not be able to reach us,” Gabe suggested. “We’re stuck behind walls and razor wire at the moment.”
“No,” Omegan said. “Nothing about your immobility will be helpful. He will find a way to reach you.”
Gabe woke. He looked around. He peered up at the distant ceiling to see if a tentacled Outlast slithered there between the fluorescent lights. Then he blinked and returned to the Embassy.
I’m getting better at quick transitions, at least, he noticed. Raw terror is motivating.
“Can you defend yourselves?” Omegan asked. “Hiding will not protect you, not while he can track the energy of your entanglements.”
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