The Pinians’ solution was to have more firepower.
The Pinian-worshipping races were divided into massive convoys, and the defensive measures – platforms – into ten categories. The Category 10 Convoy Defence Platform was nothing less than the Pinian God and Disciples themselves. Rosedian’s thokagna were the next tier down.
They were more than warships. They were living things, organism meeting machine meeting the divine, and they were designed to improve themselves. From the beginning, even in the dark centuries of territorial disputes and running wars that followed the Worm Cult occupation, their sheer power was a matter of concern. The most famous of the Category 9s, of course, was the Destarion … but she was as famous for her failures and atrocities as she was for her successful convoy tours.17 The rest of the fleet, Rosedian’s Daughters as they came to be known, carried out their missions flawlessly.
After the time of the convoys was over, treaties and agreements and accords were made. No more God-teeth were made. Indeed, but for a very few resource-bloated empires and the ever-present Firstmade Brotherhoods, nobody had what it took to make more of the pallid monsters anyway, even if it was possible without Rosedian’s direct input. The Destarion was decommissioned and placed in a caretaker orbit of the Four Realms, only entering combat in the direst of situations when the accords broke down. And the rest…
The thokagna were too mighty, too awful to die. They did not want to retire like their broken sister, would not allow themselves to be dismantled.
So, in keeping with the accords, they left.
Arbus Rosedian took his fleet, his flock of deadly daughters, and flew out of the Corporate urverse. With the sanction of the Pinian God and the stated intent of tracking the Worm to its lair and destroying it once and for all, they disappeared Beyond the Walls.
And like most who ventured into the cold and the dark, they were never seen again.
METICULOUS PLANS
AND SOMBRE PREMEDITATION
“And you found them?” Greyblade asked. “Forgive me, but your legendary voyage Beyond the Walls was well before the Worm Cult and the convoys, wasn’t it?” to be honest, Greyblade wasn’t sure the journey had even been real, or if it was just another part of the Ballad. It was becoming clear to him that it didn’t matter.
“What I saw on my long walk should probably be considered inadmissible as evidence,” Çrom admitted. “But their flight path was traced by the I-Spy network,” he tipped his hand back and forth, “sort of.”
“Sort of.”
“The I-Spies aren’t like a network of satellites,” Çrom said. “You can’t just look at pictures of the stuff they’re looking at.”
“I thought that was exactly what they were for,” Greyblade objected.
“Yeah, alright, it’s a bit like that,” Skelliglyph conceded, “but the Drake doesn’t really control them. She sees what the I-Spy in her hoard decides to show her, and it’s never really decided to show her the lost Godfangs as such. But, it’s shown her a few spots along the way, and even without my … well let’s be generous and call it expertise … we know what their final destination was.”
“The lair of the Worm?”
“They call it the Enclave,” Çrom said, “and yeah, it was a different time when I passed through … but sure. That, I can find.”
“Here’s the problem with that,” Greyblade said. “Rosedian flew out there tens of thousands of years ago, and yet just a couple of centuries ago we had another Worm Cult incursion.”
“So obviously the Godfangs didn’t succeed in destroying the Worm,” Çrom nodded. “I mean, we sort of suspected that anyway, didn’t we?” he leaned over and breathed Berkenshaw’s Oil fumes into Greyblade’s sensors. “But,” he said again, “the Godfangs weren’t destroyed. Or, okay, at least they weren’t subverted.”
“Because if they had been, they probably would have turned up with the Worm the second time around,” Greyblade said. “And we probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
“Bingo,” Çrom said. “Except … well, don’t take this the wrong way, but I might be sitting here…”
“Which leaves us where?”
“It leaves us knowing where they were headed,” Çrom replied triumphantly, “and with a reasonable idea of where they stopped. It also leaves us not entirely certain they’re still there or in one piece, but … look, I told Gabe and I’m telling you – I can get us close, and when you’re talking about Beyond the Walls, close is really important.”
“It also leaves a whole bunch of universes for a fleet of ships to vanish into,” Greyblade noted. “Hell of a thing to search, a universe.”
“Once I get us close, I have a bit of a nose for lost treasures,” Çrom told him modestly. “I know it’s a tall order, but I’m pretty confident that if anyone can find Rosedian’s Daughters for you, I can.”
“Alright,” Greyblade closed his visor and stood up. “Let’s go.”
Skelliglyph blinked up at him. “What – right now?”
“Things are in bad shape down on Earth,” Greyblade said, “and could get dramatically worse at any moment. And you’re proposing a trip beyond the Corporate Dimensions. That’s going to take an unacceptable length of time, so the sooner we get started, the better.”
“Well, sure,” Çrom stammered, “but a day isn’t going to make much – alright, alright,” he raised his hands and lurched to his feet as Greyblade stepped around his stool. “That was the next thing I was going to bring up anyway. We need a ship.”
“I can get us a ship,” Greyblade said. “I came here on mass transit, but…”
Çrom shook his head. “I’ve got a ship,” he said, “sort of.”
“You like qualifying your statements with ‘sort of’,” Greyblade said, “don’t you?”
“The urverse isn’t rich in certainties and absolutes,” Çrom said.
“Rich enough for my liking,” Greyblade replied. “So is this ship sort-of yours, or sort-of a ship?”
“An ordinary ship’s not going to get us out there fast enough,” Çrom said by way of reply, “and a warship with ten-tier gun decks and battle pennants flying is going to attract way too much attention. You don’t want to walk tall Beyond the Walls. The ship I’ve got my eye on is small, but comfortable and well-stocked for a long trip.”
“And fast.”
“Better,” Skelliglyph grinned. “A Fhaste.”
Greyblade whistled silently through his teeth. What Arbus Rosedian was to vessels of war, Imra Imra Fhaste was to vessels that got from one place to another in a pointlessly, ludicrously short time. Her work was also very nearly as rare as Rosedian’s, these days. “I think I just put my finger on the catch,” he remarked.
“I have eyes on a ship,” Çrom nodded. “But there might be some technical dispute over getting our hands on her.”
“What are we going to do? Break into the Palace grounds and steal the Pego-1?”
“No. Look, she’s not … alright, she’s technically mine, you see,” Çrom said, “just from a long while back. I ran into some unpleasantness regarding a rogue research group and had to shed a bunch of identity data and possessions.”
This made sense to Greyblade. Just about the only way to own a Fhaste vessel was to inherit from someone for whom Fhaste had made one back in the golden age of high-multiple relative field dynamics. The rest of what Skelliglyph was saying made less sense.
“Has it occurred to you that you’d have to drop everything and go into hiding a bit less frequently if you didn’t actually call yourself Çrom Skelliglyph?” he asked.
“Every few hundred years, people get stupid and romantic and the name actually enters circulation in various places,” Çrom waved his hand. “It’s not as immediately attention-grabbing as you’d think. People just assume like you did – that my parents were idiots, or that I was when I came of age. I can’t argue against either of those assumptions with any real conviction, incidentally.”
“Alright,” Greyblade
became aware that they’d stopped in the process of leaving and were now standing in the middle of the floor discussing the commandeering of a grotesquely valuable vehicle. He waved Skelliglyph towards the door. “Let’s move. I assume you have a home here?”
Çrom hesitated, then visibly shrugged to himself. Greyblade reflected in amusement that all the cruel and weird centuries had not managed to give Çrom Skelliglyph a good Shadowsteps stare.
“Yeah, alright,” the human said, leading him out into the street. “I’ve got a place.”
DOING TACTICS
“So this ship was yours,” Greyblade summarised as they walked. He was confident that the congested streets and the muted roar of music and vendors, pedestrians and vehicles would reduce their conversation to another thread in the tapestry. “Then you had to vanish, and someone else inherited her?”
“Someone else strolled in and picked her up from my estate,” Skelliglyph clarified, “then she was impounded when that idiot tried to sell her through a fence who was utterly ill-equipped for the job of selling a Fhaste. Then she was donated to someone else as a political gift, then that person’s offspring inherited her, then … you get the idea.”
“And she ended up in Axis Mundi.”
“Right,” Çrom replied. “And I didn’t know that when I walked here, by the way. For all I knew she could be anywhere … but I admit that she’s sort of the reason I’ve stuck around.”
“Lucky for me that you did,” Greyblade remarked.
“Darn right.”
“So who’s got her now?”
“There’s these collectors,” Çrom replied. “Fov, Sid and Sod.”
“Are those their real names?” Greyblade asked, his systems already cross-referencing. Of course, as soon as they’d started talking about Fhaste vessels, his suit had confirmed the presence of only one ship in a publically registered collection in Axis Mundi, he’d been able to confirm and add some clarifying detail to Skelliglyph’s summary of the ship’s recent history, and he’d gotten the names of the collectors from the same location. Fovremorn, Sidnix and Sodmankle Kedlam. They somehow sounded even more suspect when he used their full names. Even more suspect, the ship’s name was still unlisted and marked with pending-investigation tags. This was usually legal shorthand for a piece of property that probably wasn’t the legal possession of the owners, but there was no practical way for the authorities to investigate it. Not until someone interested in investigating the ship’s provenance was able to exceed or ideally double the bribes that had already changed hands, anyway.
“I think that’s what they call themselves,” Çrom replied as they boarded a crowded cross-transit skimmer. People shuffled aside earnestly for the Burning Knight, but conversations didn’t falter for long. “I’m going to be honest, I don’t actually care. My point was, we need this ship and I have far more of a moral claim to her than legal, so if that’s not enough for you…”
“My standards very much fall into the ‘desperate times, desperate measures’ category right now,” Greyblade told him. “What are they like, these Kedlams?”
“I never told you their family name,” Çrom squinted at him, then looked impressed as he figured it out. “You virt’d them,” he said, then grinned. “And by the time you finish saying you don’t know what that is, you will’ve virt’d that too.”
“I looked up their public data,” Greyblade confirmed. “There’s probably more. Lots more, if they’re shady.”
“Oh, they’re shady,” Çrom said. “Shadier than a sombrero factory. Plus, they’re thugs. And they’ve got a bunch of hoodlums working for them.”
“Hoodlums working for thugs,” Greyblade said.
“I know,” Çrom said indignantly. “What’s the world coming to? I think one or two of them might even be goons.”
“So the Kedlams,” Greyblade said. “What are they? Brothers? Husbands?”
“Just partners, far as I can tell,” Çrom said. The skimmer rounded a corner and the tightly-packed passengers all swayed in unison. “I didn’t get their life story. Did you?”
“They’re … p’bruz g’tar,” Greyblade said disinterestedly, checking his file. “It doesn’t really have an analogous concept in Xidh or Old Meganesian. Two of them are in a monogamous partnership, the third is a free agent who will occasionally join the couple and contributes to the household–”
“Does any of that matter?” Çrom asked. “I thought the whole story about you Burning Knights being pervs was an exaggeration.”
“It is,” Greyblade said patiently. “But if we’re going to rip the Kedlams off, it might be a good idea to focus on Sidnix Kedlam as a possible vulnerability, since he’s the public-facing and more gregarious p’bruz.”
“Are you already doing tactics?” Çrom marvelled.
“What do you mean ‘already’?” Greyblade asked.
ÇROMHAME
Çrom Skelliglyph’s home was very similar to that of the Archangel Gabriel, in ways that were at once amusing and heartbreaking. It was simple, its décor noticeably geared towards more elderly and modern-gadgetry-fearing residents, relentlessly unsentimental, and the whole place had a dusty air of shabbiness and neglect.
It was as if simply being occupied by such ancient creatures had accelerated the two habitats’ entropy. Like centuries were fur, and Çrom and Gabriel had been shedding on the furniture.
Fur, Greyblade thought, remembering, or feathers.
“Come on in,” Çrom said. “Welcome to Çromhame.18 Don’t look at it all at once.”
“Çromhame,” Greyblade chuckled dryly, looking around. “Cute. Have you been here ever since arriving in Axis Mundi?”
“Pretty much,” Çrom replied. “I spent a while in the Processing Centre but decided that I got to leave after being murdered once, since pretty much everyone else to get murdered there got to leave afterwards.”
“Sounds charming.”
“‘Better than Earth’ is really only a recommendation if you don’t examine the statement too closely,” Çrom said. “Can I offer you anything? I should warn you, I don’t keep good food in here because I think one of my neighbours has a key. And I don’t keep any kind of booze or other drugs here for the same reason. Also they have pretty strict rules about humans possessing those sorts of things.”
“Humans on drugs are the worst,” Greyblade said reasonably, and Çrom shrugged and nodded. “So what can you offer me?”
“Water, zolo, mozo juice, base rations, a power outlet…”
“I’m fine,” Greyblade said. “Might take you up on that mozo juice later. You sleep here?”
“Well, sure,” Çrom laughed awkwardly. “I tried sleeping on the roof but there’s a family of elysian scarab-fowl up there that didn’t take kindly to it.”
“I mean, I assume you still sleep like a human,” Greyblade said. “Eight hours in twenty-four? Otherwise you start getting clumsy and erratic and have mood swings and stuff?”
“You mean more so than usual?” Çrom asked wryly.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Yeah, I still sleep pretty much like a human.”
“Sleep now, then,” Greyblade advised. “I’ll go and get the ship. We’ll fly out in ten hours, I’ll need you sober and well-rested.”
“Really?” Çrom squinted again. “You want to do the heist without me?”
“It’s not a heist,” Greyblade objected, “but … yes, basically. Unless there’s anything I still need to know.”
“You actually think I’ll be a liability?” Çrom looked hurt.
“You will be if you’re inebriated or tired. And you’re both.”
“Okay, you’re right,” Skelliglyph sat heavily on his couch. “Actually it’ll probably be better if I stay here anyway. It depends what you have in mind, but if they see me sniffing around with you … I’ve been to see them once or twice over the past few years, asking about the ship. They might remember me,” he paused. “They’ll probably remember me,” he added gru
dgingly.
“Remember you … unkindly, perhaps?”
“Remember me more like someone who may have tried to steal the ship a couple of times,” Çrom admitted.
Greyblade sighed. “Okay,” he said, checking the records. There had been no official complaint or investigation, but that meant nothing. Collectors like the Kedlams didn’t involve the authorities when their possessions were threatened. The involvement of the authorities made it too difficult to deal with would-be thieves in a more satisfying and persuasive way. “You’re lucky they didn’t throw you off the step,” he said, then paused. “Did they?”
“No,” Çrom said indignantly, then added, “not for lack of trying, though.”
“Alright. Approaching Sidnix Kedlam directly about the ship might not be the best approach after all,” Greyblade said. “I have a new idea.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Unfortunately it means you don’t get to go to sleep yet.”
Çrom sighed. “Are you going to pretend to catch me and present me to the Kedlams as a gift, ingratiate yourself as a security guard, then steal the ship while they’re busy killing me?”
“No. That would take too long,” Greyblade replied after a split-second’s reflection and probability-calculation. “But I just had another idea.”
PANDEMONIUM AT THE KEDLAMS
(BECAUSE CALLING IT ‘BEDLAM’
JUST SEEMED CHEAP)
Fov Kedlam circled Greyblade, casual but alert. His great luminous eyes were half-lidded yet were taking everything in.
“How do I know it’s not a cheap replica?” he demanded, leaning in and worrying Greyblade’s locked visor up and down in his long-fingered hand. It didn’t open, didn’t even rattle. “Just a hollow shell?”
“It might as well be,” Çrom said easily. “The suit’s hermetically sealed, and the organics inside are basically mummified. You might get a nasty nose-full if you pried it open, but that’s about it. Still weighs a solid ton though, because of the treated-state articulation and joints. The meat wasn’t what made it heavy in the first place.”
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