Empire of Bones

by Liz Williams

  After a long pause, Jaya asked, “What is his name?”

  We do not have random names, as you do. The closest term that you have is “address.” We call it a locative. The mediator’s current full locative is Sirrubennin EsMoyshekhal írRas SeTekhei.

  The expression on Jaya’s face must had been obvious even to the raksasa, for Ir Yth hastily added, I have explained your methods of identification and the use of the contracted diminutive. He says you can call him Sirru.

  “Then perhaps he could call me Jaya,” Jaya said. Sirru was staring at her with an expression she could not interpret. Curiosity? Concern? The smooth angles of his face gave nothing away. He said, testing it, “Jaya.” Aloud, just as she did. He had a soft, sibilant voice.

  Ir Yth interpreted, He says: If you do not have a locative, perhaps you could indicate where you are from?

  Jaya pointed to the no-space between herself and the world.

  “Can he see? There is Bharat.”

  Sirru ducked to follow the line of her pointing finger, and murmured, “Bhara’th.” Then, carefully, “EsAyachantha IrNihalani IrBhara’th.” The words slurred and shifted in the soft alien voice; it was a moment before she recognized her own name.

  “Do you think,” she asked Ir Yth, “that I might try to learn your language?” Somehow, she did not much like the thought of doing all the talking through Ir Yth.

  The raksasa’s mouth convoluted in an expression that Jaya had come to recognize as disapproval. You could not. We do not communicate like you. Something is amiss with the basic speech structure of your people; you have only verbal tones. It would be impossible. Here Ir Yth glanced warily at the mediator, but Sirru gave no impression of having understood or, indeed, heard.

  “So why can I hear your voice in my head, but not his?”

  We have innumerable means of communication—verbal, pheromonal, transmitted, to name but three examples. I feel that this is why you so frequently fail to understand what I am trying to tell you. As I have endeavored to explain, my caste is more adept at higher levels of communication than Sirru’s and your own, and I might add that I have to do quite a lot of work before you even appear to hear me. You, in turn, are not capable of communicating properly with Sirru, since, as I have just told you, something is wrong with your speech structures.

  “I thought you said Sirru and I were the same,” Jaya countered.

  The same, yes, but you occupy different levels of category. All desqusai are primitive, particularly those from the colonies.

  Ir Yth appeared dangerously close to annoyance. Jaya thought with sudden suspicion: Is it just that you’re tired of trying to make yourself understood to an obtuse primitive, or is it that you don’t want us to communicate without you? You say that Sirru is the mediator, and yet the only one who seems to be doing any mediation is you. What are you hiding, Ir Yth EsTekhei?

  Sirru turned and said something to Ir Yth, but the raksasa did not translate. Jaya saw the mediator’s golden eyes narrow briefly, and wondered whether this meant the same thing as it would in a human. Did Sirru distrust Ir Yth? And if so, why? Jaya was adrift in a sea of speculation, but suddenly her new, improved body felt too weary to remain standing.

  “Ir Yth—” she started to say, but it was Sirru who stepped forward and caught her before she fell.

  Jaya was taken to a small chamber and encouraged to lie down in a net. It encased her like a hammock. Filaments ran along her flesh and she could feel a prickling sensation along her left calf as something slipped beneath the skin. Soon everything was light and pleasant, cocooned against an unimaginable reality. She looked up and saw that Sirru was standing by the side of the net.

  “Jaya.” Then something else: a slurring, lisping clicking that she could not even differentiate into words. Perhaps there were no words there. She felt Sirru’s cool hand touching her wrist. She realized for the first time that the raksasa had never laid even a rudimentary finger on her. Ir Yth’s manifestation on Earth had done so, but since Jaya arrived on the ship, the raksasa had kept her distance. Consideration? Unlikely, given the character of Ir Yth. If they communicated through emotions, perhaps Ir Yth had something to hide…

  But Sirru was touching her now, and she did not know whether the reassurance she felt was a result of the drugs or of his hand being on her wrist. She gazed up at him trustingly, despite herself, and his expression did not change as he looked gravely down at her, and sent her into sleep.

  7.

  Khokandra Palace, Uttar Pradesh

  Naran Tokai brushed the sensory cane against the fallen petals of the roses, experiencing sweetness. He took a few halting steps across to a stone seat flanked by ornamental lions and sank back against sun-warm marble. Turning, he placed the computer scroll on the seat and activated the screen. Memory fluid seeped out across the stone, settling into its familiar pyramidal configuration. Tokai stroked a forefinger across the base of the screen, summoning the Web. He watched as the Han Seng closing index rolled down the screen: shares in Tokai Pharmaceuticals were rising. Tokai permitted himself a small smile of self-congratulation, then checked his personal mail.

  The Indian headquarters of Tokai Pharmaceuticals was based in Delhi, but there had been factories across the subcontinent for some years now, manufacturing a wide range of medical products. Turnover from the Indian division was now running at some $400 million per annum, a fraction of the wider profits. With methodical patience, Tokai ran through the more minor aspects of the operation before returning to the R&D divisions. He summoned up the hierarchies until he reached the file marked “Hive.” Taking the little sliver of the pen, he inscribed the character for “Creation” and his personal password: a thumbprint of his own pheromonal signature, to deter hackers. A sequence of results rolled up. Tokai took his phone from the pocket of his austere jacket and dialed.

  “Sir?”

  “I see we have finally had a happy result.” Finally, Tokai thought with distaste, was the right word. After yet another debacle involving Jaya Nihalani and Anand, and the apparent disappearance of the alien, he needed some good fortune for a change. Anand’s failure was still sour in his mouth, although there was, he supposed, some balm in the fact that the government of Bharat did not seem to know where the alien was either. Nor did anyone else.

  “The results came through this morning. Of course, we’re all thrilled.” Dr. Jamahl’s whispery little voice was high with excitement.

  “So you should be, my dear. Do you have a release date for me?”

  “July thirty-first.”

  “I see. Not soon enough. I’ve been speaking to my old friend Minister Singh this morning. I understand there’s unrest in the south of the province; he’s looking for results. I took the liberty of reassuring him that we’d have something helpful for him very soon.”

  “We still need—further tests,” the doctor fluttered. “I don’t think—”

  “Bring the release date forward. Let’s keep our customers happy. After all, they do make your life and mine very much easier, don’t they? And Minister Singh assures me that as long as there isn’t too much collateral damage, he’ll be entirely satisfied. Please keep me informed.”

  Before the doctor could protest, Tokai hung up. He sat among the roses, their odor seeping into his brain with narcotic insidiousness. What was that Western expression? Something about killing two birds with one stone… Jaya Nihalani might have escaped the first round of Selenge, but perhaps she’d succumb to this new, improved variety. That, Tokai thought, would be a very satisfying implementation of resources.

  8.

  Depth ship, orbit: Earth

  It’s like the hospital all over again, Jaya thought, pacing restlessly up and down the small chamber. She had not seen either of the aliens for the past day, and the ship’s voice inside her head had fallen silent. Was it all a trick, then? She turned, striking her fist against the wall.

  “Ir Yth! Are you there? Can you hear me?” There was no reply. “I won’t be caged like
this!” She was growing used to her new body—to the novelty of lithe movement and a prowl instead of a limp—and she wanted out of this small enclosed space. Then the wall peeled back and Ir Yth bustled through.

  You are making a noise!

  “Why am I being shut up like this?”

  We do not wish you to damage yourself.

  “How would that happen? You cured me, didn’t you?” Jaya put out a hand and touched the raksasa lightly on one of her chitinous arms. “Ir Yth, it isn’t that I’m not grateful. But I don’t like being cooped up. If there are areas of the ship that are dangerous, then tell me so, and I’ll avoid them. I don’t want to damage myself any more than you want me to.”

  Ir Yth seemed to bristle. You are most obstreperous!

  “What are you—my ayah?”

  The raksasa stared at her blankly. It is for your own good. I do not intend—

  But at that point, Sirru stepped inquiringly through the opening in the wall.

  “Sirru,” Jaya said, warmly. Stepping past the raksasa, she smiled up at the alien administrator. She pointed to the wall, and did her best to look questioning. Sirru said something mildly to Ir Yth, who responded with a cross chittering sound and a glare of annoyance. Jaya did not wait to see what the result of their debate might be. She headed quickly for the hole in the wall, and out into the ship.

  Sirru followed. He made no attempt to interfere with her exploration, only seemed curious to know what she was doing. It could not really be called exploring, though, for however hard Jaya tried, she was unable to keep track of her wanderings. The ship changed constantly, its fluid interior shifting and altering. Somehow, she seemed to know where her own little cell was located, as though she had gained some sixth sense: the labyrinth leading Ariadne. The ship also smelled strange, emitting odors, as though each cell was coded, but her sense of smell—though sharper than it had been before—still wasn’t good enough for her to be able to find her way.

  After a while, the murmur in her head returned. The ship began to guide her, steering her through the maze of passages with a sequence of strong, strange impressions—a mixture of hallucination and déjà vu. She tried to speak to the ship, to ask about Rakh and the others, but the ship merely sang to itself inside her mind: a contented refrain. They had been apart and now they were together. She was where she belonged, and nothing else was of importance.

  No matter how hard she tried, Jaya was unable to convince it to contact the world below, to find out what had become of her men, and the worry was starting to eat away at her like a sore. Sirru trailed behind her, smiling benevolently and saying nothing that she could discern. Eventually, she found herself back at the cell. The ship was concerned, and wanted her to rest. Reluctantly, she settled herself against the wall, within the cradle of the sleeping mesh. When she awoke, the wall remained open.

  A day after her arrival on the ship, Jaya’s menstrual cycle began again. It had been absent for years, and she greeted its troublesome appearance with annoyance and relief. Despite her condescending stance, the raksasa seemed to know relatively little about human biology, a fact which Jaya stored carefully away. Ir Yth, after much explanation on Jaya’s part, supplied water to wash with.

  It did not take long for her to realize that her courses could also be useful. On her next foray into the ship, she marked the walls that she passed with a thin smear of blood, starting with the wall of her own cell and moving out from there. She planned to make an inventory of the ship, to locate its central point of function, but when she got back to her cell, she found to her frustration that the blood was gone, as though the wall had absorbed it. She smacked the wall in fury, but her hand simply glanced off its smooth, warm surface as the air around her became soothing and bland. This only annoyed Jaya more.

  She came across nothing that resembled instrument panels or flight mechanisms, though on the second day she found an area the size of an aircraft hangar, filled with tanks which were themselves made out of some kind of organic material. These contained the translucent nutrient, plus something that looked like a mass of spiny black seeds. Jaya investigated the tanks, but she couldn’t make any sense of the contents.

  Food was not proving to be a problem. She took in nutrients from the wall, but although she was used to the often unsavory quality of life in Varanasi, she could not bring herself to put her mouth to the nutrient drip. She was not entirely sure why; perhaps because the ship had a disturbing likeness to flesh. Instead, she held her hand beneath the drip as though it were a tap and licked the sweet-salty nutrient from her palm. Her reproductive functions might be working again, but her digestive system had closed down; she did not become hungry, and generated no waste. Although this was an advantage where hygiene was concerned, it was a further annoyance. She could have used her shit to mark the walls; the ship might not have rejected that. Plus, it made her feel unreal, smooth and sealed like a plastic doll.

  The situation still seemed like a dream. Ir Yth and Sirru seemed to be keeping to themselves. She was unable to locate them, and the ship would not tell her where they might be. It was too peaceful for someone who had spent her life surrounded by millions of other souls: the crowded, desperate, sick, and dying. It did not take long for Jaya to feel anxious and bored, but whenever the edge of stress appeared she was suddenly filled with peace, prana rising up her spine and bringing a lightness in its wake. This was so far from her usual edgy mood that she quickly realized it was the ship that was doing this; solicitous, attentive, it was taking care of her every emotion.

  “Ship! Don’t do that. I can take care of myself. I’d rather feel things.”

  Unhappy with your distress. Before, too far away to help. Information only. Now you are present—can help.

  “But it’s not helping.” Frustrated at being so manipulated, and reluctant to let go of an instinct which had helped her survive all the years of her life, Jaya sent the fear deep within, where it lodged like a seed in her waiting heart. She tried to protect and nurture this fear; it was the only thing that had kept her alive.

  On what she estimated to be her third day on the ship, she finally found her way back to the viewing port, which obligingly unscrolled before her, as if the ship knew that she needed to see her home. She spent the next few hours there, sitting in the lotus position on the warm soft skin of the ship, watching day pass to night and back again while lightning burned high in the storms of the world, flashing against the backdrop of atmosphere. Bharat narrowed down into the sea, lights spread across the nightside like a spiderweb over the Ganges plain.

  Where was Rakh now? Where was Shiv? And, most important of all, where was Amir Anand? Perhaps closing like a wolf on her men, while she sat passive and helpless thousands of feet above the world. She stared at the marbled face of the planet for so long that her eyes watered. Time to go home. She rose lithely to her feet and called, “Sirru! Where are you? Can you hear me?”

  She called again, and then searched for another hour, but there was no reply and no sign of either alien. Angrily she went back to her chamber, but she was unable to sleep.

  Instead, her past ran before her in a kind of waking dream. As she had done in the hospital, she watched the events of her childhood swim by: a set of tiny, distant images. She watched as the ashram burned. She watched her flight with Kamal and Satyajit; the journey to the mountains; the guerrilla encampments. She saw herself walking out on a cold morning, clouds wreathing the peaks and the mist boiling up from the Nandaram valley. She was wearing combat fatigues and there was an MK16 slung over her shoulder. She walked with comparative ease, the illness in temporary remission and the voice silent. Jaya watched as her younger self walked down the valley, past the carrion crows that gathered hopefully around the camp, down to the swift-flowing river where she washed her face. It had taken a while to persuade her comrades to treat her as one of them, allowing her to walk where she pleased, but she knew that someone was always keeping an eye on her from the fortress. She was their talisman, afte
r all.

  Around the bend of the river, crouching by the cold water, she found her husband. Kamal’s round face was very serious.

  “Jaya,” he said, frowning. “I’ve found something strange. Look at this.” He pointed to the river.

  Curious, she came to kneel by him. He scooped up a handful of water and flipped it at her. Her hair dripping, she shrieked in mock fury, but before she could retaliate, he was already running up the slope.

  “Coward!” She caught up with him at the top of the slope, both of them breathless with laughter.

  That had been a good day, but then in her mind’s eye she saw the night before the troops moved in. Staring into the alien darkness, she remembered exactly how it felt: the fear tightening her throat, the haunting knowledge that none of them would be there if it were not for her. Responsibility coated her soul like lead. The emotions of that day flooded back, and as they did, the ship’s presence closed around her. Solicitous, oppressive, it began to dampen her feelings like a sponge soaking up spilled blood.

  heave me alone, Jaya willed; go away. Resentment surged through her: You tricked me, all those years ago. You made me believe in something beyond all the lies; you gave me faith. Yet somehow she felt that she was being unfair. It did not seem probable that the ship had singled her out. If she understood Ir Yth correctly, she was no more than a particular type of person, one whose genetic structure enabled her to act as Receiver to the ship’s transmitter. She had long since grown tired of the lie that she was special. She was simply the product of long-ago alien tinkering, and now she was cured.

  Rising, she made her way back to the viewing port, the walls unpeeling before her until she stood staring down at the circle of the world. She had to get back, to find out what these otherworldly people could do for her, but she was beginning to feel like nothing more than a pawn in an ancient game.

  The wall peeled back, and Jaya started. Sirru stepped serenely through the gap, Ir Yth trailing in his wake like a short stout tug.