Guardians of Paradise

by Jaine Fenn

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Jarek, secretly relieved at how ordinary he sounded, how boring the world looked; he’d weathered another transit. ‘We’re out of the shift and everything’s fine.’

  ‘Is it . . . over?’ Taro croaked.

  ‘It’s over. I need to get up to the bridge now, but I won’t be long. I suggest you lie down because you probably won’t be good for much for the next few hours.’ He stood, and exhaustion, magnified by the usual shiftspace hangover, hit him so hard he almost fell. What a way to make a living, he thought, and hauled himself up the ladder.

  The core systems restarted without a hitch. As soon as coms were up and running he paid the additional tariff for making a flash-transit and informed traffic control that he was just passing through. Then he slaved his com to the main comp, instructing it to inform him if any other ships arrived in-system, setting the alarm loud enough to wake the dead.

  Taro had managed to get himself onto the couch and was dozing. He opened his eyes when Jarek approached. ‘I remember . . .’ he slurred, then tried again, ‘Was I . . .?’

  ‘Don’t worry. That kind of shit happens in shiftspace.’

  Taro’s eyes were already closing again.

  Jarek lurched off to his own cabin. He allowed himself six hours’ sleep, though he’d have liked twice that long. The alarm awoke him from a dream of trudging through mud in ill-fitting boots. He’d spent a lot of time doing that on Serenein.

  When he got up Taro was sitting at the galley table drinking caf. ‘You’re looking a lot better,’ Jarek said.

  ‘I feel it. Shiftspace is well freaky. Thanks for looking after me.’ He nodded to indicate his drink. ‘You want one?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’ Jarek had been uncomfortable at the thought of having his haven invaded, but so far he was finding his guests surprisingly easy to get on with. Perhaps he’d been alone for too long; maybe the time had come to risk relationships that went beyond commerce or sex. He watched Taro tuck his long braid behind his ear, then bend down to get Jarek a mug. And talking of sex . . . whatever else, having the boy around gave him something interesting to look at - even if the little sod was a little too aware of how pretty he was.

  Taro managed to stay quiet while they finished their drinks, but as soon as Jarek pushed his mug away he asked, ‘Can we wake Nual up now?’

  ‘I’ll make sure she’s all right, but I wasn’t going to wake her yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’ll only have to put her out again in a couple of hours. I’m afraid we’re going to make another transit as soon as the transit-kernel has . . . recharged.’ Jarek hoped Taro wouldn’t pick up on his hesitation. ‘I don’t know if the ship that shifted into the Khathryn system was Sidhe, but I’ve got a list of suspicious ships, and that one was on it. I’d like to put a few more transits between us and them.’

  ‘What about the time we spent in shiftspace? It felt like we were in there for hours.’

  ‘As far as anyone has been able to tell, no time passes in realspace during a transit. From the point of view of someone outside shiftspace, it’s instantaneous. Possibly no time passes in the shift, our brains just try and make some to keep us sane.’

  ‘That’s pretty gappy.’ Taro put his head on one side. ‘Any chance of something stronger to deal with the smoky shit this time?’

  ‘The first transit is usually the worst, but I’ll see what I can find.’

  Taro insisted on accompanying Jarek to the hold. Nual was stable, all life-signs normal.

  Back in the rec-room Taro said, ‘Can I ask you something? About Nual.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Jarek carefully.

  ‘How’d you find her?’ Taro added more uncertainly, ‘I could ask her but she don’t like talking about the past.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve noticed.’ Jarek should have seen that question coming. He gestured for Taro to sit again and tried to order his thoughts. ‘So, what do you know?’

  ‘You met seven years ago, and she trusts you. That’s about it.’

  ‘Well, we met by accident. I was taking a rarely used transit-path, trying to make up lost time after an incident with some unreasonable customs officials. When the Judas Kiss came out of transit, I realised I wasn’t at a registered beacon. I was deep in interstellar space, nowhere near any known paths or inhabited systems. But there was a ship there. I didn’t spot it at first because it had no running-lights and it wasn’t transponding. I tried pinging it, but got no answer. I went in closer. It looked like a huge bronze egg. I wondered if it could be an alien artefact - that would be a real find - but the design looked human; when I got up close I could see it had normal-looking airlocks and standard sensor apparatus. It reminded me of the old colony-ships, early Protectorate stuff, but they’re all long gone, except for the ones that got stripped down and incorporated into hub stations. The ship was dead in space, though I couldn’t see any damage.’ Jarek laughed at himself. ‘I started thinking of claiming salvage rights, but first I needed to check there was no one alive on board.

  ‘It turned out there was, sort of. It was a Sidhe ship, and there must have been hundreds of them on board, maybe thousands of people including their mutes. Only . . . something had happened. They’d gone mad, turned on each other. It must have happened a few days before I got there because by the time I arrived most of them were already dead and the rest - well, they just ignored me. A lot of them had mutilated themselves. Or each other . . .’

  Jarek swallowed hard. He wasn’t likely to ever forget the things he’d seen on the derelict ship. ‘Nual hadn’t been affected because she’d been isolated from the rest of them. Later she told me she’d rebelled, questioning the authority on the ship, and they’d put her in a cell. When the madness started, she barricaded herself in.’

  ‘How did she know you weren’t one of these crazy Sidhe when you turned up?’

  ‘Because she called me to her. Somehow she pulled me out of shiftspace.’

  ‘That sounds pretty heavy.’

  ‘It is. I’ve no idea how she did it. She didn’t know herself. I doubt she’s done anything like it since, but she was desperate, scared out of her wits and half dead from thirst and hunger.’ He remembered that most clearly, his pity when he first saw her, filthy and naked - pity which, she later admitted, she’d amplified to make sure he helped her. Even now it was futile to try and work out how many of the choices he’d made that day had been truly his own. ‘When I found her, she couldn’t even speak.’

  ‘Had they . . . tortured her?’

  ‘Maybe; I didn’t ask. What I meant was that she didn’t know how to speak. The Sidhe on her ship hardly used verbal communication, unless occasionally to reinforce what they were “saying” - the way we use body language. They’d use certain sounds to add extra emphasis.’

  ‘So how did she talk to you?’

  ‘At first it was pure emotion: terror, pity, then when she realised I used spoken language, she read how to do that from me.’

  ‘How long did that take?’

  ‘About ten minutes, for the basics.’

  ‘Shit! That’s fast—’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Once we’d established communication, I helped her out of the cell and we set off through the ship. There were bodies everywhere, and some live crazies, but they hardly seemed to notice us. Then we bumped into a Sidhe who wasn’t mad, or at least, not totally psychotic. There was something different about her. Something . . . focused, I guess. By this time Nual was flagging and I was supporting her; this other Sidhe came up behind us, shoved me forward, and pulled Nual out of my arms. I stumbled and fell, but once she’d got Nual she lost interest in me and by the time I’d got to my feet she’d pinned Nual down on the floor and was staring into her eyes. There was some sort of silent battle going on, and Nual was losing. The Sidhe had her back to me, so I shot her. Then we ran.

  ‘We got back to my ship and I transited out to the beacon I’d originally been heading for. Nual said the transit-kernel in her ship w
as damaged, but even if it had been working I don’t think the Sidhe were in any state to come after us.

  ‘I took Nual to Khathryn. I don’t know if she told you, but she reacts very badly to transits, so she could hardly stay with me - I travel all the time. I didn’t have a comabox then—I could’ve bought one for her, but I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of trolling around the spaceways with a Sidhe in tow. Elarn and I had our differences but I thought - stupidly - that the two of them might help each other. Elarn has - had - a sort of misplaced mothering instinct, and Nual was completely alone in the world, with no clue about the wider universe. Anyway, it was a really bad idea. They got too close, and then Elarn realised I’d brought a Sidhe into her home. She threw us both out and said she never wanted to see me again. I took Nual to Vellern in the Tri-Confed system because I thought it was a good place for her to hide, being so busy and anarchic. I was right, because they didn’t find out she was there until they captured me at Serenein and . . . interrogated me.’ They sat in silence for a while. Then Taro said, ‘I reckon she hates herself sometimes. For what she is, the stuff she can do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jarek, ‘you may be right.’

  Though neither of them had any more than the usual human level of empathy, Jarek thought they were both thinking along the same lines: their shared transit experience had given them the beginnings of a bond, and with Nual unconscious, they were as independent of her influence as they’d ever be. Yet they still loved her, both of them, in their different ways. He had no idea if that observation came from true objectivity or was just a comforting illusion.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jarek was right, thought Taro as he watched the formless blobs of nameless colour amble through his vision: shiftspace wasn’t so bad when you got used to it. This was his third transit; according to Jarek, three back-to-back shifts should ensure they’d lose any possible tail from Khathryn.

  He remembered - vaguely - that he’d gone well gappy during the first transit. Jarek didn’t mention it afterwards, so Taro decided not to stress about it. Truth be told, he felt a little better for letting some of that shit out.

  For the second transit he’d snorted a bit too much of the happy-dust, and all he recalled now was grinning till his face hurt, and some odd dreams about body parts dropping off. To his embarrassment he came out of it to discover he’d pissed himself. Jarek said that happened sometimes if you over-medicated and got a bit lost so Taro decided to ease back on the inhaler in future.

  This time the transit wasn’t much worse than a smoky trip. The coloured blobs smelled surprisingly nice, except for that last one, which was a bit like shit burning. Taro considered asking Jarek whether there was any shit on fire around here, but he found he’d lost the ability to speak. He’d best just assume there wasn’t. After a while the smell went away and the blob morphed into a giant floating head which expanded until the features were stretched absurdly tight, then burst in a shower of petals.

  The trick with transits was to remember that this head-fuck was something that would pass, like bad drugs, or a nightmare: it was weird shit, maybe even nasty, but it wasn’t dangerous. Even so, he was relieved when it was over. He resisted the urge to sleep off the after-effects, though three shifts in quick succession left him pretty trashed, because it was finally time to wake Nual up.

  He waited by the comabox while Jarek sorted the controls and she came to. It took ages. She finally emerged groggy, but unharmed.

  ‘You all right?’ asked Taro. She looked a bit pale.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, ‘and I remember nothing of being in shiftspace. How did you cope?’

  ‘Oh, it was a bit smoky at first. We made three transits while you were out, so I’m a veteran now.’

  Back in the rec-room, Jarek fixed them some caf and food, or what passed for food now the ship had run out of fresh supplies and they were relying on recycled flavoured gloop or freeze-dried rations. Nual insisted on clearing up afterwards. Taro watched her from the table, glad she was awake and unharmed.

  Jarek stood up and said, ‘I need to get some sleep now, and then we’ll wake our guest. He should be more or less healed by then, and able to answer a few questions.’

  Taro had almost forgotten the pilot from the Sidhe ship, who was still lying, totally out of it, on the couch by the wall.

  ‘You might want to get some rest too,’ he said to Taro. Then, to Nual, ‘I’m guessing you’re not tired. Will you be all right by yourself?’

  ‘Now that we won’t be making any more transits for a while?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Nual looked at him oddly. ‘What is it, Jarek? What is it you need to say? I’m trying not to read you, but your mind is full of this thing whenever you talk about shiftspace.’

  Jarek expelled a low breath and sat down again. ‘I should’ve told you earlier, but the time wasn’t right. Actually, it’s probably better I didn’t mention it before, for Taro’s sake; it’s not something you want to think about during your first transit. It’s about Serenein. The big secret, the whole reason the Sidhe set the place up—’ He looked at Nual, then Taro. ‘They’re selectively breeding boys with a certain … unusual talent. They can enter shiftspace at will.’

  ‘Why do they want these boys?’ asked Nual warily.

  Jarek cleared his throat. ‘Actually, I wondered if you might have an idea about that, given what happened when you first went into shiftspace alone.’

  ‘You think - you think this relates to the mind I sensed in the shift? The mind in your ship?’

  ‘Am I missing something here?’ asked Taro, looking between the two of them.

  ‘Jarek is referring to my problem with shiftspace. Did he tell you about that?’

  ‘Not really. He did tell me how he found you, on the ship where everyone’d gone gappy.’

  ‘That would be one way of putting it. We used to enter the shift in unity; I would mesh my will with my sisters to create our own island of sanity amidst the chaos. On the Judas Kiss I had no such support, and once in shiftspace my mind instinctively searched for another of my kind to save me from the void. I couldn’t help myself. And I found . . . There is a mind here, within the drive-column of this ship, and it has been here for many centuries, imprisoned, warped; driven mad. I . . .’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I knew then that broken creature was the force that powers your ship through shiftspace, but I did not say. Perhaps I should have.’

  ‘So—’ Taro looked at her. ‘So you’re saying there’s a boy from Serenein hidden on board this ship, and that’s what makes us go into shiftspace?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Jarek. ‘Transit-kernels were invented by the Sidhe, and they’re very hard to make - hence the rarity of shiftships. They’re sealed black boxes hidden deep within the drive-column. Trained engineers can’t do much more than check the interface between the kernel and the rest of the ship’s systems, because if they fuck with the box then the kernel stops working - or worse, blows up spectacularly. They say one set off a chain-reaction with a beacon at a hubpoint once. Thousands of people died. That whole system was lost.’

  ‘Where do these transit-kernels come from?’ asked Taro.

  ‘A handful of companies, operating under great secrecy, supply them to the shipyards. But now I believe the minds within them come from Serenein. The locals send the boys who make the grade up into orbit, thinking they’re ascending to Heaven, but what actually happens is that the Sidhe pick them up. That’s why the Setting Sun went to Serenein.’

  ‘The sick fuckers,’ said Taro angrily. ‘So where do they take them?’

  ‘I don’t know. But the pilot will, and that’s why we need to wake him up. But first, I have to get some rest. And so do you.’

  Nual told them both she’d be fine; she just needed time to think, so Taro used the spare cabin. When he lay down he buried his head in the pillow, trying to catch her scent, but it just smelled musty. He slept badly, with more nasty dreams, this time of being slowly walled up insi
de a tiny room, paralysed and unable to do anything but watch as the last chinks of light disappeared and the air grew thick and hard to breathe.

  Jarek was already up and about when he awoke. Over the meal that Taro decided to call breakfast he asked where they were now.

  ‘Xantier. It’s a hubpoint.’

  ‘Is there much to see here? The last hub we visited was pretty boring.’

  ‘Hub stations usually are when it comes to sightseeing, though Xantier’s a hollow-earth, so it’s a bit more interesting than most. They’re where I do most of my business though.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘Thanks to the assorted bribes and fines I’ve had to pay recently, I need to sell those Old Earth artefacts quickly, so we’re going to have to stay here a while, at least long enough for messages from potential buyers to catch up with me.’

  ‘Is that safe?’ asked Nual. ‘Could the Sidhe pick up your beevee communication?’