by Mike Sheriff
“You’re still feeling the effects of the twitchgun,” the Africoid-Asianoid said. “Let me help fill in the gaps.” He drew a deep breath, then spent the next minute outlining the events of the past twenty-four hours.
By the time he’d finished, Daoren’s memory reconnected to everything that had transpired. Heqet’s capture. Mako’s tiny hands and pudgy red cheeks. Julinian’s treachery in the Unum’s chamber. He scrambled to his feet and lunged at the nullglass door. He glared at the Africoid-Asianoid, who now had a name and a backstory. “Are my wife and son still alive?”
“We believe so,” Massum said. “They’re too valuable for Julinian to cull.”
A shimmering wave of angst walloped his senses, triggering tingling aftershocks. One hundred-ninety miles to the south, his wife and son were at the mercy of Julinian alum Petravic. “Why did you bring me here?”
Massum motioned to his nameless Caucasoid companion. “He ordered me to.”
Daoren gripped the nullglass bars to stay upright. It reminded him that his last act before the twitchgun’s activation was to reach for Heqet and Mako. He rattled the door. “Why didn’t you let me get my wife and son?”
“I understand your frustration,” the Caucasoid said, raising a hand. He offered a muted grin. “It’s an emotion I’m well acquainted with.” He took a pace forward. “I was in this same holding pen up until a day ago,” he said, “for opposing the decision to invade Daqin Guojin.”
“Violently opposing,” Massum added, almost as an afterthought.
A tinge of regret clouded the Caucasoid’s gray-green eyes. His hands clenched and unclenched at his side.
Daoren peered at him. The mongrel’s expression and mannerisms seemed oddly familiar. Was he one of the men who’d accompanied Massum inside the Unum’s chamber?
“We’ve been fighting the Guojinians for so long, my people have come to rely on violence as the solution to any disagreement.” The Caucasoid lowered his gaze to the floor. “I’m afraid I’m just as guilty of that shortcoming.” He lifted his gaze and fixed it upon Daoren. “I’d wager you can relate.”
He met the Caucasoid’s penetrating stare. “Who are you?”
“My name is Ragaris ili Siragar.”
Like the man himself, the name conveyed a vague familiarity—as if he’d encountered it long ago in a fevered dream. Daoren dredged for more context.
Ragaris chuckled. “I can tell by the look on your face that your mother never mentioned me.”
“Why would she?”
Ragaris edged closer to the door. He halted less than a foot away. “Because I’m your father, Daoren.”
Daoren’s hands slipped from the nullglass bars. He shuddered and took a hesitant step backward.
Ragaris chuckled anew. “I can tell by the look on your face that I have a lot to explain.”
A thousand questions swirled through Daoren’s mind. Only one stammered from his throbbing tongue. “What . . . what do you want?”
“The same as you,” Ragaris said. “A future for my people.”
CORDELIA EMERGED FROM the cave’s narrow mouth and halted beneath the cobalt sky. A frigid, fitful night had given way to a temperate, cloudless day. She lifted her face to bask in the mid-morning sun’s glow, but the soaring scenery snared her focus.
Rhyger’s Cliffs lofted two thousand feet above a blighted mix of sand and regolith. Located ten miles inland from the Western Sea, the uprising was known throughout the city-state as the Western Mound. The vaulting range of striated sandstone had been heaved up by tectonic activity untold millennia ago, forming an unbroken ridge that ran hundreds of miles to the north and south along the peninsula. Many denizens referred to it as Daqin Guojin’s spine.
During the Cycle of Extinctions, hordes of displaced and desperate tribes had settled here long enough to carve a labyrinthine warren of caves and tunnels into the cliff face. Some Librarians estimated that as many as fifty thousand people once sheltered here. Today, its population numbered less than five hundred.
In addition to her, Asla, and Kimye, scores of Jireni had arrived over the last thirty-six hours. They’d come by levicart, levitran, levideck, and on foot. More and more filtered in every hour, alone and in groups. A dozen squads were scattered atop the cliffs, maintaining overwatch. The rest remained under cover inside the caves, recovering from the appalling defeat at the hands of the Mongrel-Asianoid alliance.
Despite their obvious shock at having lost the battle for the northern border, the Jireni’s presence lent a modicum of comfort . . . and hope. It was no longer her and Asla and Kimye against the sterile world. The Jireni may be battle-weary and poorly armed, but at least they were allies.
She ambled forward and joined Asla and Kimye. Their vantage point atop the bluff lent a commanding view of the cliffs’ eastern approaches. The tan sprawl of sand and rock spread like a rumpled flexglass blanket to the horizon. The pair had been keeping watch for new arrivals, tallying their numbers and scanning for familiar faces.
“Any sign of Daoren and Heqet?” Cordelia asked, knowing full well they would have come and found her if her son and daughter-by-union had shown up.
Asla chewed her lip and shook her head. Kimye dug the toe of her sandal into the sand, equally mute. After emerging from her reticent shell during the escape from the Librarium, she’d retreated deep inside herself again.
Cordelia wagered worry was the cause; Kimye’s mother was still missing. None of the arriving Jireni had encountered Commander Hyro on the exodus from the northern border. “I’m sure your mother is coming. She had an important job to do and might be delayed by—”
A distant swirl of sand snared her attention.
“Is that a levicart?” Asla asked.
Cordelia’s tactical tile chirped—one she’d borrowed from a Slavvic Jiren last night. She tugged it from her lanshan’s pocket and raised it to her mouth. “What can you see?”
“A levicart’s approaching,” the Jiren sentry atop the cliffs said. “It’s transmitting the correct evacuation passcode.”
The news buoyed her spirits. “Are there any other levicarts?”
“No. Just the one.”
She terminated the call and pocketed the tile. Over the next minute, she watched the solitary vehicle draw closer, its blocky hullform gradually resolving from the swirling sand.
“Maybe they’ll be in this one,” Asla said, tone upbeat.
Cordelia tempered her expectation—she’d already been disappointed countless times. The levicart glided to a stop, fifty feet below the bluff. Its varinozzles shut down. The hullform settled onto the sand and its rear hatch opened. Two-dozen figures alighted from the vehicle—a mix of denizens and Jireni.
Cordelia squinted. One of the Asianoid denizens was missing his left arm; she hadn’t seen Su al Xing since Daoren’s speech at the Center, eight months earlier. He looked exhausted, but otherwise uninjured. Two of the Jireni next to him sported gold piping on their bianfu tunics. One of them was much shorter than the other. “Is that—”
Kimye squealed with delight. She launched down the bluff’s slope, sandals stirring up plumes of powdered silica. Cordelia and Asla chased after her. They arrived seconds after Kimye had thrown herself into her mother’s arms.
Commander Hyro swept her daughter into the air and squeezed her to her chest. “Thank Sha, thank Sha, thank Sha . . .” Wet snorts erupted from her mouth, crushing her voice to a mere whisper. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“And I you,” Kimye said. Her voice shifted to a cheerier register in the space of a single breath. “I helped cull some Asianoids at the Librarium and drove a levicart!”
Hyro’s stunned gaze found her daughter’s radiant countenance. “You what?”
Commander Cang stepped around the pair and halted before Cordelia. She offered a stiff bow and little in the way of indecorous emotion. Beyond her, two more Jireni exited the levicart; an Asianoid man and an Indonoid woman. The Indonoid Jiren closed and secured the hatch.
A pall of dread soured Cordelia’s stomach. “Where are Daoren and Heqet?”
Cang shed her reticence and grimaced. “There’s been an ill development.”
The black dread in the pit of her stomach morphed into shining panic. “Where are my son and daughter-by-union?”
“We encountered an enemy force at the Hollows,” Cang said. “The Zhenggong was taken prisoner.”
“And Daoren?”
Cang hemmed, hesitating.
“He surrendered himself to Julinian to save Heqet and the baby.”
Cordelia gasped. Su’s casual statement conveyed more information than she could process at once. “Heqet had the baby?”
“In captivity at the Assembly,” Su said. “Daoren made a deal with Julinian in an attempt to spare their lives.”
Cordelia listened, mesmerized and mortified, as Su and Cang relayed the wretched sequence that had led to her son wandering across the Assembly’s open square, seemingly to exchange his life for that of his wife and newborn son. Stinging tears erupted from her eyes when they finished.
“There’s faint hope for your son,” Cang said. She nodded at Su. “Tell her what you saw at the Assembly.”
Su shifted his focus to Cordelia. “I was waiting on the edge of the square,” he said, “as ordered by Daoren. Ten minutes after he entered the Assembly, a mongrel gyroblade whisked over my head.” He shuddered. “I could have reached up and touched its hullform, it was so low. The craft approached the grand façade and hovered at its base for a moment. Then it ascended to the same level as the Unum’s chamber and . . .”
“And what?”
“And then it edged inside the chamber.”
“To what end?”
“I don’t know,” Su said. “But it withdrew a minute later and headed north at maximum speed. If I was a betting man, I’d wager it picked up someone important.”
“Daoren?” Cordelia asked.
Su surrendered a hesitant nod.
“Could it have picked up Heqet and the baby as well?”
“It’s possible,” Cang said. “A gyroblade can accommodate several passengers besides its pilot.”
Cordelia processed the revelation. It offered a shard of hope, but she had no way of knowing whether her son, daughter-by-union, and grandson still drew breath. Asla folded an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer. “Have courage, Cordelia.”
“I’m afraid you’ll also need it,” Cang said to Asla.
“What do you mean?”
“Before the mongrels arrived, we received an air-burst transmission from your father’s reconnaissance mission.”
Asla’s body stiffened as if preparing to absorb a bitter blow. “Yes?”
“His aeroshrike was destroyed by a new mongrel weapon.” Cang exhaled a raspy breath. “Your father is dead.”
Asla released a wrenching moan. Cordelia sensed the spirit draining from her colleague’s body. She drew her into an embrace.
Asla buried her face in Cordelia’s lanshan; her sobs pulsed against her chest. “Be strong, Asla,” she whispered. “We’ll avenge them.” Her own shock was already yielding to fury; it strengthened her voice. “We avenge all of them.”
Asla pulled her head back and gazed at Cang. “Do my mother and sister know?”
Cang’s face flushed. “I never even thought to contact them.”
Asla sniffed and swiped a finger under her nose. “I’ve been trying to reach them on my quantum tile, but the signal here is too weak.”
“We won’t stay here much longer,” Cang said. “Julinian isn’t a complete fid. She knows Rhyger’s Cliffs is the most logical place for a resistance force to assemble. She’ll send out patrols before long.” She surveyed the cave openings lining the base of the cliffs. “How many Jireni are here?”
“Nearly five hundred,” Cordelia said. “We’ve been tarrying for Daoren’s arrival.”
“The time for tarrying is over.” Cang glanced at Hyro. “Assemble them at once. We have work to do.”
JULINIAN PEERED OUT the balcony’s opening. Three hundred feet below, the massive square’s white-ceramic tiles gleamed in the mid-morning sun. Clusters of black figures dotted the expanse—squads of armed Jireni, keeping watch. Less than two days after her triumphant return to Daqin Guojin, a new threat had arisen.
A mongrel threat.
Only thirty-six hours ago, a gyroblade had penetrated this very spot and whisked away one of the city-state’s Triums . . . and her most valuable prize. A day-and-a-half had passed since that galling event and she was still no closer to understanding what had taken place. Most of all, she couldn’t understand why she was still alive.
Why hadn’t Massum ordered her culling before he fled with Daoren? One of his henchmen had held a khukuri to her throat while they boarded the gyroblade. A quick draw of the blade would have been enough to open her throat. With her gone, Massum could have easily laid a trap for Hai al Kong and culled the other Trium, eliminating any challenge to his singular rule. Of course, the people of Daqin Guojin would never have accepted a mongrel as Unum. Four million Asianoids alone would have fought to their dying breaths to avenge Hai’s murder and reverse the outcome.
Footfalls echoed through the chamber, heavy and measured. She knew who had entered the chamber before turning from the balcony’s opening.
Hai crossed the expansive floorspace and halted before her. The collar of his purple shenyi still bore oblong flecks of blood from the battle at the Hollows. Whether the spatter came from Min or Gan wasn’t clear.
“How is Min?” she asked, cued by the bloodstains to adopt a look of concern.
“Blind in one eye,” he said, “but otherwise ambulatory.”
She noted the perfunctory remark, delivered with no more feeling than a musty statistic on daily water consumption. Hai had spent the past thirty-six hours attending to Gan’s funeral and Min’s medical needs. He’d also delegated two important reconnaissance tasks to his underlings. Only one of the tasks concerned her. “Have your people reported back from Nansilafu Cheng?”
“It’s confirmed,” he said. “The mongrels have occupied the wall.”
“What?”
“They’ve occupied the wall. They’re refusing to leave it to patrol the city-state.”
“On whose orders?”
“I have no idea.”
“What about their assault craft?”
“Their cullcraft and troopships remain moored north of the wall. They’ve relocated all of their gyroblades and bowpods there as well.”
Julinian raked her hands across her head. With Massum gone, she no longer possessed a conduit into the minds of her erstwhile mongrel allies. Surely they hadn’t committed one hundred-thousand shocktroops to the invasion simply to snatch Daoren as a hostage. Had Massum recognized her intransigence with respect to creating a mongrel Cheng and elected to take another course to fulfill the goal? Were they planning to leverage Daoren’s tactical skills and personal popularity to stage a new invasion?
“What do you want to do now?” Hai asked.
“I want you to organize an assault force and take the wall from them.”
“Take the wall from them?”
“Your people did it before. Do it again.”
Hai huffed a weary sigh. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but the first assault from south of the wall only succeeded because thousands of mongrels were assaulting it from the north.”
“I’m interested in results, not excuses. Take the slaking wall!”
“No.”
She cocked her head. His refusal not only ignored marks of respect, it also smacked of insolence. “No?”
“I’m not consigning any of my people to their death to correct your error in judgment. You trusted Massum. You’re to blame for his betrayal. If anyone is going to spearhead an attack to retake the wall, it’s you.”
Julinian balled her hands. Her knuckles cracked. “How was I to know that Daoren was fathered by a mongrel?”
Her sho
ut washed over Hai and reverberated off the chamber’s luminescent walls. It faded in tandem with her ire. In hindsight, she should have known.
Daoren had never borne much resemblance to his father or older brother, neither in looks nor temperament. Sullen, quick to anger, and even quicker to dismiss the norms of Guojinian society, he’d always been out of step with his family and other denizens. Massum’s incessant questions about him while she was in Havoc should have served as another clue.
“If you’re so concerned with dislodging the mongrels, I’d suggest you task Primae Jiren Yaochin to lead the assault.”
Hai’s dismissive tone rekindled her ire. She tamped it down before speaking. “The Jireni will be occupied hunting down the remnants of Daoren’s supporters.”
“And my people will be occupied with reinstating the S.A.T.”
“You’d place grooll production above eliminating our enemies?”
“My people expect the reinstatement of grooll as a barter currency. I promised them no less, and I’ll let no one stand between me and delivering that promise!”
Julinian squinted. Hai’s glower conveyed a quality she’d never seen before. Recklessness. She reassessed her position—in terms of physical location. Her back was to the balcony’s opening. Hai stood only a few feet from her. If he lunged forward, he could easily send her plummeting onto the square below. Was he thinking about it now? Was he weighing the odds of—
A dull crump punched the air. The crystalline tiles beneath her feet quivered.
She gasped and whirled to the opening. “Are the mongrels attacking the Assembly?”
Hai edged forward and stopped beside her. He tugged a quantum tile from his tunic as he scanned the structures beyond the square.
The tile chirped a few seconds later. A shaky voice leaked from its speaker. “Trium Hai?”
“Speak.”
“We tried to access the grooll vault near the glass market as you instructed.”
“Let me guess,” he said. “It was rigged with sonic charges.”