by Robert Reed
The officer who had led her reception committee needed to be reprimanded. Not two recitations from now, but now. In the rain, with everyone watching, a creature half of that man’s size pushed him against the railing and shoved a finger against the tightly clamped mouth, screaming nothing that could be heard over the storm’s roar, yet leaving the fellow in such a state that he squirmed, acting as if he might jump over the railing just to end his withering shame.
And then with no warning, Prima swung about and came back again.
This time she used the railings, bouncing from one to the other. Suddenly she was a slender woman past her physical prime. The strain of the last two days was etched in the thin face. The drenched shirt stuck tight to her body, and she stumbled as she came into the ship, two aides making the mistake of trying to catch her.
Their hands were batted away.
Staring at the wet hallway floor, she said nothing.
King watched her small chest fill with air, and then her cheeks inflated, blowing out the spent gas. There were children who were taller and stronger than this woman, and any shred of poise that she might have carried had been spent. But what impressed King was not her appearance but how the others around her, particularly her own people, treated her. Prima took a half-step forward, and important people suddenly backed away, keeping out of her reach. Prima took three long strides forward, and then she looked at her fellow Archon with a serious, sane intent, telling him, “You have no idea.”
With that, she walked deeper into the Panoply Night.
Father didn’t want to hurry after her. He was too poised for this game. And it was a game: King regarded everything as a pageant, guessing what would happen next and what wouldn’t happen. The woman wanted the monster rattled, out of balance and unmoored. Father had mentioned the possibility. For their mutual benefit, Father had laid out the possible strategies of a person with few weapons of her own. And while he didn’t warn about wild theatrics, at least he remained unaffected enough that he could maintain a leisurely pace, reaching out to tug at his son’s hand, that gesture helping share his considerable amusement.
Their hostess paused before a locked door. Then she looked back at List, just List, asking, “Why did you come here?”
Father paused, blinked.
“The prisoner is one of my people,” she continued. “He was one of my trusted, my stalwarts. Except he’s a spectacular coward and a full-blooded traitor and everything about the plot is coming out now.”
She stopped talking, and Father said, “Good.”
“But I want to know from you, sir,” she said. “Why do you want to meet him?”
Father’s face flushed. “I want to hear the story, of course.”
“That too,” said Prima. “But be honest. You came here because you have every advantage. You want me to accept your dominance. And for a lot of strong reasons, you want to take my prisoner home with you. He’s going to be a prize, a trophy. He is a useful picture of evil to drag before people everywhere.”
When he was furious, Father had a very small mouth.
“I’m tired,” she said. “The games, the political dance . . . if it doesn’t make a person sick, she must not have a soul.”
Father started to disagree with some or all of that speech.
“Just you,” she interrupted, pointing at Father.
King stepped up.
“This is no place for boys,” she said.
King killed the urge to use his eating mouth, but he let his shoulder plates rise until everyone else backed away.
“I hate this,” she said.
But then she turned to a young lieutenant, poking his chest with two fingers. “All right, both of them. And you, Sondaw. Stay at my side.”
“Yes, madam,” the lieutenant muttered.
The locked door was opened. The prison stairs felt small under King’s feet, and he made a fine racket as he followed three humans to the lower floor. Every prisoner had to be terrified, hearing his approach over the storm’s rumbling. He stomped a few times at the bottom of the stairs, for emphasis, causing Father to look back at him with a wary expression, and then, a guarded smile.
Was he being childish?
Maybe so, and maybe he didn’t care.
The interrogation cells were small and locked but only lightly guarded. Every door was heavy wire, and King looked through the wire, watching scared faces. Their destination was at the end of the longest hallway, back where the air was stinking of fresh blood and dried blood and human feces. Two large soldiers flanked a solid steel door, windowless and still warm where its hinges had just been welded to the frame. The soldiers stared at King. He ignored them, stomping where he paused in that fashion that drove everybody mad and always left him stronger. It was the lieutenant who had the key. Sondaw had just that one key, pulling it out of his uniform pocket with his left hand and passing it to his right, his nervous face glancing back at the others.
This was a trap.
King understood that much before the lock came open. Yet what kind of trap would anyone dare use? Hurting him was impossible. Killing or trapping his father was easy enough, but where would the gain find room to stand? Prima and her people were surrounded by a massive fleet that was sworn to serve the state. The state wasn’t his father, but humans loved faces and List’s face was what would rally them. No, King thought. Only a madwoman would attempt something rash, and beloved as she might be, Prima’s staff would never let insanity rule their fates.
The door opened outwards, as any prison door should.
A disheveled young man was sitting on the floor. Various chains had been worn and then discarded as his body broke down. One ankle looked as if it had been pulled out of joint and then shoved back together again. Neither shoulder appeared useable. The man had been crying. Seeing them, he cried again. The smell of urine became stronger, and with a voice shredded of dignity and most of its life, he said, “What more . . . is there . . . no . . . ”
The four of them entered the stinking room.
Prima said nothing. But she looked at her lieutenant with clear hard eyes, and she nodded, and the young man stepped forward quickly and dropped low, picking up the prisoner as if he were a broken child.
The prisoner moaned.
“Easy,” Sondaw said.
Father said, “What. Is. This.”
The words sounded like a question.
“Perhaps I exaggerated,” said Prima, her voice flat and a little loud. “This prisoner hasn’t offered much enlightenment at all. We know he hates Diamond and your boy too, and he’s not altogether fond of me, either. But if he had a role in any plot, it’s a mystery to everybody. Including him.”
The lieutenant was through the door. One guard looked in at the remaining three people, and then he smirked and winked, throwing the cell door closed and slamming the lock shut.
“No,” said Father, his voice thick and low.
There was a simple, easy response. A few driving kicks would destroy the lock or the entire wall.
Unprompted, he approached the blank steel slab.
Some small noise came from behind, barely audible over the gusting winds and furious rainwater.
Expecting nothing, King glanced back.
Standing with his arms crossed on his chest, Father wore a stunned, confused expression. He acted like a man who was sick in his lungs, his heart. Sweat poured from his flesh, and his face was exceptionally red, and the voice that people everywhere mocked without end was shriller than ever.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
Prima had punched him, and she looked ready to strike the man again. But instead of swinging, she laughed and grabbed her rain-soaked shirt, tugging from the bottom.
“The law gives us a choice,” she said quickly, with minimal breaths. “In times of peace, we can have a council of the Archons, and we vote on a single leader. And you always win. You have more than half of the world’s citizens and far more than half of our soldiers, and the rest
of us couldn’t legally stand against you. But I’m sure you remember the full law, that the forest doesn’t have to be ruled by the District of Districts. In crisis but before war is declared, the leading Archon can dispense his power however he sees fit, and in another few moments that’s what you are going to do for me.”
Father was mute.
The woman had pulled off her shirt and the clothing under it. She was not young, and as King understood these matters, she wasn’t more than passingly attractive. But he was curious nonetheless, watching the trousers fall next, and the clothing beneath them. A long horizontal scar defined her belly. She stank of energy and salt as she kicked off her shoes and all of the clothes, and naked now, standing in front of Father, she claimed the pose that King knew in his blood.
It was his posture, facing any enemy.
Instinct older than his flesh took hold. King stood against the door and the wall, watching that little woman approach a man with more strength and more mass. But Father couldn’t muster the will to lift either fist higher than his aching chest, and the stick-like arms began to pummel him with long slow blows.
“No,” Father said.
The man couldn’t believe what was happening.
“Stop,” he said.
She speeded up the swings.
Already bloodied, List turned to his son.
“Help me,” he begged.
Crush the woman with one swing, and the fight would be finished. But this was Father’s ground to defend, not King’s, and far more important, nothing in this boy’s life had ever been as fascinating or enlightening as watching a sterile old woman bring her fists down on the beaten man’s face.
The cabin door swung open.
The window was a window again. Diamond was watching what was outside, unless of course this was another one of his sister’s memories turned into light and noise. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t ask. But what he saw was interesting in its fashion, built from simple shapes and a few noises repeated without end. Dark rain broke against Bountiful’s skin. What might be the long tree limb was twisting in the gale. There were only two distances in that world, near and not-near, and that was a peculiarly fascinating thought.
Diamond pulled his head out from under the curtains.
A soldier filled the open door and part of the hallway. Motioning at the boy, he repeated a word that he had just learned. “Eat,” he said.
Good sat on the cot, growling.
Diamond straightened the curtains. “Stay here,” he said.
“Yes,” the monkey agreed.
“I’ll bring you food,” he said.
“Hate you, thank you,” Good replied.
The soldier closed the door behind him and then sat in the hallway again. A woman soldier was waiting outside the galley. She watched Diamond’s walk. More curious than caring, she asked, “How do you feel?”
“Hungry,” he said.
“I believe you,” she said.
The galley was crowded, the air thick with sweat and cold food. People stopped eating to look at the boy. Some of them made faces. Some were glad to see him. Elata smiled and Seldom called to him by name, while Karlan saw something funny in his arrival, laughing loudly before he attacked his meal again.
“Your father’s working,” Master Nissim said.
“He’ll be back soon,” Tar`ro said. “Get a plate, sit with us.”
Platters of cold meats and boiled eggs and greasy bread waited on the countertop. Diamond filled two white bone plates, and he might have tried holding a third. But that would be too much, too blatant and bold. Sitting beside the Master, he began with the eggs, one at a time.
“Have you slept?” Seldom asked.
Every question had its traps. Diamond lied, saying, “Yes.”
Elata watched the eggs vanish. Then she put her hands on the table and studied her fingers, asking, “Will we ever go home, ever?”
Diamond stopped eating.
“What do you mean?” asked the Master.
“When Diamond reaches the reef . . . will the rest of us go free . . . ?”
Every little sound in the galley vanished. Nobody was eating. The only noise was the storm, and it had already spent the worst of its fury.
Nissim put a hand on Elata’s hands. “We don’t know,” he said.
Elata looked at the woman soldier. “Can I go back to the trees?”
The papio had warmer eyes than Diamond had guessed. But she decided to say nothing.
“I’m staying with you,” Nissim told Diamond.
Seldom looked at the Master and then Elata. “I don’t think they’ll give us a choice,” he said.
Seldom didn’t want to choose.
The urge to eat had vanished, but Diamond kept working with his hands, his mouth. One plate was bare when a mechanic came through the door, followed by Father.
“Come here,” his father said.
Diamond was already on his feet.
“Is that yours?” Father asked.
He meant the last plate.
“Bring it here,” he said. “And I’ll get one for me.”
They sat close to one another, as far from the other prisoners as possible. But the woman soldier was close enough to touch them, and she didn’t care if she stared, listening to every word.
Father had filled his own plate, but he barely ate.
“Where were you?” asked the boy.
“Above. Our guests shot a hole in one of the bladders.”
“What were they fighting?”
“A shadow, apparently.”
Diamond looked at the papio, and then he stared at the long strips of cured pink meat. “Good wants some of this,” he said.
“I bet.”
They didn’t talk, and they didn’t eat quickly. Sometimes Diamond looked at his father’s red, wet eyes.
“She’s dead,” Diamond said at last.
Father didn’t ask who he meant. He just nodded, saying, “Yes.”
“But that’s all right,” said the boy.
Merit kept his mouth closed.
“I’ve been thinking about the Creation,” Diamond said.
“Thinking what?”
“It never ends,” he said.
Father glanced at Nissim. Then to his son, speaking softly, he said, “I don’t know about that.”
“I know.”
Father looked at Nissim again.
“This isn’t one of the Master’s lessons,” Diamond said.
“All right. What do you know?”
“If the world does go on forever, if we can’t count all of the days, then everybody has to come back again. If we’re born once, we can always be born. Every trillion trillion days, each of us gets to live, and it always feels like the first time.”
Merit said nothing.
The woman soldier glared at the boy, lips taut, long teeth showing.
“You figured that out,” said Father doubtfully.
“I think I did.”
“And Haddi gets to live again,” Father said slowly, with care and some misery.
Diamond nodded.
“To live with us?”
“No,” he said. Then he said, “Maybe. Each time, we get different lives.”
The man’s mouth opened and then closed.
Diamond believed his own words, so much so that he couldn’t escape from them. But what was beautiful and obvious in his mind made the papio woman angry, and Father looked sick and no happier than before.
His plate was still half-covered with food. Diamond rose and picked it up, reporting, “Good is hungry.”
Without sound or fuss, Father wept. But he stood regardless and picked up his mostly untouched breakfast, and then he told the papio, “I want to walk my boy back to his cabin.”
The papio didn’t want Diamond to remain here. “Go,” she said.
Away from the galley, Father said, “Tell me.”
Diamond didn’t respond.
“There’s something else. Tell me.”
> “Nothing,” the boy lied.
Father didn’t believe him. Shaking his head, he quietly said, “When we were above, high between the bladders, we found something. A strange something. Does that surprise you?”
Diamond remained silent.
“You say you’re starving?”
“I am.”
“And your monkey?”
He nodded.
The soldier before them rose and opened the cabin door, and Father said, “Here, hand me yours.”
Diamond willingly gave him the plate.
Father walked to the middle of the little room and spilled both his breakfast and Diamond’s on the floor, and then he cursed with a sharp, believable voice.
The soldier glared at the mess.
“I’ll get you another helping,” Father said.
Good suspiciously picked up a pair of dirty eggs.
Diamond lifted one shade, watching the simple rain. “Two more helpings would be nice, if they’ll let you,” he said.
Father wiped at his wet face, nodding. “I don’t know what’s stranger,” he said. “Your endless appetite, or each of us spending eternity eating eggs.”
The story raced ahead of Prima. At least some clipped inadequate version of what happened onboard Panoply Night passed like fire through the entire fleet. Her species had a new leader. The woman Archon was temporarily in charge of the fleet. When Prima arrived on the Ruler’s bridge, she was going to be met with cold stares and cold silence. She expected nothing else. And as she explained to Sondaw, there were reasons to be thankful for that blind, hateful response.
“What I have is a title,” she said. “A barely legal status is folded up in my pocket. Not one of List’s people is going to give me more than sporadic help, except when they go out of their way to offer bad advice, and that’s going to bring a lot of silence and anger for as long as it takes them to build their rebellion.”
“And why are we thankful?” Sondaw asked.
“List’s people are going to ignore the realities, and meanwhile, my people will be able to accomplish two or three worthy deeds. I hope.”
They were standing inside her office. Prima had put on clean dry clothes, and picked up the papers that needed to accompany her to the flagship. But most importantly, she wanted her bleeding to stop. In the end, driven to panic, a man who had probably never in his life struck another person had punched her on the chin, his knuckles sharp as razors. Her bottom lip was cut and the entire jaw ached. Yet compared to her opponent, she was virtually unscathed.