Empire of Bones

by Liz Williams

  The apsara was lying on the bed, reading a printed paper with pictures on the front. She was surrounded by pillows, done in all manner of rich materials and encrusted with embroidery. The air was heavy with perfume and the smoke rising from the little stick in the apsara’s hand. Fronds of flowers spilled petals across the floor. A fluffy white animal rose to its feet when it saw Sirru, hissed, and fled. Slowly, disbelievingly, the apsara raised her dark gaze from the pages of her paper and stared at Sirru. Her mouth fell open. She broadcast simple, total astonishment, uncontaminated by fear. A good enough start, thought Sirru. There was a slithering rattle as the paper slid to the floor. The apsara whispered something from a dry, constricted throat.

  Do not be alarmedI intend no harm/ Sirru radiated, hoping that he really wasn’t lying. Then the apsara’s mouth opened further and she emitted a long, shrill shriek, but no one came running. As Sirru gaped at her, the noise stopped as abruptly as it had started. The apsara whimpered.

  “Please,” Sirru said aloud, in his own desqusai verbal. He modulated it to the Informal Responsive, the kind of soothing language one would use when addressing an infant. She wouldn’t understand, but he hoped the tone might convey something. The apsara’s eyes were wide and frightened, but at least she wasn’t screaming anymore. Slowly, making placating gestures, Sirru came over and sat on the end of the bed. He took the apsara’s hand and looked down at it. Her rudimentary claws were varnished a pretty shade of peach. It was a soft, plump hand, more khaithoi than desqusai and quite unlike Jaya’s sinewy fingers. Wrist to wrist, Sirru tried to explain. He was not sure if she understood…

  … RAJIRA Jahan had no idea from which of the numerous hells her unexpected and uninvited guest had come, but after the initial shock she began to speculate furiously. Her visitor was clearly not a human being, which seemed to limit the options to alien, demon, or god. Rajira was limitlessly and indulgently superstitious, but she also possessed a strong measure of common sense, and along with everyone else she had been avidly watching the twenty-four-hour newscasts, which had focused, for a change, on her own beloved city of Varanasi. Moreover, she had not heard of any recent manifestations by deities in the bedrooms of local courtesans, and logic therefore suggested that her visitor was from Elsewhere in the galaxy.

  And that might mean all sorts of possibilities.

  Her ruthless sense of self-preservation kicked in, bisecting fear. Rajira bestowed a gracious smile upon her guest and uttered a single word:

  “Chai?”

  Rather to her surprise, her guest appeared to understand this. He smiled. Sliding off the bed, Rajira ran to the door and clapped her hands for the maid. “Tea! A pot. Quickly!” She waited in the doorway until the maid appeared, snatched the tray out of the girl’s hands, and placed it on the table. Then she locked the door behind her. The possible inadvisability of doing this crossed her mind, but she dismissed it. Rajira had never yet met a man she couldn’t handle…

  … SIRRU accepted the tea, a drink that he had learned to appreciate during his brief time on Tekhei, and sipped it cautiously. It was pleasant, but he had not yet grown used to the phenomenon of hot drinks. He pointed to himself and said, “Sirru.”

  “Sirru?” The apsara caught on quickly, indicating her own ample chest and saying, “Rajira.” He thought he could remember her simple locative. He wondered how to explain to this obliging woman the exact nature of his requirements. It was going to be an uphill task, he was sure of that. The problem was that he knew too little about sexuality among this particular branch of the desqusai. He thought again of Ir Yth’s suggestion that the practice was limited to two basic functions, rather than encompassing the wide and varied range that it had come to throughout the more advanced temeni. Since reproduction was clearly not what Sirru had in mind, and pleasure was likely to be no more than a side effect, he needed to clarify matters.

  How this woman had become an apsara in the first place was open to some question, for she did not seem to possess the attributes of apsarai back home. She seemed to have relatively little facility with languages, for a start, communicating purely through verbal modes. But Ir Yth had told him that this woman was an apsara, and she was certainly behaving in an inviting enough manner. It seemed unpardonable, however, to simply use her services without telling her why. Sirru put down his cup of tea and explained at length about the need to redevelop Tekhei. He explained about engineering, restructuring, and the need for a communications network that would serve not only the needs of írRas-desqusai but Tekhein-desqusai as well. If she permitted herself to be part of that network, she would be performing a truly invaluable service to the temeni as a whole. Thus Sirru uneasily salved his conscience …

  …TYPICAL, thought Rajira Jahan. Men. They can’t wait to get into your bedroom and then all they want to do is talk about their problems. Her guest was speaking with animation and verve, but she couldn’t understand a word of it. Nevertheless, visions of future glories swam through her mind’s eye. The aliens, she figured, must surely be powerful, and if she impressed this odd person enough to become some kind of official consort…well, there were many possibilities that might then profitably be explored. Rajira leaned across and placed a finger on the alien’s lips.

  “Not another word,” she announced with authority. She slipped her arms around his neck. He felt cool and firm, and he smelled pleasant—clean, with a slightly musky undernote that was rather stimulating. He lay beside her, holding her gently, and she nuzzled his throat. She felt suddenly as if she were drowning, bathed in unfamiliar desires…

  • • •

  …PERHAPS this would be easier than anticipated. He allowed the apsara to draw him down, and took care to endow her with a meticulous cocktail of pheromones. Might as well make the transaction as pleasant as possible for the poor woman, he thought…

  …AND with professional acumen, Rajira slid her hand beneath the alien’s robes. They were folded in a way that took her a minute to locate actual flesh, and when she did she was still not sure. She touched a curved surface, smooth as glass, and then, to her surprise, warm skin. Her hand glided across Sirru’s flat belly, caressing and teasing. The alien sighed and shifted slightly beneath her hand. Rajira smiled. Not so different after all.

  Sirru rolled over and kissed her. He tasted of tea, and some more personal taste that she couldn’t identify. He was very gentle, taking his time, unlike some of her clients. She wondered, fleetingly, whether there were any more of his kind wandering around in need of comfort. Then she heard him catch his breath and decided that she’d teased him enough. She ran her hand down the silky skin of his stomach, toward his—Rajira froze. Then she struggled up to lean on one elbow. The alien blinked up at her, murmured something.

  “Sirru?”

  She forced herself to resume a slower exploration of this uncharted territory.

  “Sirru? What is this?” Her fingers delicately probed a yielding ridge. The alien sighed, arching his back like a cat. All right, thought Rajira grimly; you’re a professional girl. So he isn’t a human being. Never mind. Get on the right side of him and he might be useful.

  Rajira had seen and done many things, and the unfamiliar contours of the body beneath her hand did not exactly repel her, but they were certainly very strange. She encountered a triad of ridges, running down into the alien’s groin. She settled into his arms and closed her eyes. It was easier if she didn’t have to look. The alien said something, and his voice took on a recognizable note of urgency. Rajira’s tentative touch met something silkily wet, then a hardness. It felt as though she was actually inside him. A ridged wet edge…

  I can’t look, I can’t, she thought. Sirru’s hands were inside her negligee, arousing her despite herself. With some surprise, a moment later she realized that she was naked. The ridges were enveloping the fingers of her probing hand, rising up against them, and then something hot and hard and satiny was pushing insistently into her palm. Rajira gripped it as best she could, and the alien writhed. It
seemed to have… edges, like a spine. Just as Rajira was about to tell the alien, in whatever language but no uncertain terms, that there was no way on Vishnu’s Earth that he was ever going to put that inside her, the spines suddenly retracted. The organ drew her hand back with it; there seemed to be a soft socket…

  Rajira’s eyes squeezed more tightly shut. With a rustle of robes, Sirru turned so that she was half beneath him. He stroked her, murmuring in her ear, and she was suspended in a most ambiguous place between revulsion, fascination, and genuine desire.

  “Go on then,” she said, through clenched teeth. As soon as he entered her, she could pretend everything was normal. He was shaped differently, but it didn’t really matter all that much, and she was so relieved that she relaxed against him and let him take her. He was undulating, pressing against her rather than thrusting, and with a vast, distant sense of surprise she came, on a tide of alien desires. She heard him hiss, and there was a slight prickle deep inside her, as though she’d been touched with a thorn. He kissed her eyelids. Rajira lay shaking.

  “Sirru…”

  “Shhh,” the alien said, human at last. She felt him withdraw, then lift the counterpane up to cover her. She heard the soft snick of the door latch as he left. The reaction to what she had just done, and of what had been done to her, was so overwhelming that it was morning before Rajira realized she had never actually been paid.

  12.

  Khaikurriyë, Naturals’ Quarter

  Anarres woke. It was still dark, but the chill caused by the recent rain was gone. She was staring up at a web of lights: the mesh of space rafts, ships, and satellites in orbit above Rasasatra, spinning over the gap of the ruined dome of the Naturals’ temenos. She lay still, listening to the march of her own thoughts, for slowly but surely, she was learning how to think.

  It had been several days since she had first met Nowhere One, and her prescription was officially overdue. At least the non-names still retained the characteristic chemical traces of their owners; otherwise, Anarres would have found it confusing to be surrounded by people who had no locatives. She supposed it was logical enough, living as the Naturals did in a place that had no proper addresses. But there were many other things she found confusing these days. Thoughts that she had never had an inkling of entertaining occupied her mind: thoughts of her own status and what it meant, reflections on what the khaithoi and the upper castes seemed to feel they had a right to do to her. It was like being an infant again, lost in a troubling world. Anarres rose abruptly to her feet and went in search of her new companions.

  She found Nowhere One busily catching vermin for breakfast and, feeling useless, sat down on the shattered edge of a pod to watch. She had already discovered that she possessed few of the attributes needed for survival. Only a few days before, Anarres reflected sadly, she had been securely established in her own comfortable home eating fresh clear-fish and pickled intian, and now she was sitting in the middle of a wasteland while an uncouth near-stranger scurried after house lice. But better this, Anarres decided, than the stumpy hands and scheming mind of EsRavesh; better this than dead.

  Nowhere One returned, triumphant, with a wriggling handful. Sitting next to her, he methodically dispatched the house lice with a twist of their mandibles until a small pile of corpses was assembled at his feet. A palm-sized solar converter, looted from one of the abandoned temeni, rested nearby, soaking up the last of the light.

  “Should have some heat in a minute,” Nowhere One remarked happily. Anarres regarded him with admiration. Despite his unkempt appearance, and his membership in a most peculiar sect, Nowhere One was a remarkable person. Nothing seemed to faze him, no situation placed him at a loss, and he was surprisingly good-humored, considering the trouble that she’d caused him. If this was what it was like to live without suppressants, Anarres thought, then perhaps she could cope after all. Maybe she would even become a better person for it. And it wasn’t really as though Nowhere One was unattractive. She looked at him sidelong as he placed the house lice in the converter, which sizzled each one to a handful of crisp chitin. His sharp face was kind, even if his quills were untrimmed and his clothes were in tatters. She was in no better shape herself. A few days’ exposure to the weather had worn away the last of her face-wax, and the remnants of her mesh dress clung to her hips. She thought of Sirru with a sigh, but Sirru was thousands of light-years away. She moved a little closer to Nowhere One.

  “Have a louse,” the Natural said, shifting uncomfortably. Anarres took the thing with a fastidious shudder, then realized how hungry she was. They split the rest of the lice between them.

  “I’ve been trying to speak to your friend Sirru, but I can’t reach the depth ship,” the Natural said. “Mind you, the equipment we’re using is pretty antiquated.” He spoke lightly enough, but Anarres could feel a sharp edge of anxiety. She shivered. Nowhere One leaned across and awkwardly touched her hand. “Are you all right?”

  “I suppose so. I’m confused. I don’t know what to think.”

  “Perhaps you need some time alone. We are confusing you, you know. You’re not wearing scale; your suppressants are wearing thin… Our ideas are beginning to infect you. Eventually you’ll learn to seal the rest of us off, to a degree.” He sighed. “But I’m afraid we don’t have time to let you adjust.”

  “Why not?”

  “A while ago you told me that you deleted your friend’s First Body. Where was it?”

  “It was in a storage facility,” Anarres said. “On a translation orbital.”

  “Security on those places is fairly high. How did you get in?”

  “EsRavesh gave me the codes.” She held out her arm. “They were implanted—a set of his own specific pheromonal cues.”

  “If they were implanted, do you still have them?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. They don’t dissipate once you use them; they’re part of my body chemistry now.”

  “Unless the implant had an expiry date.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anarres said. “I didn’t ask too many questions at the time.”

  The Natural’s mouth curled in a smile. “No. I don’t suppose you did.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I’m thinking of taking a trip,” Nowhere One said.

  “Where to?”

  “The orbital. We can go up with a maintenance crew. You’ll probably need to borrow some clothes, though. I want you to go as yourself.”

  “But you won’t find anything on the orbital, surely? I told you: I erased Sirru’s First Body.” Anarres felt herself grow hot with guilt.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Nowhere One said. “It isn’t Sirru we’ll be looking for.”

  13.

  Varanasi, Temple of Durga

  Jaya paced the inner chamber of the Temple of Durga like a tiger in a cage, memories of her last conversation with Sirru echoing dismally throughout her mind. Spoken so simply, with such devastating innocence, as though no reasonable person could possibly object to such an idea. She was furious with herself, for ever being naïve enough to have hope. The prospect of a cure for Selenge now seemed nothing more than a remote and fanciful dream. Harvest. She should have killed him while she had the chance, Jaya thought; there must have been a way. And now Sirru had disappeared, presumably to carry out his sinister plans for humanity.

  “Where is he?” She turned on an agitated Ir Yth.

  I do not know.

  “Why not? I thought you were his colleague, his comrade. And now the mediator has vanished and you—” The lash of her rage made the raksasa take an involuntary step back. “You have been lying to me. Sirrubennin EsMoyshekhal tells me that we are to be harvested. What does that mean, Ir Yth, goddess of lies? Are we to be some kind of crop? Or food for the demons that you clearly are?”

  Ir Yth’s mouth folded itself away, piece by piece. She turned away from Jaya and slowly, slowly, a remote fury extended from her. The chamber became suddenly cold. A bead of sweat trickled icily dow
n Jaya’s spine. Ir Yth’s voice in Jaya’s mind felt like frost, but there was a fire burning beneath the words, somewhere far away. The pressure inside Jaya’s mind expanded and grew, and her knees began to buckle. She remembered a sensation like lightning, streaking down her palm.

  I am not obliged to explain myself. You are a small part of a large organism; a pivot, nothing more. The mediator does as he sees fit; he reports to the Core, as do I. Neither of us need answer to you. She flicked the pronoun like a whip, and Jaya gasped as if she had been struck. Then the raksasa said, in a more conciliatory tone, We are treating you with consideration; remember that. You are desqusai, after all; you are írRas. You are a person when all is said and done, not one of the hiroi. And you are not a crop.

  “But the mediator spoke of harvest.”

  The mediator was correct. That is the original aim of the project.

  “What does that mean?” Jaya demanded. The raksasa’s patience was somehow more terrible than her rage.

  The castes of the desqusai, like all the írRas, require the guidance of the Core when they reach a certain level. You have reached this point yourselves. You already engineer the hiroi to a primitive degree, and now that your genetic structures are deemed capable of bearing proper communication systems, as proved by your summoning of the ship, it has been decided to bring you under the aegis of the írRas.

  “You’re here to colonize, aren’t you? To conquer.” Her deepest instincts had been right all along. Never mind the damned Westerners. An army would come, with weapons beyond imagining.

  Ir Yth seemed annoyed. We do not “conquer.” We are here to facilitate development.

  “You’re here to enslave!”

  We have no need to enslave, Ir Yth replied. You are already part of us. How could this not be so? We have made you what you are; we have a duty to bring you into the fold. Can you not see that?