by Yoon Ha Lee
Besides, how he was going to ambush her if she could hear everything he was thinking?
{Very funny,} she retorted.
“You’re my only source of information,” Jedao said, which wasn’t exactly a promise but did express the truth of their current relationship. Given the number of people who would be happy to see him permanently dead, he wasn’t about to alienate his only ally.
{Good to know.} She said the same thing out loud, causing an odd echo effect in his head.
Cheris unbound him. His limbs pricked with returning circulation. Something about the sensation bothered him, as though his muscles and ligaments weren’t attached quite right, but it must be his imagination. After all, he hadn’t lived for four centuries.
Cheris spoke as she worked: “There isn’t time to give you all the details,” she said with an irony that he didn’t understand, which made him immediately wary. “The short version is that the siege is over, you’re embodied, and we’re now under siege in a completely different location, a moonbase, because the Shuos are out to get you.”
That almost made sense. It was only a matter of time before Hexarch Mikodez decided that Jedao was too much of a liability and moved to have him eliminated. Ironically, Kel Command had been his only protection, and even Jedao couldn’t play two parties against each other when he was trapped in the black cradle. Still, he’d hoped for a little more time—
{The long version of this conversation isn’t going to be fun,} Cheris thought dourly. He was sure she hadn’t meant for him to hear that. Foxfucking hounds, was there no way to put up a mental privacy barrier?
“What defenses do we have available?” Jedao was in the middle of asking when the bomb hit.
The walls of the base shook; the candlevines flickered. Some of them came back on; most remained dark. Some of them even shriveled up on the spot, not a good sign.
“Do we have any means of escape?” Jedao added. It would help if they had a map—
He was momentarily distracted by the fact that the othersense provided him one, albeit a kinesthetic sort of impression rather than visuals. Was he hallucinating? It would be a bad time for it, not that there were good times to hallucinate.
Fuck, he needed to focus on the problem so he could help Cheris get out of it. He couldn’t get distracted by the small matter of having a body. There would be time to marvel over that later, if they survived.
“We came on a needlemoth,” Cheris said as she motioned for him to follow her.
Just then a rather snippy voice from hidden speakers interrupted them: “You’re not leaving me alone to deal with the intruders you brought.”
Only long practice dealing with everything from surprise tickle-tackling from his girlfriend Lirov Yeren once upon a time (Shuos Academy, her favorite opening gambit leading into sex) to fending off bona fide assassins kept Jedao from jumping out of his skin. I used to be better than this, he thought, irritated with himself. Just because he hadn’t seen anyone else in here didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
“I did my best to help you,” Cheris said in a calm voice that belied the frustration he sensed in the back of her mind. “But we’re the targets. The best way to stop them from attacking you again is for us to depart and draw them away.”
“Nice try,” the voice said.
While Cheris and the voice bickered, Jedao did a quick inventory of their supplies. Cheris signed her approval. He didn’t have a weapon, which was concerning but not surprising, while Cheris did. He had no idea if Cheris was a good shot when not being terrorized by multi-eyed shadows, but if she was Kel infantry she must have kept up basic firearm qualifications.
She had a suit. He didn’t. This wouldn’t have mattered back when he was a living shadow, but now that he breathed like a normal person...
As he searched the closets for a spare suit, he became aware that he had attracted an audience. Robots—servitors. Six of them surrounded him. Jedao backed away from a closet where he’d located a stash of power cores.
“Hello?” he said, raising his hands and looking at the servitors, all mothforms. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have talked to them, but—ah, memory again—Cheris had done so in the past, so theoretically they were capable of responding.
Actually, that had disturbing implications.
Cousin? asked an entirely different voice in his head, like a cross between bells and a particularly chaotic wind-harp. Which posed a problem, because despite having been sired by a moderately famous violist, Jedao was as musical as a turnip. The voice went on: I wasn’t able to draw off all the Shuos, although the fight was grand fun. Shouldn’t you get out of there, though?
Another hallucination? All his cousins—Jedao winced in spite of himself. Even if some of them had lived past the immediate backlash after Hellspin Fortress, none would be alive centuries later. Even more worryingly, Cheris gave no sign of having heard this new voice.
She did, however, learn of the voice, thanks to the link. Her brow furrowed. “Jedao,” she said, “how long have you been hearing voices?”
There was no answer he could give that would be believed, so he said nothing.
Jedao took a risk; not like it would be his first. Do you have a way off this world? he asked the musical voice, which a faint, disquieting memory suggested he should call the Harmony.
The Harmony responded with a discordant peal of laughter. Cousin, have you forgotten what we are? If you can reach me, I am transportation. As long as no one figures out that my harness broke, anyway.
“We”? Jedao wondered. Then its last sentence penetrated: it was talking about a mothdrive harness. Which meant that he was—
“Jedao, no,” Cheris snarled, her patience snapping, “you are not negotiating with some figment of your imagi—”
{Trust me,} Jedao snapped over the link. “I know a way out.”
Unfortunately, he had neglected the servitors. After a moment’s confused hesitation, they opened up with lasers. Jedao had good reflexes, and he twisted instinctively to shield Cheris, but even he wasn’t fast enough to evade focused laser fire from six hostiles with line of sight.
He bit halfway through his tongue at the excruciating pain. The lasers cooked a hole in his chest, cauterizing as they went. Steam gushed out as the fluids in his body overheated. But he wasn’t dead, and he should have been.
Jedao staggered forward, a phantom memory telling him that he had nothing to fear even though common sense insisted otherwise. He half-expected security to redouble its efforts, or for the aggravated voice that had addressed Cheris earlier to demand that he stop; but no. The servitors scattered.
Cousin? the Harmony said again. Do you see my location?
He spent a confused moment trying simultaneously to speak down the mental link to Cheris, not what he wanted; out loud, also not what he wanted; and in the silent music-not-music language that the Harmony used. Directions?
You’re bringing the human?
Yes, he said, expecting an argument. None came. Instead, the othersense pulsed alarmingly, indicating a location. He sensed a mass the size of a small moth’s, although he couldn’t explain how he knew this.
The base shuddered again. Explosives. He reminded himself that he had a body, that he wasn’t dependent on an anchor’s reactions for his survival. He could puppeteer the body, whoever it belonged to, without having to coax its owner into doing it for him.
Cheris’s mouth tightened, then she handed the gun over. “You have better aim,” she said, “and you’re better at absorbing punishment.” She didn’t explain what she meant by the latter. “Clear us a way.” For her part, she pulled out a combat knife.
Testing the othersense, Jedao mapped a route to the Harmony. He was already fucked, so he might as well take the help it offered now and deal with any treachery on its part when it occurred. (“This is your idea of ‘tactics’?” Kujen had once demanded. “Brought me to you, didn’t it?” Jedao retorted, and the conversation died a merciful death there.)
Much as
I’d normally tell you to enjoy yourself on the way, the Harmony added, they have reinforcements on the way and I can only do so much. Hurry and we’ll find some fun elsewhere!
Jedao’s attempt to locate the egress was stymied by the fact that he had no idea how to open the airlock. He hadn’t spotted any of the heavy tools necessary to cut through it, and who knew what awaited him outside, either. Too bad the othersense was more confusing than helpful, as he wasn’t certain how to interpret it.
The hostiles forced the issue by making their own opening. White-hot lines appeared in the wall, and someone kicked the resulting improvised door outward. It landed on the floor with a clang and a sizzle as metal vaporized.
Jedao crouched behind what passed for cover, a beautiful cloudwood table that suggested Kujen’s tastes hadn’t changed in the centuries they’d known each other. Cheris followed suit, careful not to block his sight lines.
When the first two operatives burst through, avoiding the hot edges of the opening, Jedao fired once, twice. Two perfect headshots. One of the operatives dropped. The other staggered and fired back, almost clipping Jedao.
Jedao had not stopped moving—only a fool stopped dead in a firefight—and instead dashed past the two and through the opening. Once again Cheris followed, letting him take the brunt of the fire that greeted them. Jedao forced himself not to dodge, because all the evidence suggested he was the only thing between Cheris and a bloody death.
A moment’s glimpse told him that they were badly outnumbered, with more operatives scattered ahead of him and continuing to fire, although his mind perceived the gunfire as staggered as it struggled to process everything happening. The fact that he could see the bullets, albeit as blurs, at the same time as he detected them through the inexplicable othersense only confused matters. And the erratic impressions he received of Cheris’s emotions through the link—everything from alarm to determination to a certain grim nostalgia—didn’t help, either.
More bullets. Without thinking, he reached back to grab Cheris, then accelerated through the obstacles. He heard screams, one of them his own, as he collided with one operative and bowled them over. There was a crunch as bones broke in one of his feet, because he was moving at fantastic speed but not running, by means he couldn’t explain, and he’d landed badly on it.
In fact, his bones felt like they were boiling inside out. The world shuddered black for a second, more pain—not just the impact but the effect it had on the injuries he’d already sustained. He retched, bringing up nothing but thin bile.
Jedao lost control of whatever had caused him to speed past the hostiles and collapsed in a heap. Cheris landed on top of him, and the breath whooshed out of him. He gasped, coughed, chest heaving with a futile attempt to breathe; his helmet had cracked. Panic seized him—was Cheris also going to asphyxiate?
Cheris disentangled herself from him. Her suit remained intact. {Stop trying to breathe,} she said. {You don’t need air.}
This made no sense, but Jedao was willing to try an empirical approach. He did as she suggested.
Curious. Cheris was right. He didn’t need to breathe.
The Harmony’s earlier statement returned to him. Had Kujen installed him in a moth’s body? He didn’t feel like a moth, and he seemed to be more or less human-shaped, but then, he had no idea what it felt like to be a moth, so that didn’t mean anything useful.
They’d reached the moon’s surface with its dun soil. Stars blazed overhead, and a glorious globular cluster, their brilliance undimmed due to the thin atmosphere. Jedao, who’d spent most of his unlife trapped on space stations or in warmoths, gazed in sheer wonder at the raw sky.
{We’re almost there,} Cheris said, shaking his shoulder. She pointed toward a slender triangular silhouette on the horizon: a needlemoth. {Can you get us the rest of the way?}
He hesitated.
{You can do it again.}
There you are! the Harmony called out.
Jedao flattened himself against the ground, opening up whole new vistas of agony, as the needlemoth shot toward them. It back-winged neatly just short of him and Cheris, landing like a smug cat. Cheris was laughing incredulously; he couldn’t hear her, but her eyes were alight.
{That’s what you’ve been talking to?}
{Yes,} Jedao snapped.
Up close, the needlemoth’s matte carapace was adorned with glossy designs, so it resembled a sculpture wrought from shadow and silver filigree. At any moment it would dissolve into its component pieces, leaving him shackled by iron and surrounded by a darkness more absolute even than that of space. He didn’t want to return to the black cradle—
Cousin? the Harmony said quizzically at the same time Cheris said, {The airlock’s open.}
Jedao dragged himself after Cheris, wondering when having a body had become so complicated.
CHERIS’S FIRST CONCERN when she boarded the needlemoth was making contact with 1491625. She had called out to it when the needlemoth tilted and launched itself toward the sky. She hadn’t done any preflight checks; hell, she wasn’t even in the cockpit.
“You might as well strap in,” Jedao said. He had taken off his cracked helmet, limped over to one of the supply closets, and was rummaging for a replacement. “The moth’s piloting itself.”
“But that’s what the harnesses are—” Cheris stopped. Except the needlemoth had been damaged. The membrane and foam still sealed the carapace breach, but their fragility made her nervous. She wanted that remedied as soon as possible.
More importantly, assuming Jedao wasn’t delusional, the moth had talked to him through some heretofore unknown channel. Which meant it was sentient. It might have its own ideas about what it wanted to do with its life.
Cheris’s legs folded underneath her. She caught herself against the wall and staggered to a bunk to sit. She’d taken voidmoth transportation for granted her whole life. Even as a child, before she’d ever set foot on one, she’d assumed that the moths were like flitters or hoverers, mere vehicles for traveling between two points, except in space rather than on a planet or in a starbase.
The Kel swarms, with all their warmoths, from the massive cindermoths to the bannermoths, from the boxmoth transports to the scoutmoths: she’d never given them a second thought. Even though she’d had some dim awareness that the Nirai used biological components to build them, she’d never suspected them of being people. People with opinions of their own, like the servitors, or herself.
“You can talk to them?” Cheris asked Jedao.
He had located a helmet and was checking it over. “I think so,” he said. He met her eyes squarely. {I miscalculated. It’s like playing jeng-zai only to discover that the cards are intelligent—and they’ve been playing me all along.}
She stared wildly around her, then scrambled to her feet. “1491625!”
To her relief, the servitor emerged from the hold. Aside from some dents in its carapace, it looked intact. “Our ride’s a rogue,” it flashed at her in glum blues. “And congratulations, the regenerating menace from outer space knows about servitors now, doesn’t he?”
Jedao signed back, in Simplified Machine Universal, “I’ve known for a while now.”
Cheris stared at him. How long had he—? “It’s time for everyone to show their hands,” she said. “As long as we’re going with card game metaphors.”
1491625’s lights flickered a distinctly hostile red-orange.
“Yes,” Jedao said, unsmiling.
“I’ll start,” Cheris said. “First of all, the year is 1263...”
HEXARCH SHUOS MIKODEZ’S day had started well, with a meditation, an unexpectedly optimistic meeting with Financial, and a delightful new type of hawthorn candy. He’d carved out some time amid all the meetings to pet Jedao the Calico Cat, who had matured from a typically scatterbrained, over-energetic nuisance of a kitten to a lazy ball of fur whose ambition in life was to be a throw pillow. Mikodez still didn’t like cats that much, but petting their cats put him in the good graces of his
assistant Zehun.
He’d gone to bed, marveling at the possibility of a rare full night’s sleep, only to be woken in the middle of the night by a Code Red Nine. Swearing, Mikodez scrambled out of bed and to the terminal in the adjacent office. “What is it now?” he demanded.
Zehun’s image blazed to life. One of their two black cats—Mikodez couldn’t tell which—was draped over their shoulders. “The fishing expedition succeeded,” Zehun said. “You’d better have a listen. This is not like the time with the foxforsaken hours of incoherent screaming. Listen to it—under lockdown.”
Mikodez raised his eyebrows.
Zehun shook their head and, to Mikodez’s frustration, signed off.
Still, Mikodez trusted Zehun enough to put his office on full lockdown, as if the Citadel had been compromised and he expected imminent attack on his person.
By “fishing expedition” Zehun meant the elaborate scheme both of them had cooked up to shoo Jedao out of the Citadel. Over the past two years, it had become increasingly clear that Jedao was hiding something that explained why Kujen’s command moth, crewed by Kel no less, had deserted at the Battle of Terebeg, instead of surrendering with the rest of the swarm. The only other escapee from that moth, Commander Kel Talaw, had been badly poisoned, and had proven unable to offer an explanation due to damage to their memory. And Jedao showed no inclination to talk.
So Mikodez and Zehun had, in fine Shuos tradition, given Jedao a length of rope and watched to see how he hanged himself with it.
One of the precautions Mikodez had taken when Jedao first came into his care was to have him fitted with transmitters. Multiple transmitters, state of the art technology, and hideously expensive. But it had paid off. Jedao had only discovered and ditched one of the transmitters. The rest remained intact, especially the ones threaded into his augment. Why Jedao hadn’t had his augment removed out of paranoia was an interesting question, and one Mikodez was going to have to resolve later.