Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity

by Adams, David

  An interesting philosophy, and Liao found herself nodding along as he spoke. "So," she said, "will you tell me of this hairdresser?"

  Kamal took a breath and began.

  "When the Prophet alayhi s-salām was walking on his night journey, he smelled the most beautiful fragrance. He asked Jibreel alayhi s-salām what the smell was.

  "Jibreel alayhi s-salām told him that it was Firaun's family hairdresser and her family. The Prophet alayhi s-salām asked for the story, so Jibreel alayhi s-salām told it to him.

  "One day, Firaun's hairdresser was combing the hair of Firaun's daughter, and her comb fell. As the hairdresser went to pick it up, she said 'Bismillah!' It means 'in the name of the Lord'.

  "Firaun's daughter asked, 'You mean my father?'

  "But the hairstylist said, 'No, I mean Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla. My Lord, your father's Lord, the Lord of the heavens and the Earth and the universe.'

  "Firaun's daughter told her father this, and the next day Firaun went to the hairdresser's home. His guards took the woman and her three young boys into the main room of their house.

  "Firaun was standing there with a cauldron. The Koran describes the cauldron as so big that a cow could fit inside it, and so hot that the water spat out of the surface and onto the floor.

  "Firaun said, 'Oh hair stylist, who is your Lord?'

  "And she replied, 'Allah is my lord, and your lord.'

  "Firaun's guards dragged the first of her children to the cauldron. He was screaming.

  "'Mother!

  "'Mother!'

  "And they threw him into the boiling water.

  "As the child died, he was still screaming.

  "'Mother!

  "'Mother!'

  "And Firaun, this zalim, the tyrant of tyrants, said, 'Oh hairdresser, who is your Lord?'

  "And she said 'Allah is my lord, and your lord.'

  "Imagine. This mother just saw her child literally melt in front of her eyes, and she still said her Lord was Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla. She said it to the zalim's face.

  "So Firaun's guards grabbed the second child and threw him too into the water. He screamed, too, as he died.

  "The tyrant asked again, 'Who is your Lord?'

  "The mother—with hesitation in her heart this time, imagine her pain, imagine seeing what she had seen—she said… 'Allah is my Lord and your Lord.'

  "So the guards grabbed the smallest child, the baby, and held him over the cauldron. Her heart was saying… oh, Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla, what should I do? What should I do, my Lord?

  "And then a miracle from Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla. This baby, this infant, opened his mouth and said, 'Oh mother, do not worry, we are in heaven.'

  "And the mother said, 'Allah is my Lord. He is my Lord, and he is your Lord.'

  "Firaun threw the baby into the cauldron. Then, at last, he threw the woman in, too.

  "But she still said, even as she died, 'Allah is my Lord, and he is your Lord.'"

  Of all the stories Iraj could have told, this one was the worst possible. The idea of the child melting in the cauldron—just as Allison had melted in the cauldron that was Earth—made her sick to her stomach. She could not imagine the hairstylist clinging to her faith in the face of such things. The joy of the past evening, of spending a night with James and finally taking steps to shake off her dark mood, began to fade.

  She did not want to disrespect her XO's story, but she could not thank him for telling it.

  "That's a terrible story."

  "It is," Iraj agreed, leaning forward slightly. "Absolutely. The mother and her three children die at the end, and Firaun is still the tyrant. The ruler of the land. There is no retribution in this life for him, until his destruction and judgement. Where is the fairness in that? The equality? I struggled with the story of Firaun and the hairstylist for some time, unable to reconcile this conflict with myself. Why would a merciful God, Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla, do this to someone who clearly loved him as much as anyone could? And if Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla had done this to his most faithful servant, what hope would the rest of us have for His miracles? Who are we to ask for more than she did?"

  "That's what I was thinking."

  "The moral of the story," Iraj said, "is almost, in a way, similar to the one from the story of Job from the Christian Bible. The story of a man whose faith is tested by horrible events, something God could have prevented with but a thought. Instead, he allows his faithful servant to lose everything and to suffer. Why would a merciful God do this?

  "The answer, Melissa, is that we believe there to be another world beyond this one, beyond the stars and planets in the sky. Another place where the righteous receive their rewards, and the unjust are punished. It is not this world, though." Iraj smiled sadly. "All we have in this world is the justice of men."

  "What happened to Firaun in the end?" asked Liao.

  "It's a very long story, but according to the stories, he had a dream that a great fire would come from the Palestine region and burn his race to ashes. A child would come from Bani Israil, a land he enslaved, and this would be the cause of the fire. He… overreacted in a lot of ways, killing the children of Bani Israil, and while he killed so many children, he missed the child who was the prophesied child. This ended up being his downfall."

  "I see."

  Iraj smiled. "In Islam, we have two core concepts. Iman and Tawakkul. That is to say, belief in Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla, and trust in Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla that if he says he is going to do something for me, then he will, in this life or the next. This saves a person."

  "Forgive my scepticism, but I'd rather have the help in this life."

  "Of course," said Iraj, "as would we all. But we cannot know the mind of our creator or his plan."

  Liao couldn't accept this. It seemed like a way out, a way for the believers to rationalise away any failed promises, but Iraj's point was well intentioned. "Of course."

  "Anyway, I came here with a bit of news you might find interesting."

  "Interesting?"

  "Not good, not bad, but interesting." He handed her a piece of paper. "A report from the Tehran. A Toralii shuttle escaped Belthas IV, and Commander Sabeen spoke to the pilot. She suspects—granted, with little evidence, but I'm inclined to agree—that it might have been Ben, and he may have escaped."

  She read the report, expecting the news to be devastating to her, but in some ways, she was almost secretly glad. Ben had done terrible things, but his jump drive had been destroyed. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, Ben could not harm them anymore.

  Then she found one line that made her stop.

  Ben had used her voice.

  Had the clone of her body survived the descent into Belthas IV's atmosphere? It seemed impossible, and Ben had shown the capability to imitate voices in the past.

  "Interesting," she said, handing it back.

  "I thought you should know. It's unlikely that he survived…"

  "I know," she said.

  "And it's unlikely that he can do anything to us even if he did…"

  "I know." Liao took in a breath. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

  Kamal took the printout back and, with a crisp salute, left. Liao, with a renewed vigour and energy, went to her duty shift.

  For the first time in a long time, it felt good to be heading to Operations, surrounded by her crew and her team. Liao dropped by her quarters to change and even apply a little makeup, but she could not completely conceal her appearance beneath foundation and eye liner. Her bruises were too significant for that.

  Her appearance attracted a lot of attention. Every eye was upon her in the corridor, and when she arrived, business stopped as her Operations crew all tried to stare at her without being caught.

  It would be incorrect to say that she didn't mind, but she understood their curiosity. She didn't mention her injuries, nor did she offer any kind of explanation or acknowledgement. She just went to work.

  The Beijin
g's radars swept the sky, their waves a ceaseless watch of the heavens above Velsharn, and their data was cross-linked to his sister ships in orbit, along with Broadswords who covered the blind spots. The orbits of the other Pillars were coordinated such that the Lagrange points of the Velsharn planet were always under surveillance. Broadswords scouted out other jump points at irregular intervals, creating a mesh of radar signals that covered everything.

  The Humans flies spun their web, waiting for a spider to step in and be trapped.Watching their efforts brought her a great comfort. She stood by her original statement—the Alliance would not be repelled by their meagre forces—but it was good to do something.

  Liao had been sad long enough. It was time to square her shoulders and get down to the business of survival.

  The hours ticked away. It was difficult to be in command when nothing was happening; Liao resisted the urge to ask everyone to report their statuses every five minutes. The time passed slowly and uneventfully, and then it was time for her shift to end and the swing shift to begin.

  Iraj stepped up beside her. "Commander. You are relieved."

  She smiled. "I stand relieved."

  As Liao turned to leave, the internal comm link chirped. She looked at Kamal, but he offered it to her.

  "You're technically off duty."

  "The CO's never off duty," said Liao, and slipped the headset over her head. "This is Beijing actual."

  Cheung's voice came back to her. "Captain, I'm here with a dozen marines in the hangar bay. There's been a security disturbance."

  That seemed odd to her. Security problems? "What's the nature of this disturbance?"

  "I've got Shepherd down here, ma'am, and we're trying to sort it out. Apparently, elements of the civilian population have come to blows. Some of the Chinese citizens the Washington rescued are claiming that they have residence rights over the Americans we rescued from Houston. They claim that because the Beijing is the property of the People's Republic of China that they should be the ones to live on the planet, while the Americans should have to live on the Washington instead of them. Break." Cheung seemed to talk to someone on the other side. "They say that they're open to compromise."

  Her initial gut reaction was towards compromise, despite the ludicrousness of the position. "What's their proposal?"

  "They want to segment the ship. A Chinese side and an American side."

  Liao glared at a bulkhead, squeezing the talk key firmly between two fingers. "Firstly, this ship is the property of the organisation known as the People's Republic of China, even if the physical People's Republic of China doesn't exist anymore. There is no American side. No Chinese side. And there won't be, now or ever." She took a breath. "Can you put Shepherd on for me?"

  "Evening, Captain," said Shepherd's voice.

  "Evening, Mr. Shepherd. I'm curious as to your opinion on this matter."

  "Well, Captain, I believe there's enough room on this ship and surrounding territory for everyone to have a bit of room. I'm not a big fan of splitting the ship in half."

  "Me either. I believe, Mr. Shepherd, that this is our chance to do things better. To finally move away from the nationalistic jingoism that's defined Human existence ever since civilisation rose out of the Dark Ages. I don't plan on wasting it. No American side, no Chinese side. Everyone's going to have to learn to live together. End of discussion."

  With a sigh, the tension evaporated out of his voice. "I'm glad you said that, Captain. Telling your countrymen will be difficult though."

  "Not really. Who's their ringleader?"

  "A woman with a name I can't possibly pronounce."

  "Fair enough. Put her on."

  Another pause. Then a woman introduced herself as Zhengdao Gui.

  Liao wasted no time, telling Lin exactly the same thing she told Shepherd. The woman at the other end protested, complained, but then fell silent when Liao would not compromise on her position.

  She hung up and handed the communication headset back to Kamal.

  "Diplomatic," said Iraj.

  "Hardly. I told them how it was going to be and accepted no argument."

  "That's the essence of diplomacy. Telling someone exactly what they're going to give you, nicely."

  "Apparently so." She put her hands on her hips. "I should try it more often."

  Rowe moved up to her. "Hey, Captain?"

  "Yes, Miss Rowe?"

  "I had a question. The Lucifer's Gas stockpile. What did you want done with it? That shit's dangerous. We can't just leave it lying around."

  "Have it moved somewhere away from the ship for now. I'll deal with that later." She thought for a moment. "Actually, have it moved to Engineering Bay Three. I want it ready to move on my order."

  "You have a plan, Captain?" asked Iraj.

  "I'm preparing for contingencies. I'd like to have it as an option."

  Rowe put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Righteo, Captain. Really wish we had a forklift. I miss that lifting capacity."

  "I miss a lot of things," said Liao.

  "You know what I'm going to miss most?" Rowe's grin was almost as wide as her face. "Bert."

  "Bert?"

  "A galah that used to hang outside the Art Gallery in Canberra. He wasn't like the other birds, who squawked. He would just tilt his head back and give out this long, monotonous noise. Galahs are excellent imitators, and we reckoned he had listened to the leaf blower man for too long. He'd forgotten how to be an animal and could only sing the song of the machine." She shrugged. "We were engineering students; we came up with all manner of weird explanations for things."

  "Huh. Well, that's great for you, I guess." Liao smiled. "Anything else you need my help with, Summer, or can I go get tea?"

  "Since you asked so nicely," Rowe said, bowing with a flourish. "I permit it."

  She stifled a laugh and, with an energy in her step that she found rejuvenating, left Operations.

  The energy remained with her until she arrived at her quarters. She was surprised to see that the door was open; no marines guarded it. Cautiously, Liao pushed open the door.

  Saara stood in the centre of her quarters, casually leaning up against her desk and stooping slightly as she usually did inside Human rooms. As Liao entered, Saara's yellow eyes fixed on her, as dark a glare as she had ever seen. ["Is this what Melissa Liao is reduced to?"]

  "Pardon?" She narrowed her eyes. "Where are my marines?"

  ["There were none when I arrived."]

  There hadn't been any for some time. It took her a moment for her mind to catch up with this fact. "Right. What's wrong, Saara?"

  ["I do not know, Captain."] Saara folded her large arms. ["Why don't you tell me of how you have, apparently, turned your weapons on yourself?"]

  Liao fumbled for a lie. "Saara, I…"

  ["You aimed to end your life. Any fool could see that. You appear with inexplicable injuries, all your hair removed? You are deceiving nobody."]

  Guilt ran through her. She shook her head, stepping into her quarters properly and closing the door. "No, I was just—"

  ["Do not lie to me, Captain. Nor should you make the assumption that I will stop you. If you truly wish to die, I will help you in any way I can."]

  She had mentally prepared to continue defending herself, to spin a false tale of what had happened, so Saara's blunt acceptance surprised her. "That's… unusual."

  ["Why should it be? Humans, like Toralii, value life but also liberty. We enjoy life and all its pleasures, but all things must end at some point. We have fata'h."]

  "Fata'h? I hadn't heard that word before."

  ["It is more a concept than a word, but a rough translation might be… Life without pain is impossible. It is part of the warrior's creed."]

  Was that her life? Full of insurmountable pain? Without Allison, it had seemed so. Her life had been half-empty, as though some important piece had been carved out of it. The big things seemed little, and the little things no longer mattered. Now, though...

&nb
sp; "Yeah." Liao did not know what else to say. "I'm sorry, Saara. I should have told you."

  ["Do not apologise. I apologise for intruding. I would not normally do so, but word of your injuries has spread quickly. I was... concerned."]

  Liao suspected it had, but could do very little about it. "It's quite all right." She avoided looking at her desk, covered in papers, and her handgun conspicuously resting on it. "So," she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "What else brings you here?"

  ["I wanted to tell you a story."]

  "You're more than welcome," said Liao. The Toralii valued stories. "I'm surprised you felt as though you had to ask."

  ["The weight of our current situation had not escaped me. I saw the pain at the funeral. For the crew of the Sydney. For those we lost on Earth."]

  We. That word comforted her. Solidarity between the Telvan and the Humans.

  "Funerals are important. How we remember our dead is part of who we are."

  ["It is, isn't it? Not just a funeral for brave women and men, for a lump of steel and a name; it's a funeral for your species. Such an important thing… history, as your species are going to make it, will remember this period of time forever."] She grimaced. ["Until you are all dead and gone."]

  "That's a little premature," said Liao. "Humanity survives. We're hanging on by a thread, I'll admit, but we're here. We're still kicking. We're not dead yet."

  ["Yes you are."] The tone, the abruptness in her voice gave weight to her certainty. ["Your world is ashes. Your numbers too few to survive. Winter on Velsharn will not be kind to you, nor will the future when your military aged population ages and withers all at once. How many children can you produce in thirty years? Enough to not only train and replace those who are too old or injured to work, but to grow themselves?"]

  Saara made good points, but Liao shook her head. "You sound so pessimistic. Individually we may not be much, but our species has endured before. You're speaking from an outsider's perspective…"