Memories, sensations, slammed together, roughly reweaving Fift. It was more painful this time, more disjointed.
Ze saw Squell cradling zir head in vir lap—not smiling, not frowning, just peaceful and clear-eyed—and then passed out.
21
“Trickster’s mane, my dear staidchild,” Pom Politigus said, through the door of the robot bat. Zir muscular purple body frowned; zir curvaceous ruddy body looked delicately amused. “You’ve brought us quite a bit of trouble.”
Fift’s head swam. Ze lurched to the door; then zir legs gave way, and ze plunged out of the bat.
Shria caught zir.
Ve lifted zir, scooped zir legs up in one arm, cradled zir shoulders with the other. Fift’s head flopped against Shria’s four soft breasts. Vir hair, like a veil of fire, enclosed zir face. Ve smelled like honey, like woodsmoke in a surface forest, like solace.
“Thank fucking Kumru,” ve said, tucking Fift’s head under vir chin and swinging around toward the entrance. There was a tightness in Shria’s voice, as of tears held back; vir face was wet with them. “I didn’t think you’d make it, Fift. When you fell the second time . . .”
“Come along,” Pom Politigus said. Zir muscular purple body frowned more deeply; zir curvaceous ruddy body stretched its arms into the air. Ze was doubly naked, pushing the limits of fashion with rather startling genitals, multicolored swallowtails that swooped down almost to the ground. “Let’s get zir into privacy, at least.”
Squell was gone.
Fift slumped against the wall of the apartment, trying to understand where ze was, where ze’d been; looking at zir hands, flexing them, thinking, Whose hands? My hands?; and trying to trust that ze simply wouldn’t disintegrate again, torn apart, atomized, annulled . . .
Fift hadn’t even noticed zir Father leave.
Peaceables had taken Squell away. Two more Peaceables were still there, arguing with Ellix. Fasmul something of name registry Blue something, Uban something of name registry something something. Fift had seen their full lookup records when they’d come in, but it was hard to keep track of such details at the moment and ze couldn’t be bothered to check again.
Someone had taken the feed down in Foo—the Midwives, or maybe rogue feedgardeners or vailarch revanchists. Foo was an empty blur in the feed.
“I don’t want any part of this,” Ellix said.
“Any part of what, though, Ellix?” Fasmul said. “That’s the question. Because this wind could blow either way.”
Uban looked uncomfortably at the other Peaceable. “Fasmul . . . come on. Ellix just suffered a loss. Just drop it.”
“No,” Fasmul said. “We need to talk this out, now. We need to figure out where we stand.”
“Pom,” Shria said. “Please. You can’t ask Fift to talk to them yet. Look at zir.”
Fift nestled in Shria’s lap. They were in an empty lab, not far from the party Fift had heard on the way there: showy laughter piercing a soft murmur of voices, the anharmonic chimes of a chatterdance beginning. But it was silent and cool in the lab; the walls swallowed echoes.
“We can’t wait too long,” Pom Politigus said, zir voice in the willowy, yellow-furred body scratchier than in zir others. Ze sounded weary. “Ze has to be seen; ze has people to talk to. We’re at an inflection point of influence here, Shria. Do you have any idea what I had to stake just to get that bat here safely?” One yellow-furred hand rose, fingers spread, then fell to zir side. “I’ve managed to get Rysthia and Elo to come—senior Midwives, who are somewhat sympathetic to our perspective. But it’s going to take a good deal of persuading before they’ll break with the others.”
“Just give us ten Kumru-spurned minutes,” Shria said. Vir voice was rich with anger.
“We’re cutting it close,” Pom Politigus said. “We don’t have much leverage here. And make no mistake, my most talented and troublesome apprentice: if this goes wrong, it thrusts me to the periphery, too. My own ratings hang by a thread.”
Shria said nothing, just kept stroking the peach fuzz of Fift’s scalp with one hand. After a few moments, Pom pushed out through the room’s cervix, heading back to the party.
They were alone. Without Pom there, the closeness of their snuggle felt less like comfort, more like danger. Fift sat up and Shria shifted zir out of vir lap and onto the table so they sat side by side. Shria put vir hands back in vir lap, but leaned towards Fift, bouncing vir shoulder off zirs.
“So,” ve said. “Uh, listen.” Ve stilled, sat up straight. “About that note.”
“Note?” Fift asked.
“The one I sent. About . . . not wanting to see you.” Ve looked down, interleaving vir fingers like a penitent, twisting them one way and then the other, cracking vir knuckles. “Come on. You know which one.”
“Oh,” Fift said. “Yeah.” Ze looked down at Shria’s hands. Ze wanted to take them, to stop their nervous motion, to run zir fingers across vir smooth lavender skin. “It’s okay. Maybe you were right.”
“I was being a coward. Running away from you.”
Fift’s heart tightened, and ze sat up straighter. As if waking up shivering from a lazy dream of warmth, ze thought: Kumru, here we are again. Alone in Stiffwaddle Somatic Fashion’s exaggerated privacy. Ze swallowed. “What—what do you mean?”
Shria’s hands slowed, separated. One drifted towards Fift’s hand, almost reached for it. Then ve put them on vir knees, leaning forward. “I don’t . . . Nothing. Just that. I ran away when you needed me. We got into this mess together. I should have stuck by you.”
Fift felt zir heart accelerate, but zir agents were blunted here, so ze couldn’t say how many beats per minute. “How are things with . . . Vvonda?”
With your friends, ze’d meant to ask. With your comrades in trouble. But also, maybe: With you and the one you long for, the one who carries you along in vir wake.
As you carry me along in yours.
“Things with Vvonda aren’t great,” Shria said. Ve slumped forward, vir head in vir hands, vir elbows on vir knees. “It’s kind of . . . You know Stogma’s not talking to us? The Midwives got to vem. They offered vir a deal, said they’d back vir family if ve spoke against the rest of us.” Vir fingers dug into vir scalp. “Stogma took it.”
“Do you know what we’re being asked to do in Izist?” Fasmul said to Ellix, in the empty rooms that were once Iraxis apartment. Behind the Peaceables, two trashrats backed into the anteroom dragging one of Grobbard’s white shifts in their teeth: ze must have tagged it for disposal before squatright ceased. Once the crowds came, all the family’s abandoned possessions would be fair game. “Violently breaking up the Long Conversation is the least of it. Right, Uban?”
Uban scratched zir nose. “Well . . . it’s a bad business, I’ll give you that. But they shouldn’t be holding Long Conversations in front of Vails, should they?”
“You’re voids-spurned right they shouldn’t,” Ellix said, glancing at where Fift sat side by side with zirself. “Right out in front of the whole world! What did they think would happen?”
In the lab, Fift pressed zir fingertips together, focusing on the pressure so that ze wouldn’t reach out to touch Shria’s hair, vir shoulder, vir back. “I’m sorry, Shria. That . . . that totally blocks.”
“Yeah, it does. And Vvonda . . . ve just won’t let it go. Ve’s so angry, and so belligerent. Ve can’t keep vir mouth shut. Ve’s alienating people that Pom says we need.” Ve shrugged.
Need for what? Fift wanted to ask. What is Pom doing, and what does ze need me for? But here in the uterine silence of the lab, zir agents drifting drowsily in its murk of privacy, Shria’s warm arm almost touching zirs, ze couldn’t keep hold of the question.
Shria pursed vir lips, vir face hardening, disappointed. “And we’re still stuck there, the four of us—stuck together in that orange goo, and . . . we’re just pretty Kumru-spurned sick of each other . . .”
A chill bit the back of Fift’s necks. If Shria could cast Vvonda aside—Vvon
da, the towering beautiful one, the strong one, the sharp hook of longing that Shria’s voice had caught on the last time they’d sat together in a lab like this—if Shria pushed Vvonda away, what chance could Fift have?
Ze wanted Shria’s love to expand, not to contract. Ze wanted Shria’s love to grow until it had room for zir, too.
“I don’t know what those kids expected would happen, holding an Episode out on the docks,” Fasmul said to Ellix. “But you know what they probably didn’t expect? Getting ripped apart by a polysomatic network cut. Is that really all right with you, the Midwives going that far? On kids? On your sibling-cohort’s kid?”
Ellix looked at Fift (who was still slumped, doublebodied and groggy, against the wall) and chewed zir lip. “Fift did expect it,” Ellix said. “The second time, anyway. Ze knew they were going to cut the net, and ze got up anyway.”
Fasmul raised zir eyebrows. “Tough kid.”
“Yeah, but Fasmul,” Uban said. “The Long Conversation . . . in front of Vails?”
“Voids, Uban, maybe it’s time for Vails to hear us,” Fasmul said. “Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess if we hadn’t hoarded our—” Ze raised zir voice as Uban shook zir head, and Ellix, snorting, turned away. “No, listen, you two, there’s talk of a new Compromise of the Spoons. Esimandru Abatis Esendro of name registry Infinite Solace 3 has endorsed the idea . . .”
“And gotten thrown out of zir proctorship for zir trouble,” Ellix said.
“I’m sorry,” Fift said. “About Stogma.”
“Voids spurn Stogma,” Shria said. The bruises on vir triceps shaded from yellow to black beneath lavender skin. There was the rough ridge of a just-sealed laceration by vir elbow. That kind of damage wouldn’t propagate polysomatically, so this body must have been in the first riot, the one with Panaximandra.
Fift’s hand—as if it were a rogue body, still severed from the rest of Fift—reached out towards the scar at Shria’s elbow, hovering a fingerbreadth from it.
“Ve sold us out to save vir family,” Shria said. “I mean, I get it. My parents—” Ve squeezed vir eyes shut, squeezed vir jaw tight, an involuntary shudder passing through vir body. “I can’t let it happen again. I can’t let them lose another child. I can’t let them lose each other.” Vir eyes flew open. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry.”
Fift shrugged. Minth’s heart was a stone. A stone in flight, crossing the void, alone; a stone in which we dig our burrows. “Yeah, I . . . kind of broke everything.”
Shria grabbed Fift’s hands. “No. No. You stood your ground. It’s not the answer to just cave in, to let them win. This fight isn’t over. Stogma . . . voids take Stogma’s weakness!”
Shria was holding zir hands, vir face close. Vir eyes, white and black and gemlike orange—it was as if Fift had never seen anyone’s eyes before. The sleek glitter of the lab, Fift’s own ungainly bodies, chaos at the docks of Foo, riots in Wallacomp, habitations hanging by strands in the vault of Fullbelly, the cold scouring void beyond the planet—they all retreated to the distant periphery of Fift’s attention.
For a moment, the air was charged between them. Then Fift forced zirself to look away, and Shria looked away too, giving zir room.
“Thanks,” Fift said. “I don’t know if that’s why I did it, though.”
“Yeah, okay,” Shria said, quietly.
“I mean, yes, I wanted to say ‘fuck you’ to the Midwives,” Fift said. “I wanted to stand up for . . . something. But I don’t know what ‘This fight isn’t over’ means. What fight? I don’t know what your boss was talking about, or those people on the docks who were quoting us.” Ze looked back at Shria. “I didn’t do this to join a revolution. Or start one.”
“Oops,” Shria said, grinning.
Fift laughed, because ve had a point, and because it was absurd to start revolutions by accident, and because it felt good to be here with Shria: to admit the truth, to tell each other secrets again. Ze held Shria’s hands, and rested zir forehead on vir chest.
After a moment, Shria cleared vir throat. “So, uh, in that case . . . did you do it for me?”
Fift flushed, and looked up, and met vir eyes. “What if I did?”
Shria’s eyes widened.
Fasmul glared at Uban and Ellix. “So you’re really both okay with this? We’re Peaceables, not enforcers. Every time we stand there and let them cut bodies apart, we take a step away from the balance.”
Ellix and Uban exchanged a glance. Ellix looked uncomfortable. Uban set zir jaw, stubbornly.
Shria’s eyes were a chasm of starlight. It was too much, and Fift looked away, still holding vir hands. “They wouldn’t let me send to you,” ze said. “They wanted me to blame you publicly. I just . . . I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Thanks,” Shria said, in a tiny voice.
“Look, Shria, I know you don’t feel about me the way I . . .” Ze swallowed. “I mean, I know how you talked about Vvonda, and I know that’s not how you . . . see me.” Fift felt the blood burning in zir cheeks and told zirself to shut up.
Shria swallowed. “Uh,” ve said. “You might be wrong about that.”
The skin of Fift’s scalp prickled, all zir tiny hairs standing on end. “But . . . last time we were here . . . I was the one who . . .”
“Yeah, well,” Shria said, “you’re the brave one.”
“Ellix,” Fasmul said, “you heard what Thavé said: ‘You’ve got to start loosening the stranglehold of consensus.’”
“Hmm,” Ellix said.
“But what if we loosen this ‘stranglehold’ and things get worse without it?” Uban said. “This is a world in balance, Fasmul. What if we give that up, and can’t get it back?”
“Is it?” Fasmul asked. “Is it a world in balance?”
“I’m the brave one?” Fift said.
“Yes! Voids!” Shria said. “You know how much courage it takes, to defy everything you’ve been told about yourself? Not to mention that stunt on the docks. Of course you’re Kumru-spurned brave, and by the way, also kind of impulsive. You know you kind of came out of nowhere, right? In here, last time?”
Blood flooded Fift’s face again, turned it heavy and hot. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Well, I mean, you could have asked, but you didn’t know what the fuck you were doing,” Shria said. “Your whole life, you’ve been told that you’re not even capable of feeling that way. And I’ve been told a lot of sluice-blockage too . . . I mean, you know, afterwards, I felt like I’d . . . done something to you, like I’d trespassed. That you’re the innocent Staid, and I should have protected you. So I pulled away. They put all this unsluiced blockage in our minds.”
Fift looked at their joined hands. “You said I wasn’t safe for you.”
“Yeah, well, I was frightened, Fift. I didn’t want to damage you. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t treat you like a Vail, careless and violent and hungry. And how could I know what the fuck to do with a Staid?”
Fift’s heart began to race.
Zir agents were entombed in privacy thick as polar snow. The lab where they sat was veiled and secret. And the feed was gone in Foo.
“We have the guidance of consensus,” Uban said.
“‘Guidance of consensus’?” Fasmul said. “Listen to yourself. Is that any different than what they said in Epiul’s time?”
Ellix chewed zir lip. Ze looked over at where Fift was slumped against the wall, one body’s head leaning on the other’s shoulder. Fift was fully awake now, but ze kept zir eyes closed.
“Ellix,” Uban said, “we’re supposed to be bringing the kid in. We don’t have time for a whole Groon-mourned recitation.”
“So what changed?” Fift asked Shria. Ze forced zirself to meet vir eyes.
Shria didn’t look away. “I’ve been stuck in that stoppergoo for a while,” ve said. “I’ve had a lot of time to think.”
Ve moved closer, slowly, cautiously. Fift’s heart was racing. Ze closed zir eyes, and ze could feel Shria’s warmth hoverin
g in the darkness just beyond zir.
Ze was falling down a shaft into a deep gravity well. Zir skin ached.
Could they do this? A cacophony of voices crowded zir mind. Some kind of accusation of . . . inappropriate inclinations. A perverted fantasy of boundless unending intimacy. Our cohort is at risk because of you.
“I was frightened, Fift,” Shria said. “But I’m not frightened now.”
Fift leaned forward through the darkness, crossing the last fingerbreadth to Shria, and into a kiss.
Fift had seen young Vails kissing over the feed. The wild energy, the hungry ferocity of their lips, the clenching fingers, nails scraping over horripilating flesh.
Shria’s lips were terribly soft.
They did the same things ze’d seen Vails do, but slow—slow as a long, chaste, staidish snuggle.
Shria’s lips grazed zirs, floated away, were gone for a time while Fift remained, alone in the darkness of zir closed eyes, feeling the radiant heat of Shria’s skin; then they returned, and—as slowly as the fall of snow in Kumru’s hair recalling the erosion of the mountains of iron, echoing the decay of the small light-footed particles at the universe’s end in Ranim’s eighth ode—Shria kissed Fift again.
Ellix looked pensively at Fift. “Ze’s a stubborn kid,” Ellix said. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s another option.”
A shudder radiated from Fift’s core, an incandescent fire that was neither hot nor cold, or maybe both, like a strange matter reaction transforming the core of a planet until it broke apart, shattered into a wave of dust scouring all its system’s worlds.
Fift pulled away, opened zir eyes.
Shria opened virs.
“Ellix,” Uban said, and sighed. “Look, it’s your call what we do here. But they’re going to come down hard.”
“Ze’s the child of your sibling-cohort,” Fasmul said. “Or ze was. Final stanza, here: you really think ze’s going to be better off at the Pole? With the Midwives we have today?”
Ellix chewed the inside of zir cheek. Ze turned to Uban. “And you’ll back us up?”
The Unraveling Page 29