“No, I mean, you’re brilliant. It’s just that, without formal training, I wouldn’t expect…you know.” I found myself fumbling my words—practically unheard of—on top of flushing. “Anyway.” I cleared my throat. “Who painted that picture?”
Inwardly, I cringed at my obvious and awkward change of topic.
“Arjan,” she said, her voice as clipped as return gunfire.
“He paints?”
“Yes. Well, he did, when he had more time.”
“The photographs…are they of your family?”
Her face went still. “One of my parents, one of my grandfather.”
“Is this all…um…some sort of shrine?” I asked, pointing at the collection on her desk.
“Piece of the past,” she said shortly. “From my ancestors.”
“So, like ancestor worship?”
Her lips twisted in distaste. “I wouldn’t call it worship. We don’t believe in anything like the Great Unifier, some all-powerful presence who has it all figured out, sitting up in some perfect place watching us all screw up. We only believe in experience. In the people who came before us. They watch us, but not…not like that.”
“Ah,” I said inarticulately, trying to understand but not wanting to offend her by asking any more indelicate questions. I desperately wanted to go back to just hearing her laugh. “So you are like Scientists on this ship.”
She only stared in response to my poor attempt at a joke.
I hurried to explain, not wanting her to think I was further insulting her intelligence by referencing things she might not know. “Their version of a deity is Ismar Ravinye, the head scientist who gave his life trying to keep the universal portals from collapsing four hundred years ago. Not the best person to divinize, in my opinion, given that he failed catastrophically and civilization imploded…but talk about the ultimate form of experience to have.”
I was babbling, and failing in an equally catastrophic fashion to Ismar Ravinye. This conversation was becoming my own Great Collapse.
Qole finally sighed, saving me from my self-induced verbal torture. “Nev, what are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to thank you. You know, for agreeing to come with me.”
“I’m not exactly doing it for you.”
“I know,” I said quickly. “Of course not.”
“I’m doing it for me, and Arjan, and Telu…and Alaxak. And you’d better deliver on your promise to help us, and I don’t just mean financially.”
“I know,” I said, her tone worrying me. It was rapidly sliding into something distinctly dark. “I will. I promised then and I promise now. We’ll figure out your Shadow affinity…together.”
Qole’s laugh was suddenly bitter. “We’ve heard something like that before.”
“This time, it’s true,” I said, with the utmost sincerity.
“How can you be so sure? What do you really know about anything?” She met my eyes, but now with only sparks of anger. “You know why my people are on Alaxak, Nev?”
I straightened, blinking, trying to remember as much as I could, to prove to her that I understood whatever she might want me to. “Before the Great Collapse, portals enabled people to settle on planets spread across the galaxy, and they developed, or strengthened, their own cultures—”
“No. No, I don’t want you to spew up a general history lesson from one of your princely tutors or whatever. Why are my people on Alaxak?”
Her anger was as fierce as Shadow, flickering and then burning suddenly white hot. She had so many triggers, and I seemed to set off every one. “Um…”
“That’s right, you don’t know. And you know why you don’t know? We weren’t deemed important from the beginning. That’s how we got our planet, because no one else wanted it, and no one would give us anything else—”
A small measure of frustration entered my own voice. “The Galactic Union didn’t really dole out planets to different groups before the Great Collapse. It was a lot more complicated than—”
“Are you listening to me, or am I listening to you?”
I clamped my mouth shut. If she wanted me to be silent, then I would be silent.
“Thanks,” she said, brusquely. “Anyway, we carved something for ourselves out of that icy wasteland. It was brutal and rough and small, but it was ours. We Shadow fished, poisoning ourselves because we had nothing else. And do you know what happened then?”
I winced, because I knew where this was headed. “I can guess.”
“No, you know,” she said, her dark eyes boring into me. “The Dracortes sent their mining drones to Alaxak. They gutted our planet of precious metals and minerals that we could have used someday—”
“Your people sold the rights to those resources to—”
Her shout cut me off. “We didn’t know the worth!” Fury rose like toxic steam from one of those mines. “And since the galaxy was happy to leave us toiling ourselves to death in our frozen corner, no one bothered to tell us. We didn’t have the technology to know the extent or value of those deposits…or the damage they would cause.” She took a deep breath, as if trying to calm herself. She didn’t sound much calmer afterward. “Those drones ravaged Alaxak, Nev. And do you know what? They’re still doing it, hundreds of years later! Still mining underground for nothing, hollowing out the planet, and even sifting through our asteroid belt, blowing up any fishing vessels they decide have interfered with them.”
“You know we would reprogram them if we could,” I said quietly, maybe in the hopes that if I softened my voice, hers would follow.
“I know, I know, poor Dracortes, confounded by the Great Collapse,” she said with a sneer. “As if that excuses you for everything your family did before that, for the people you were…or for what’s still happening, for the people you still are. You’re still profiting from the drones.”
“But we’re not still trying to extract minerals from Alaxak—it’s by and large mined out. It’s programming gone wrong, a worthless endeavor.”
“My planet is not worthless,” she practically spat. “My people are not worthless.”
“I didn’t say that!” Frustration rose higher within me before I could quash it. I took a deep breath of my own. “There’s always been the value of Shadow as a high-risk energy source, a niche market to be sure, but now…there’s what your people can do with it.”
“Right. Now that our Shadow affinity is more than just a crazy rumor from a crazy planet, suddenly everyone in the systems is interested in us when they never bothered before. Now my people are worth something, because we’re something you can use. But I’ve always known our worth. This is my history.” She slapped the furs underneath her, kicking up some dust. “My people. My family. Kaitan means family, in our nearly dead tongue, if you didn’t know that. My grandfather named the ship the Kaitan Heritage. I never even knew him.” She gestured at the pictures on the desk. Her gaze followed, and the heat faded from her eyes. “He died young.”
The anger also seeped out of her voice as she finished, leaving her looking deflated. She had to be exhausted. I’d come to thank her, but all I’d done was remind her she should be furious with me and make her miserable. For systems’ sake. And I actually claimed to be skilled in diplomacy?
Maybe she was right. Maybe I knew nothing.
“Qole,” I said, feeling an inadequacy I was entirely unaccustomed to. “I want to help you.”
She sighed, preferring to look at the riveted wall rather than at me. “Wrong. You want to help your family.”
“I want both,” I insisted. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“I don’t think there could be two more opposite families with different needs than yours and mine.”
“My family may have wealth and power, but they believe in the greater good. I promise you that.”
“Greater good.” She scoffed, ignoring me. “I mean, I try to imagine what growing up must have been like for you. Did you eat off crystal platters for every meal, command serv
ants to carry you around your palace, spend every day lying in the warm sunlight with maids fanning you?”
I felt my face harden. I was tired, I had nearly been killed at least twice today, and everyone seemed to forget that in favor of their own hard times. If I didn’t know anything about her and her family, she didn’t know anything about me and mine.
“As a matter of fact, our platters are starlesian crystal,” I said, trying to keep my voice from adopting its own crystalline edge without succeeding. “But turbolifts took me around the citadel, not servants. I’ve spent every waking moment practically from the day I was born in grueling training. My father didn’t allow for much leisure time, let alone lying about.”
She stood bolt upright. “Oh, am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Poor you, because your father, the blasted king of the system, was hard on you. Guess what? I don’t have a father, or a mother, or an older brother, because most of my family is dead, hey?”
She’d said as much on the destroyer, but I hadn’t had time to process it. I still couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t understand what that would be like. Which was probably why I heard myself snap, “I didn’t kill them. I know you’d like to blame me and my family for everything that has befallen you, but you can’t put all your troubles at the feet of others. Some you have to bear yourself.”
For a second, Qole looked as if she would slap me. She didn’t, miraculously.
I groaned. My anger was doing nothing for my case, and I tried to force it down with yet another deep breath. “That was callous. Forgive me. I understand why you’re mad at me, I really do. We’re hugely different, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find common ground. Or at least I’d like to think that.”
She only stared at me like I was insane. Maybe understanding each other was impossible. Maybe our worlds were just too far apart—literally and figuratively.
But then something gave way inside her, and her shoulders slumped. “All I have is Arjan…and Telu, Eton, and Basra.” Her voice cracked, but she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes before tears could show. She spoke from behind her wrists, set like a barricade against me. “And now you come and put them all at risk.”
“True, but what’s the greater risk?” I asked tiredly. “Me or Shadow? I thought we had that conversation.”
“We have. You’re right.” She dropped her hands but turned away at the same time, before I could see her face. “That’s the only reason I haven’t put you out the airlock.”
It was obvious that this conversation was now over, as well, and that I had been as good as dismissed. I ducked out without saying anything and closed the door as quietly as possible behind me. It felt as if I’d lost a sparring match, failed a vital test, and disappointed someone whose opinion I valued, all without knowing quite how.
By and large, the Kaitan was utilitarian. But the crew’s quarters had two modifications from your typical freighter that were surprisingly comfortable. The floors were covered in slatted wood that had been worn and polished to a shine over time by many feet. I wasn’t sure if they were made from the driftwood on Alaxak or from one of the forests closer to the equator that had so far managed to survive the ice age, but the result was that they were much warmer than the bare metal would have been. Second, each bed, not only Qole’s, had an abundance of furs that were heavy, deliciously warm, and liable to make you enter an impenetrable sleep after a solid day of mayhem and victories that felt like failures. When I reached the room that had been assigned to me, I shucked off everything but my underwear, crawled under the furs, and did exactly that.
I woke up to a choke hold. If I hadn’t been partially shaken awake by arms sweeping up under my shoulders, I would have been unconscious in seconds. As it was, my sleep-addled brain somehow managed to remember basic training: shoulders up, chin down with everything you have. Both fighting back and panicking, my brain informed me, were excellent options.
I split the difference. I thrashed my body to the side, placed both feet on the wall, and heaved as hard as I could. It took every ounce of strength I had to move the mountain that was hanging on to me, so it didn’t take much guessing to know who had come back for a rematch.
We went crashing to the floor in a pile of furs, the hold still tight on my neck. I dug my hands under the elbow wrapped around my neck and pushed up, trying to relieve the pressure while my feet scrabbled for purchase on the too-smooth floor.
“Eton,” I gurgled, “I don’t think…I’m…dinner.”
“No, but I’m also the garbage man,” Eton rasped in my ear, with far too much delight. “So we’re taking you out.”
We? Qole would never have agreed…would she have?
Arjan appeared in the periphery of my swimming vision, holding what looked like a large sack. “Is he still awake?”
Ah, we. I was as relieved as I could be, given the dire circumstances.
“Not for long,” Eton replied, and tightened his massive biceps further. It felt like gravity was altering around my throat.
In our scrabbling, we’d started to move around the floor, closer to the bunk. I snatched the wastebasket by the foot of the bed with my left hand and dunked it over Eton’s head. He swore and flinched in surprise. That lessened the pressure just enough. I heaved again, this time driving my shoulders over his and toward the ground. Now I was no longer being choked, just hugged to death.
I gasped. “Gentlemen, I really don’t think this is the best idea.” But they seemed uninterested in any alternatives I might have to offer. Arjan had industriously slipped the bag over my feet while I was dealing with Eton, and now he had a tight hold on both.
“Forget about knocking him out,” Arjan said. “I closed the other door in the hallway. No one will hear us taking him to the airlock.”
My eyes widened. Airlock. For the Unifier’s sake, not again. “The hell you won’t! Help! Help!”
I hoped my shouting might deter them from their mission, but no such luck. They were entirely unfazed as they bodily lifted me and carried me out of my quarters like baggage.
“Have you lost your minds?” I hissed. “What in the systems is possessing you? How is this going to help anything? Do you even know what happens if you open an airlock while traveling faster than light?”
“What we’re doing,” said Eton, “is making damn sure you don’t end up killing the captain.”
“I’m sorry,” Arjan said resolutely. “But Eton is right. You’re dangerous, and you already almost got us all killed once. Now you want to experiment on my sister? Whether she sees it or not, you need to go.”
I thrashed and kicked, but the bag around my legs and Arjan’s tight grip limited my options significantly. And Eton’s strength, in any other situation, would have been commendable. I had no idea where he was finding the energy to do this after our fight earlier. It felt like two metal bands were around my bare arms and chest, wound so tightly that I was growing dizzy from lack of breath. I didn’t even have a shirt as a buffer; I’d gone without since the furs were so warm.
Glorious. Escape from a destroyer full of enemies only to be killed by my erstwhile allies while I was half naked. I gave up the struggle for a moment and thought of something to say that might throw them off.
“So, Eton,” I panted. “Tell me. Why did you leave Dracorva?”
“Shut up.” Eton’s voice was a warning growl.
Arjan looked over his shoulder. “What is he talking about?”
“Nothing, except that your friend here was obviously trained in the Academy. Master Devrak Hansen teach you that choke hold? ‘Make a knife with your hand, put it behind the head.’ Still echoes in your mind, doesn’t it?”
“Shut up.” Eton’s voice lowered.
“What were you, commando? Did you get kicked out, or did you just desert because you couldn’t control your anger? Kill someone?”
“I said—” Eton let go and punched me in the stomach faster than I had anticipated. His fist drove me to the floor like a battering ram, knocking my
head on the cold metal and the breath from my lungs. “Shut. UP.”
I wheezed, stars swimming in my vision. I had to fight back, but my energy had pretty much dried up. This was it. The end.
“Oh, damn.” Arjan stopped where he crouched, no longer hoisting the bag farther up my torso.
Groggily, I craned my head to see what he was staring at.
Qole was standing there, dressed in a tank top and pants almost identical to the ones that had been destroyed earlier. In some part of my abused skull, I thought they showed skin in all the right places. It was nice. And I was delirious.
She looked uncomprehending, shocked at the scene in front of her, and then her eyes started to fill with black. She didn’t even ask what they were doing.
“Let him go,” she said.
That sobered me right up. “Qole, it’s okay.”
Eton grabbed hold of the bag and yanked it up to my shoulders, and then he savagely drew the drawstring tight.
“It will be,” he said. “Qole, you just don’t understand how much danger you are in. It’s my job to protect you, and I refuse to fail at my job.” He grabbed my shoulders and nodded to Arjan. Arjan hesitated and then obviously steeled himself. He grabbed my feet and picked me up.
“Eton’s right,” he said. “This outsider is offering us riches for what we have, and you know as well as I do that always ends the same way for us on Alaxak.”
“Let him go,” Qole repeated and stepped closer. The air crackled around us and my skin crawled.
This wasn’t good. They hadn’t seen Qole fully in action like she had been on the destroyer, and none of us needed a repeat of that on the Kaitan. I still didn’t know how completely in control she really was when she…when she what? Seized Shadow? Became possessed by it? Was just exceptionally awesome at being really mad?
“Qole,” I said as calmly as I could. “It’s really okay. Let’s just talk this out, shall we? Maybe put me in a holding cell? Huh, guys? Compromise? Vote?”
Everyone ignored me. Arjan stood in front of his sister. “You know I’m right, Qole,” he said. “Please, let’s not destroy everything we have.”
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