by Sarah Zettel
“Engineer Faive of the First Cause, Contractor,” said a new voice in her ear. “I am going to need to contract at least three more Beholden to incorporate structural standards in Section eighteen…”
The “High House,” the artifacts called it, for no reason Avir could discern. It had no less than eight conduits to the underground complexes in it. She had placed a priority on having the standing walls upgraded to shelter the teams assigned to study them.
The Beholden sealing fiber-optic cables into a trench carved in the main entranceway scrambled backward to let Bio-tech Nal and two of his own Beholden enter. Behind them waddled an eight-legged drone stacked with an assortment of nameless crates.
“Record authorization and time stamp.” She drew aside so the drone could pass. “Next?”
Her translator disk beeped. “Incoming message on comm line 23A,” said the default voice.
She stood in front of the portable terminal, not wanting to have to perch on the hard stool in front of it. The translator disks alone could not handle transmissions from the dead side. She touched the screen. Kelat appeared, standing with a poise and propriety she envied. Behind him curved the shadowy walls of one of the underground chambers. A team of Engineering Beholden clustered around a bulge in the wall, watching monitors intently and occasionally punctuating their dialogue with a ringer stabbed toward some reading or the other. Kelat, apparently oblivious to the impropriety behind him, made a small, respectful obeisance to her.
“Good Morning and also Good Day, Contractor,” Avir said, making her own obeisance. “How are matters progressing with you?”
Kelat turned a little to indicate the activity behind him. Now she could see the bulge held something that pulsed and pressed star-shaped filaments against the wall. “Slowly, and with much argument between the committees. There are organic artifacts left here, there is no doubt about that, but defining their relationships and purposes is a struggle.
“And how are matters progressing with you?”
Avir glanced around the room. Nal was unloading equipment from the drone with his Beholden hustling to set up an analysis tank assembly. An Engineering Beholden readjusted a cleaning drone and sent it scuttling up the wall. Over it all rattled the noise from the artifacts outside. She did not invite Kelat to take a better look.
“Rapidly, Kelat, but not very smoothly. There was a great deal of chaos stirred up by the Unifiers and a civil war has been going on for a long time between the established power base and some factions that want to split off. Unfortunately, the factions may be less likely to accept that we hold their names than the main power base is. We are proceeding accordingly.
“Has there been any action on the part of the Unifiers?” she asked, more to keep the conversation going than because she really needed the information. Kelat’s presence, even over the lines, was very calming.
“They are raising protests and publicity with a number of the client governments,” said Kelat, “but so far, nothing important. The Reclamation Assembly assessment is that they are simply delaying the necessity of removing their people.” Kelat’s shoulders sagged minutely. “Has any progress been made in locating their base?”
The wind dropped a note in pitch and sent a draft curling around Avir’s ankles. “No. They appear to be maintaining a communications silence and with the limited number of satellites currently deployed and the pervasiveness of the cloud cover…” she broke her sentence off. She was repeating what Kelat already knew. They were not currently equipped for a full scan of the habitable section of the Home Ground. The Assembly had moved ahead of several committees’ scheduling recommendations but had offered no explanations as to why. But she would not be heard to say that aloud.
“We already have given orders to some of the less confused artifacts to search for ‘Skymen’ and bring them into appropriate custody,” she told Kelat instead. “So far they have had no success, but we will reinforce the orders.” Outside, artifacts’ voices lifted in a new song. Whatever it was, it must have been ancient. Her disk couldn’t make anything out of it. “How soon will you be ready for us to start delivering artifacts to your facilities for classification?” she asked.
Kelat looked over his shoulder at the contending trio of Beholden. “It will be some time,” he admitted. “There are many pieces of the Ancestors’ puzzles to be sorted out. It is my opinion your efforts are best spent in gaining and centralizing control where you are and performing what classifications you can.”
Avir felt a flicker of humor cross her face. “It is glorious work, Kelat, but it is work all the same.”
Kelat lowered his voice. “Is there any assistance we can offer you?”
Pride more than confidence stiffened Avir’s shoulders. “Not yet, I don’t think. At the moment, the Assembly is placing a premium on keeping as many of the artifacts as we can functional, so we can only go slowly in restructuring their social groupings. When control is centralized, then we can coordinate our efforts more closely.”
Kelat glanced around himself to make sure no one was listening. “Avir, how does it feel to be a god?”
She pressed her fingertips against the edge of the comm board. “Kelat, I would rather be a Contractor.”
“Understood,” he said, and she heard genuine sympathy in his voice. “This line is being left open for your reports.” Kelat signed off and the terminal went blank.
The sound of voices and shuffling feet made Avir turn around. One of the Bio-tech Beholden led a gaggle of artifacts with scarred hands through the main threshold. They were all female, Avir saw, some of them juveniles, some of them carrying infants in bundles of rags strapped to their chests.
Ivale followed the cluster of artifacts, spreading his hands to help herd them all inside the Temple. Two juveniles took shelter behind the adults as his hands touched their shoulders.
“All is well,” said Ivale in the round, almost-musical tones he’d been cultivating since he’d received his contract to the Reclamation. “There is only new work that we ask of you.”
Despite Ivale’s reassurances, the artifacts all looked at her with identical expressions of fear on their faces.
Avir’s anger at the long-dead Aunorante Sangh deepened. How could you condemn your own kind to this? A life without structure or purpose? Where they can’t even recognize the ones you were made to serve?
It was totally irrational, and though she knew it, she couldn’t help herself.
We will restore them. As soon as we understand how the Ancestors structured this world, we will be able to restore their proper functions to them, and then that fear will vanish.
These, at least, seemed fairly docile. They let Ivale and the Beholden direct them toward the analysis area, where Nal and his other three Beholden were dodging each other as they tried to uncrate and set up the last of their equipment.
A juvenile stumbled on the uneven floor. An adult, old enough to be wrinkled and toothless, stuck out her clawed hand to steady it. Even from where she stood, Avir saw the bones in the adult’s wrist.
“Bio-technician,” she called, unable to take her eyes off the skinny artifact. The artifact noticed her regard and lowered herself humbly to the floor, holding her hands in front of her eyes.
Bio-tech Nal disentangled himself from a coil of fiber optic and came to stand beside her. “Yes, Contractor?” There was no disguising the impatience in his voice.
Avir ignored it. “Once you have completed your classification scans on this sampling, take the artifacts down into the basements. We will need to provide food and warmth for them until the committees meet to determine a coherent separation strategy.”
“We’re going to keep them here?” Nal’s face wrinkled with distaste.
Avir’s temper flared. “You are speaking with disrespect of the work of the Ancestors, Bio-tech. Do you want to explain your reluctance to care for it properly to a Witness and have it added to the Memory?” She spoke too loud and too harshly. The Bio-tech was plainly more s
hocked than chagrined. He dropped quickly into an obeisance that pressed his forehead against the filthy floor.
“I spoke without thought, Contractor,” he said.
So did I, but Avir just gestured for him to get up.
Avir glanced at the Beholden, but they were all properly busy at their tasks. She wished she wasn’t so certain they were all straining their ears to hear what her next outburst would be. Ivale, though, had his dark eyes leveled at her, and, for a moment, she saw the question in them.
I am not supposed to be feeling like this, thought Avir as she turned away. I am walking on the Home Ground. I am working directly for the Reclamation. This should be glorious. I should be joyous. I shouldn’t be petty and scolding and worn like a student on her first assignment. She rubbed her forehead and gazed at the sprinkling of soot that smeared her palm. I just never thought it would be…
“Skyman!” shouted a voice.
Avir’s head jerked toward the doorway. The songs and shouts had dropped away outside, leaving only the sounds of the wind and of feet squelching in the mud.
“I’ll go,” said Ivale.
“No.” He opened his mouth and Avir raised her hand. “We are all Ambassadors to the work of the Ancestors now. I will see what is happening outside and you will calm the artifacts already in our care.”
Ivale hesitated for a moment, as if testing the seriousness of her order. Then he turned away from her and gestured toward the floor. “Sit, sit,” he said to the artifacts. “You are in the hands of the Nameless. What else can touch you here?”
The artifacts did as they were told. They settled themselves next to the wall, wrapping their ragged clothing around them. They set the juveniles on their laps or took them in their arms. One began to croon a soft, wordless song to an infant. Beside them, the analysis tank began a steady humming, indicating that the Beholden had gotten the generators successfully hooked up.
Avir couldn’t work out why she was staring at them.
“Skyman!”
Avir tore her gaze away from the artifacts. Drawing herself up into a properly poised stance, she pushed past the poorly woven blanket that covered the threshold and stepped onto the flagstone veranda.
A new group of artifacts filled the street below the crude, stone steps. Unlike the crowds that had been there earlier, these stood in relatively straight lines. They had hats of beaten metal covering their heads. In their midst, a smallish female who had been tattooed in red around her face and jaw sat on the back of one of the oxen used as beasts of burden. The shadow from the tether fell across her, creating a broad, black stripe over her chest.
Avir remembered her briefing. This was, in all probability, Silver on the Clouds, the King or leader of this area’s social grouping.
“See how they come when called!” Silver on the Clouds shouted, standing in the ox’s stirrups. “They know who they are! Skymen!”
But even from where she stood, Avir could see the fear in the King’s eyes. Just like she saw in all the others. Endless, reasonless fear.
“You doubt we are the Nameless?” Avir let her voice ring across the plaza. “You are alone, King Silver. The Temples and the Teachers know us.”
“The Teachers are fools!” Silver on the Clouds snorted. “They always have been! You are nothing but Skymen with tricks and lies. Narroways is still my city, Skyman! If you do not leave it on your own, we will drive you over the World’s Wall and into the maw of the Aunorante Sangh!
“You have until the next sunshowing!”
Taking her words as their cue, the helmeted artifacts raised their weapons and began to retreat, one step at a time. Silver backed her ox up to stay in the middle of them. No one tried to stop them as they disappeared between the ramshackle buildings.
Avir felt something whither inside her. I should have let Ivale do this. I don’t know how to handle them. I don’t know what to do. This is not what I’m trained for. This is not what anybody here is trained for.
The remaining artifacts stared up at her with their wide eyes. They were waiting for her to do something miraculous to prove that she really was a daughter of the Ancestors. But she had no proof to offer.
Avir glowered at the herd of artifacts, suddenly furious. They all leaned a bit closer together and ducked their heads in the face of her anger. Avir knew they were not to blame for their own ignorance, but knowing that did not help calm her.
Her translator disk beeped. “Contractor,” said Ivale’s voice, “there is a transmission from the Reclamation Assembly that requires your attention.”
Avir touched her disk to acknowledge him, and, with as much dignity as she could muster, she retreated behind the blanket.
Ivale watched her a little too closely as she crossed the chamber. Did he see the hollowness inside her? She thought she had her face properly expressionless, but she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything right now.
She reached the active comm screen and faced a single Contractor, immaculate in his seamless black robe. Avir suddenly remembered how rumpled and ash-spattered she was.
“Allow me to hand you my name, Contractor.” He had elected to be as bald as an Ambassador and yet as brown as an artifact. Avir wondered what had motivated the juxtaposition. “I am Contractor Cynleah Laefhur, of the Fust Core, and Senior Contractor to the Reclamation Assembly. We have news that will affect your division.”
His quiet, steady voice went straight through Avir , soothing her instantly. She wanted to lean toward the screen and drink in his voice, as a reminder of what she ought to be.
“Bio-technician Uary has confessed himself to be an Imperialist and has volunteered the location of the Unifier base just outside your division. One of their operators is Jahidh of the Grand Errand. He has been transmitting information about the Home Ground to his Imperialist contacts for four years.”
Blood of my ancestors, Avir staggered. There’s been an Imperialist on the Home Ground for FOUR YEARS? Avir felt her breathing go harsh and shallow. “Where is he now?” she croaked. “Do we know that?”
“These are your orders, Contractor Avir,” said Laefhur. “You will investigate the Unifiers’ finds. You will not waste resources hunting for Jahidh.”
“Contractor,” Avir drew her shoulders back. This man might hold a senior ranking and an Assembly seat, but he did not hold her name. “How can…”
“We want him free to continue his researches,” said the Contractor. “He has made great contributions to the understanding of the artifacts. As long as he believes he is undetected, he will continue to do so. The Witnesses will take charge of him if he oversteps the bounds the Assembly has laid down on his conduct.”
Avir could not force a single word out of her throat.
“It is the Reclamation that is important, Contractor. We must not lose time because of lack of skilled hands.”
And it must not be seen that the Assembly allowed Imperialists to slip through their notice. Resolve hardened inside her. “I can make this my work and I will,” she said, giving a properly deep obeisance.
Laefhur’s image was gone by the time she straightened up. Avir realized her hands had curled into fists. Her mind was already racing. Transportation would have to be acquired from the Acquisitions committee, and a security team contracted. The Unifiers’ base would have to be thoroughly explored and cataloged. Extra personnel would certainly be needed once the initial survey of the base was complete.
She would obey her orders, but communication with the artifacts was still at an uncertain stage. Everyone was aware of that. It was well documented and witnessed. If they did not understand they were to cease their search for one particular Skyman, that, surely, was not her fault.
Jay cast another glance at Heart of the Seablade. The Teacher hunched in front of the fire watching the flames in a way that suggested he did not like what he saw. Jay shivered as the wind blew through the tent flaps and, for the hundredth time, he cursed the necessity of bringing the Teacher along. Heart had too many dist
ractions inside his head to allow Jay to predict the outcome of his thoughts. But they needed a Teacher to help bring the Notouch into line in case Cor’s efforts at persuasion were not totally successful, so Jay needed Heart.
Years of practiced acting allowed Jay to put a concerned tone in his voice. “What is it you are worried about now, Teacher?”
Heart picked up a cold lump of charcoal from the meager stack that was their night’s supply of fuel. “My wife was in the High House when they came down, Messenger. What will they do to her?”
Be patient. You need him to keep the Notouch in line. Say it again. Jay wrapped his poncho a little closer around him. “Nothing, Heart. She’s valuable to them. You all are. That’s what’s buying us this time.” That and King Silver’s pride.
“I do hold her in my regard, Messenger.” Heart pitched the charcoal onto the flames. The fire hissed and a flurry of sparks danced above the flames. “She is so unwavering…I fear they will grow impatient with her.”
Jay considered laying a hand on the man’s shoulder, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. “I know these people, Heart. They’re born patient. They cannot be rushed. I once…” His translator disk beeped.
Cor’s voice hissed in his ear. “Jay, get your sodden face out here. I’m about to be bludgeoned.”
“Blood of my…” Jay scrabbled at the tent’s laces and tore them open.
It was full night outside. The icy wind drove straight down on his head, making him stagger as he emerged from the tent. The only light was from the four orange watchflres. Everything else was a solid curtain of black.
“Hold your hand!” he bellowed to the world in general.
Jay squinted at one fire after another. The one toward his left flopped sideways in the wind and Jay saw a pair of human shadows, one standing and one kneeling. He took a bead on the fire and, ignoring the violent crawling of the goose bumps rising on his skin, waded through the weeds and reeds toward it