Amid the Crowd of Stars

by Stephen Leigh

  =Then we should go there now,= she said.

  * * *

  The rest of the flight over to Great Inish was uneventful, but Saoirse noticed that Ichiko said very little to her. She wondered if that was because—for some unknown reason—Ichiko was flying the flitter by herself rather than having her AMI do it. For that matter, Ichiko didn’t mention her AMI at all. Or maybe her reticence to talk was due to the discussion with the man called Luciano.

  Saoirse wondered about him especially. Are he and Ichiko lovers? They sounded so familiar with each other. That Ichiko might be going to bed with someone else hardly mattered, but Saoirse also knew that for most Terrans (and even a few Lupusians) having multiple partners wasn’t the norm. Could this Luciano be more than just a lover to Ichiko? Could they be pledged to each other, like those few Lupusians who married? Saoirse wasn’t sure how she felt about that possibility and was uncomfortable enough with its import that she didn’t ask.

  The flitter banked over the White Strand and settled just beyond the reach of the breakers alongside the cleft leading to the quay, where the path down from the clan compounds ended. “Should yeh take the flitter up to the compound?” Saoirse asked Ichiko, who shook her head.

  “I don’t want Luciano landing the transport up there. If he sees me and the flitter down here, this is where he’ll try to set down, unless . . .” She took a breath. “Unless Kekeki has something to say about it. Saoirse, I don’t want Kekeki to hurt Luciano.”

  “Why?” Saoirse couldn’t stop the query. “Are yeh saying he’s . . . ?” She couldn’t finish the sentence, but Ichiko obviously understood the import.

  “Yes. At least we were lovers. Now?” Ichiko lifted a shoulder and let it fall again. “I don’t know where or what we are. But I still don’t want him hurt.”

  “Then I don’t either,” Saoirse said, though she could hear the hesitation in her own voice. Still, she closed her eyes and directed her thoughts to Kekeki. Kekeki, the Terrans are coming in a ship. Please don’t bother them—for my sake and for Ichiko’s.

  “We have already made our decision in that,” she heard in answer. But before Saoirse could ask for clarification, there was a crack of thunder from above; both she and Ichiko looked to the sky. Against the backdrop of gray rainclouds, a pure white streak appeared, arrowing down toward them. Saoirse blinked through the fog of her glasses. She thought she could see an object enveloped in flame at the end of the streak. “Musha! Is that yer commander’s ship?” she asked and Ichiko nodded. “Is it normal for it to be on fire?”

  “It’s only the friction of entering the atmosphere heating the hull, so yes,” Ichiko told her and Saoirse nodded in relief; she’d been afraid that somehow Kekeki and the arracht had been responsible and that the ship was about to crash. The glow was already fading as the winds shredded the plume of white smoke behind the ship. Saoirse was beginning to get a sense of scale as it descended: this craft was far larger than even the flitter they’d taken to get here. The transport halted its descent with a furious and loud belching of fire and paused in midair well above the island, hissing and steaming in the mist, snorting and grumbling like a mythical dragon as clouds like Saoirse’s breath on a cold morning pulsed from underneath it. The craft began to slowly descend again, landing struts extending from its belly.

  Saoirse could see movement at the top of the cliff near the path leading down to the quay and the Strand—others of the clans had heard the uproar and seen the trail left by the Terrans’ ship. She could make out Angus’ figure there, already striding down the path.

  Brilliant lights flicked on from the nose of the ship, glaring circles of white that prowled the rocks of Great Inish’s cliff, finding Saoirse and Ichiko on the White Strand and remaining fixed on them as the ship approached. Saoirse shielded her eyes against this new and blinding sun. The ancient tales of Earth on the archipelago spoke of its sun being a searing white light in the sky that one couldn’t look at directly; she wondered if their sun was this bright.

  The ship was large enough to nearly fill the White Strand. It turned sideways as it approached—spotlights still pinning them in their glare—and Saoirse could see faces looking out from the ports near the front. The ship eased itself down with its nose near Saoirse and Ichiko as wet sand was compacted underneath the large pads at the ends of the landing struts, steaming at the contact. The ship hissed and exhaled more white clouds as a door yawned open in its side and a set of wide stairs slid out, clicking as they locked into place. Saoirse could see someone in a metallic suit adorned with the insignia of a spaceship over the breastplate: the same insignia on the plainer cloth of Ichiko’s uniform. He—Saoirse decided it was a man though his features were hidden behind the dark visor of his helmet—cradled a Terran weapon in ready position: a soldier. He descended with another identically clad person following closely; they both took positions at the end of the stairs, their heads turning as they surveyed the landscape in front of them.

  Another person emerged, this one dressed similarly but without a weapon. His visor was up. Saoirse caught sight of startlingly pale blue eyes and a clean-shaven chin, a face she recognized, having just seen it in the flitter. On the sleeve of his armor was an insignia: a gold star over three gold bars.

  “Commander Mercado,” Saoirse heard Ichiko call out from alongside her. “This was really entirely unnecessary.”

  “It would have been entirely unnecessary if you’d just followed my orders, Dr. Aguilar,” the man responded. He descended the stairs and stood between the two soldiers. “But you chose to ignore those orders, didn’t you? So now I’m here.”

  “And so am I because we don’t have much time left here, and there’s too much I want to understand and take back with us. A few days; that’s all I’m asking for and that’s what Captain Keshmiri was willing to let me have before I left Odysseus. Why is this suddenly an issue now? Why did you tell my AMI that I wasn’t to come here—that was your decision, wasn’t it? Not the captain’s.”

  “The decision was mine, yes,” Luciano acknowledged, “but the captain agrees with me. If you hadn’t disconnected your AMI to fly manually, I’d have had her return you to First Base and met you there. But you suspected I’d do that, didn’t you? My orders from the captain are to scuttle your flitter and make sure it can’t be used or scavenged by the locals, then take you back up to Odysseus. The captain has agreed not to press charges about disobeying orders since she’d previously given you permission; she’s willing to consider the possibility that because of the AMI issues we’ve been having, you weren’t certain that her permission had been rescinded. Now, we should be going. Come on . . .” He gestured toward the stairs.

  Saoirse looked at Ichiko, who was shaking her head. Angus was striding toward them from the cut in the cliff, with Saoirse’s mam, Liam, and several other adults from Clans Mullin and Craig. She could also see some of the children, undoubtedly including Gráinne, staring down at the Strand from the stone fence at the cliff’s edge, but others of the aunts and uncles were holding them back.

  “No,” Ichiko said loudly to the commander. “There’s work I need to do here.”

  “What’s going on here?” Saoirse’s mam asked. She glared at Commander Mercado. “I’m Banríon Mullin. Who are yeh and who gave yeh permission to bring that monstrosity of a ship here to clutter up our beach?”

  Saoirse saw the soldiers stiffen at that, their gazes snapping toward her mam. She also noticed movement within the dimness at the top of the metal stairs into the ship, as if other soldiers were prepared to descend at need. Machinery whined as stubby cylinders in the side of the ship swiveled toward the crowd. The commander’s icy gaze met her mam’s. He towered over her, looking her up and down as if appraising her.

  “I’m Commander Luciano Mercado of the starship Odysseus. I’m pleased to finally meet you, Banríon, though I wish it were under different circumstances. I’ve heard much about you from Dr. Aguila
r. I know you’ve had some contact with Captain Keshmiri; I’m here under her orders to bring Dr. Aguilar back to the ship and disable her flitter.”

  “And I’ve just heard Dr. Aguilar tell yeh she doesn’t wish to go with yeh,” the Banríon answered. “I’m in charge here. If Ichiko wants to stay, then yeh’ll not be taking the woman and that’s an end to it.”

  Saoirse saw a tight-lipped smile crease the commander’s face and his eyes went even colder. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken in that, Banríon. Dr. Aguilar will be coming with us, regardless of her or your wishes.” With that, the commander nodded to the two soldiers flanking him. They both started toward Ichiko, but Saoirse moved to put herself in front of the Terran woman as Angus pushed forward to stand alongside her.

  “Please don’t do this, Saoirse, Luciano,” she heard Ichiko say, but then everything seemed to happen at once.

  Run On The Top Of The Disheveled Tide

  ONE OF THE SOLDIERS attempted to reach past Angus to grab Ichiko’s arm, but Angus stepped in front of the man and pushed him firmly backward. Angus grunted strangely as he did so, as if touching the Terran’s armor caused him pain. Though the soldier staggered backward, nearly losing his footing in the sand, he still managed to fire his weapon at Angus. The concussion of the device hammered at Saoirse’s ears as Angus screamed once before falling, blood streaming from his nostrils and mouth to stain the glistening sand while a larger pool of ominous red spread around his prone body from the ruin of his abdomen.

  He didn’t move again.

  Saoirse shouted in fury at the other soldier (hearing new voices crying out around her and not knowing who they were or what they were saying). She raised her hands to push him back, but he simply flung her aside, his touch sending a searing electrical shock through her body that momentarily paralyzed her as he sent her sprawling. Her glasses went careening away, leaving her reeling in a suddenly out-of-focus world.

  She spat gritty sand from her mouth; she tried to reach for her glasses, but her arm flopped like a dead thing, her hand tingling, numb, and useless. She heard a hissing roar erupt from the end of the strand where the water had carved out the narrow but deep inlet leading to the Great Inish quay. The sound was unlike anything Saoirse had ever heard before, reverberating in her head as well as in the air of the island. She turned her head, squinting. A form lifted itself up above the rocks of the strand, water cascading around it: an arracht. Without her glasses, she couldn’t see it well enough to know if it was Kekeki or some other arracht. She saw the soldier who had shoved her aside stop his advance toward Ichiko and stare at the arracht. Then, bizarrely, he shrieked. He dropped his weapon and started tearing at his armor—no, her armor, Saoirse realized when she removed her helmet—flinging pieces of it away as if it were on fire even though Saoirse saw nothing.

  From the corner of her blurred vision, Saoirse noticed Commander Mercado reaching down to snatch up the fallen Terran weapon. He aimed and fired it at the arracht in a single, fluid motion, the detonation again making Saoirse instinctively duck her head even as she heard the wail of pain from the arracht, a high-pitched shrill that tore at Saoirse’s ears and her mind. She could feel the arracht’s agony and she wailed herself in sympathy, the sound tearing at her throat even as she saw the arracht fall backward into the water, its underbelly one massive wound streaming blue-black blood and trailing the gory strings of internal organs. Still screaming, Saoirse tried to push herself up but could not, her shocked muscles still refusing to obey her.

  She fell back on the sand.

  * * *

  As the pod of arracht swam into the eroded channel between the cliff face and the beach, Keksyn’s body broke the surface of the water with a roar of warning. Kekeki—just behind Keksyn—felt Keksyn merge with the syna that had infected the metal airboat even as Rí Angus and Saoirse fell to the sand.

  There: the ship-syna had already insinuated itself in the circuitry of the strange metal skin worn by the Terran who had attacked Saoirse. The syna, under Keksyn’s direction, redirected the flow of energy into the metal skin itself. Many of the syna particles died as the strange energy the Terrans utilized surrounded them, but that mattered even less to the syna than any single arracht would have worried about its own death: unlike the humans, the arracht weren’t Individuals but Many and others were prepared to take their title and their place in the collective at need. As for the syna—they were myriad, numberless, and entirely uncaring about a single syna’s death. That was something trivial and utterly meaningless.

  But the human inside the metal skin . . . it screamed in terror as the energy snarled and snapped and lightnings tore at its actual skin. Kekeki lifted her own head from the water, watching as the Terran danced in agony and ripped the metal skin from herself.

  But the other Terran had taken up the weapon the human had dropped. It pointed the barrel of the strange object toward Keksyn. Kekeki heard the weapon fire and saw a disturbance in the air ripple across the landscape and strike Keksyn. There was barely time for Keksyn to scream before he was ripped open. His entrails spilled out as he fell backward into the water. There was no question as to whether he had survived. =We need a new Keksyn now,= Kekeki thought to the others. =Send that one to us.=

  =She is already coming,= came the answer from multiple minds. Then, a mass question: =What are we to do with these Terrans?=

  =The once-Keksyn has already made our decision for us.= Kekeki answered. =It’s this one’s task to deal with the Four-Limbs, and the sky-eki have shown their true intentions. They deserve only what they have given once-Keksyn.=

  With that, Kekeki gave a thrust of her flukes, rising fully out of the water as she inhaled the hot and dry air, giving a cry of mingled fury and grief. When she splashed down again, her forelimbs grasping onto the cold rock of the island, she continued to scream. Her gills flared around her neck as she and the other arracht roared their joined defiance, gills fluttering as lungs pushed harsh air through throats ravaged by the sound they made.

  The cliffsides around them echoed back the arracht’s anger and their challenge.

  * * *

  Saoirse heard Ichiko shout at Luciano (“Luciano, no!”) as he picked up the Terran weapon and pointed it toward the arracht emerging from the channel.

  But he either didn’t hear Ichiko or didn’t care to listen to her. Luciano fired the weapon even as Saoirse saw Ichiko sprinting toward her as she lay sprawled on the beach in the shadow of the transport. She saw the arracht, fatally wounded, tumble back into the water as Ichiko sank to her knees alongside Saoirse: as she felt her mam also alongside her, as she saw others of the clans going to the body of Angus.

  “Saoirse?” Ichiko and her mam both called as one.

  “Help me up.” Her voice sounded wrong in her ears, slurred and mumbling. “Was that Kekeki? I can’t see . . . my glasses . . .”

  “Here.” Ichiko pressed something into Saoirse’s palm, but though her fingers closed around it, she couldn’t quite feel it. Her mam must have noticed, because her mam took the glasses from her and put them on her face for her.

  “Thank yeh, Mam,” Saoirse said, blinking and spitting sand from her mouth. “Was it Kekeki who was just killed?” she asked again, her tone adding the unvoiced prayer please tell me it wasn’t. She didn’t know if the Spiorad Mór was listening or would answer.

  “I don’t think so,” her mam said. “The colors on that one were different.”

  Saoirse felt a sense of relief. At the same time, another arracht lifted itself entirely out of the inlet, crashing down again in a great shower of water. This one, Saoirse knew, was Kekeki. She was roaring, as were the other arracht who rose from the water around her: deep wails that were louder than any sound Saoirse had ever heard an arracht make before. Kekeki’s eye stalks were fixed on Luciano, who still cradled the weapon that had killed the other arracht; from the corner of her vision, Saoirse also saw more of the Terran sol
diers descending from the craft toward the beach.

  Saoirse clung to Ichiko and her mam as they helped her to stand. The numbness that had come from touching the woman soldier’s armor was receding, but too slowly, and her legs refused to support her on their own. Her Uncle Angus remained motionless on the sand, with Liam and a half dozen other uncles around him. As Saoirse watched, they turned him over, Liam falling back from the bloody horror that was revealed. More of the Inish were descending the long path, many of them carrying shovels, scythes, axes, mallets, and other improvised weapons.

  “Ichiko, you have to tell the Terrans to stop this,” Saoirse cried. “Tell Luciano!”

  She nearly fell again as she felt Ichiko’s hand leave her, but her mam held her up. “Luciano!” Ichiko screamed, waving her hands and running toward the man. “No! This is wrong! No!”

  But her voice was impossible to hear over the continued mass roar of the arracht. Luciano was already lifting the weapon and pointing it toward Kekeki. Ichiko was too far away from the man and Saoirse couldn’t run.

  She waited, terrified that she was about to witness Kekeki’s death.

  * * *

  Kekeki could see (and through her eyes, all the arracht everywhere could see as well) more of the soldiers emerging from the metal airboat and striding down the long stair toward the strand, all carrying the weapons that had torn open and slain once-Keksyn and Rí Angus. Kekeki wondered if that would be how her life was fated to end as well, though the thought caused her neither fear nor apprehension. If that was the fate that the Spiorad Mór had for her, she would be content to be once-Kekeki and let the next Kekeki take her place. Kekeki roared again, and the soldiers looked toward her. The one who had killed once-Keksyn gestured and called to them in their own language. She saw the man start to lift up his weapon.