by J. S. Fields
When Salice’s expression did not change, Yorden spun back around and opened the door to the room. “I’m not even going to consider an idea this ill-conceived. I’ll not be party to blowing up Neek’s planet, no matter how backwards it is. We need the Neek planet intact.”
Somehow, Salice slipped under his arm and blocked the doorway before the captain could manage another step. A flush had crept into her cheeks and forehead, and her teeth were clenched. Anger? Startled, Yorden took a step back. She’d never shown that emotion before—at least, not to this extreme and certainly not towards him.
“Move, Salice,” Yorden said tersely. “We’re done talking about this.”
Salice simply stared at the stuk trail on Yorden’s flight suit. Her eyes unfocused and her body relaxed, but her hands stayed glued to the door frame.
“What good does it do, huh, to bring this down on the Neek planet and make a bunch of religious nutters upset? What would our Neek say if she heard us talking about this? How do you think she would react if she saw her planet under siege? News of that would get around, eventually.”
Salice’s head rose, but her eyes remained staring into the distance.
Yorden tried to follow her gaze and instead found his mind wandering. It wasn’t wandering normally though. This wandering was directed and a little cold, although his mind should not have been able to feel temperature. Suddenly, he saw a blockaded wormhole and the Neek planet with the armada surrounding it. He saw Neek forests burned to charred stumps. He heard wailing.
Then, the images changed in tone. He saw himself on the bridge of a large Mmnnuggl pod made of xylan-metal interweave. It was concerning that Yorden could tell it was xylan instead of cellulose. Visualizing a polymer, branched or not, was not normal. Out the viewscreen were the Mmnnuggl and Risalian fleets, with some of the other ships interspersed amongst them. Behind those was a small Ardulan fleet, waiting. He had no idea what an Ardulan ship looked like, but he somehow knew they were Ardulan, the same way he suddenly was intimate with cellulose. It was creepy.
Yorden was yelling commands. The Mmnnuggls were following his orders. Neek settees flew in formation past the viewscreen. Inside one…Christ, he was seeing inside ships now? Inside one was Neek, in Heaven Guard gold. She turned and smiled at Yorden, a knowing, joyful smile. The captain watched his dream-self nod in response at a shared joke, some insider information.
The image became muddled. There was a flash of light so bright that Yorden had to close his eyes, but the dreamscape was not blocked out. Settees flew tightly around Risalian skiffs as the latter began to list. Settees skimmed the surface of Mmnnuggl pods, and the pods emitted gas and stopped moving. The Ardulan ships did not move.
The Mmnnuggls on the bridge dropped to the ground and began to hum. Yorden’s vision split, and on the right side, the Neek fell to their knees and cried tears of joy. Yorden’s mind blanked for a moment and then filled with the reactions of all the species in the Alliance fleet. The Mmnnuggls praised Ardulum. Repented. The Risalians looked on in shock. The other species stood in awe. The Ardulans had heard the call of their people and had come to protect them. The Neek and the Ardulans had done the impossible. They had defeated ships without cellulose, with settees bearing no weapons, and with Ardulans with hindered microkinetic powers.
This was not science. This was a miracle.
“No.” Yorden gave a violent shake to his head, and the vision cleared. “You’ll get no argument from me that manufacturing a miracle could save our butts. However, one, you’ve given no concrete methods for achieving said miracle, and two, as you pointed out, Neek would be a key player in any subterfuge. She’s on Ardulum, remember?! And somehow, I don’t think that a vague threat of an armada hovering around Neek is going to magically send a message to a nebulous planet.”
An image of fire, a feeling of fire, scorched through Yorden’s mind. It burned his skin, it burned his vision, and he shuddered and gasped.
“Stop!” Yorden yelled, batting his hands at the air around him. His vision cleared, and the burning dissipated. “If your suggestion is burning people alive, I do not agree. I want a rescue, or to bring Neek to us. Not mass death.”
Salice huffed and stared expectantly at Yorden.
“Salice,” Yorden began, but Salice grabbed his hand with her dusty hands covered in dried stuk before he could say anything else. No new images came to his mind, but the picture of the charred Neek forests returned, and Yorden was pretty certain it wasn’t because he’d thought of it. Then came thoughts of the andal. So precious to the Neek, to the Systems. So fragile. How easy it would be to…to burn it. The most holy tree of Neek, and the backbone of the Charted Systems’ economy. Burning it would get Ardulum’s attention. It sure as hell would get Neek’s attention. It had to. And then there would be ships, more delicate than they appeared, and maybe some well-placed explosives or creative flying…Neek was extremely good at flying…
“Jesus, Salice,” Yorden muttered. It wasn’t a miracle, and it wasn’t very well formed, but it was groundwork. It was shitty groundwork, and Neek would likely never forgive him, but he didn’t have a whole lot of options.
Salice sniffed, and when Yorden looked back to her, he saw her intense stare. “Listening in to my thoughts?” he asked.
Salice nodded.
“I guess you do understand gambling.”
A smile played on Salice’s face.
“You got a lot more going on under the surface, there, than I think anyone gave you credit for. Sorry about that. You understand the stakes?” he asked, more for his benefit than hers.
Salice’s expression did not change, but it didn’t need to. He understood the stakes and was willing to roll the dice. The fires would get Ardulum’s attention, at the very least. Would get Neek home and give him, and her, a solid chance at reining in this evolving nightmare. With her piloting skills, and familiarity with settees, maybe there was a chance, maybe, at constructing this miracle.
“Right, then.” Yorden stepped from the room into the low-ceilinged hall and offered his arm to Salice. She took it, and together, the two walked into the main hallway of the pod frigate. “You going to help with all this?” Yorden asked, gesturing behind himself with his thumb. “A good deceit requires a good partner, not a two-dimensional tagalong, and—”
A hard punch to his arm cut Yorden off. Salice blew across the knuckles of her fist, grinning. She pulled back to hit Yorden again, but the captain held up his hands. “I surrender!” Yorden chuckled. They came to a fork in the corridor, their quarters in opposite directions.
“See you in the morning to brainstorm a Nugel miracle and a Neek coming of age?” Yorden asked. “Partner?”
The scrunched-nose smile on Salice’s face was the only answer he needed.
Chapter 12: Sorin, Ardulum
Hey Atalant, did you ever think it was kind of creepy that the andal is sentient, or semi-sentient, and yet we grow it and cut it down and put its structure in our metals? Andal cellulose is the best, but is that because the cellulose is still alive? Wow, do andal trees never die? Does that mean the Pledge was alive!? And maybe we’ve been using the andal biometals like the Risalians used the Ardulans… I think I’m going to stop this letter now. I don’t need cellulose morality haunting my dreams. Gah.
—Excerpt from a collection of letters to Eld Atalant of Ardulum from various species, compiled in footnotes in Atalant’s Awakening
JANUARY 24TH, 2061 CE
“I have to go home.” The words tasted funny in Atalant’s mouth. She’d wanted to go home for years, but her last visit had left a bitter flavor on her tongue. All she had managed to do in the interim was trade one religion for another. If she went back, she’d still be an outcast, just one in the gold robes of the Eld instead of the gold robes of the Heaven Guard.
It was past lunch, and the inn was deserted. The owners had left to shop for the evening meal, and the only other person about was Emn. She had come back from the palace repairs to, in theory
, be with Atalant, although Atalant suspected Emn also just wanted to avoid other Ardulans. Atalant couldn’t blame her, but neither could she help. After all, it wasn’t like she wanted to be around her people, either. Not most of the time, and now she had to go back.
Go home.
The words were still heavy on her lips, even in the silence. She tapped her fingers on the andal conference table where she sat in the main hall of the inn. The rough plank walls and cotton tablecloths stretched across slab tabletops were a long way from the inlaid, polished andal of the former Eld Palace. Here, the floors creaked exactly as wood should, and the stairs were concave from generations of patrons. It didn’t offer the same kind of belonging Atalant felt in the Lucidity, but the inn’s atmosphere comforted all the same.
The crying andal still tugged at her mind. The pain from the trees was subtle, but relentless. She couldn’t focus. She hadn’t been able to keep her food down. She tried to chase the visions and sensations to find the source, but all she found was panic. Now, an hour later, Atalant had to do something. She didn’t have a plan, necessarily, but she’d lose her mind if she had to keep listening to the screams of burning andal.
“Atalant!” The door to the inn banged into the wall. Arik ran inside, his golden robes wrinkled and his black hair utterly disheveled. “I— We have to talk!” He gasped through his words. Atalant pulled a chair out for him, and he flung himself into it.
“You’re not late, you know,” Atalant said in an amused tone. “We weren’t set to meet for another hour.”
Arik ran shaking hands through his hair, making it stand on end more so than usual. “This couldn’t wait, especially since I wanted to tell you earlier, but we got distracted by the fires. I found— Atalant, there are Ardulans on Neek. One of them is gatoi and just recently became a third don!”
Everything was suddenly too still. There were no bird sounds outside or feet tromping above. Her chair felt unstable, but that might have just been a result of nerves and not a Talent misfire. Atalant shivered. Ardulans. On Neek. Where the fires were. And they were missing their gatoi eld. She should have been more surprised, or upset, but the information simply compounded everything, creating a dead weight. How was she supposed to react? With joy? Concern?
“What do you think?” Arik asked cautiously, searching her face. “If a gatoi is on Neek, we have to go. Whether zie is our eld or not.”
Atalant nodded, but doubt still played in her mind. She placed her hands flat on the tablecloth and dug her fingers into the cotton, trying to ground herself. If she was being honest with herself, truly honest, she dreaded returning. Her brief flight in the Lucidity seemed ages ago now. The urge to set the hyperdrive and flee Ardulum entirely was back at the forefront of her mind. It’d be so easy. Who would suspect? Yet, there was duty. It did always seem to come down to that.
“We should go. I should go. But… Arik, I can’t just disappear right now.” She looked out the window across from her to the andal tree growing just outside. “Things in the capital aren’t stable enough. I can’t just leave everything to you.”
Arik sat forward in his chair and stared incredulously at her. “Your planet is burning, Atalant. We’ve got a gatoi there, and zie is probably our missing eld.” He threw his hands up into the air and shook his head. “Palace reconstruction is going fine, or at least as fine as it can, considering the circumstances. What is keeping you here?”
History.
Mythology.
Golden robes.
Emn.
Atalant pushed back against the bench. The sound of wood against wood grated. Her planet was burning. Another distraction, another call away from Emn and what she needed. A pull to a planet that had cast her out long ago. Atalant was tired of making the wrong choices. Maybe this time, Neek should burn.
“The palace is almost done. The flare reconciliation is not.”
Arik’s face fell, and he looked to the floor. I know, I know, he sent, not lifting his eyes. It’s hard to let go of such deep biases on both sides. I’ve been glad enough to avoid it, although the loss of my extra abilities, of my extra potential, has haunted me. I suppose Emn doesn’t have the luxury of avoidance.
No, she doesn’t. Atalant’s tone came out more biting than she had intended. She stared at an uncovered table leg and grimaced. Neither do any of the flares that have come out of hiding. I can give speeches until I’m Risalian-blue, Arik, but they aren’t going to have the same effect as you being out there, talking to the people. Atalant jabbed a thumb at her chest and looked at him. “I’m a Neek. I’m a subspecies. My girlfriend is a flare, and a genetically engineered one at that. You’re not a flare anymore. You’re the closest the Eld Council has to impartiality at this point.” Atalant leaned back in her chair and stared at the top of Arik’s head. “Why should the populace forgive the flares for the death and destruction they caused? Why should the flares forgive the people who pretended they didn’t exist, who experimented on them and tried to cure them? I can’t answer these questions for Ardulum. I’m a Neek!”
Arik nodded and raised his head, meeting her eyes. “I’m trying, Eld Atalant. I am, but you’re right. I… The andal planting has been a convenient excuse. My family issues have been…even more of an excuse.” Atalant caught a wisp of an image, of a third-don gatoi standing in a row of waist-high saplings, before it disintegrated in her mind. “One visit to the palace isn’t much, in the grand scheme of things.” He offered a tight-lipped smile. “Go. I can manage for a few weeks here, and it will force me to grow into this role. Maybe I can find some big thing the flares can do, to prove their worth. Prove their control. Who knows?” Arik smacked his side and coughed. “Guess that’s what training marks are for, huh? Practice? How are yours, by the way? Have you tried to use your Talents yet? On purpose, I mean?”
Atalant ignored the question. She hadn’t, in fact, managed to make any of Corccinth’s training sessions, which was not something she was proud of, but neither did she feel guilty about it. Too many other things, more important things, pulled at her time. “I’m not leaving until things here are right. I owe Emn that.”
Sounds from the kitchen began to filter in as the owners returned. Atalant heard the clunking of wooden cutting boards and metal pans. A soft rap on the side door meant the afternoon delivery of titha bacon had arrived—a food that Arik steadfastly refused to eat but that Atalant delighted in. The andal just wasn’t working for her, in terms of digestion. Whatever magic microbes the Ardulans possessed in their gut to help them break down cellulose had not apparently been passed down to the Neek. How that affected Atalant’s supposed Talents, she still wasn’t sure. There hadn’t been any time for proper training, and she wasn’t just going to try and melt a gun or fly into a star to prove she could.
“Atalant, come on. Untrained Talents are dangerous, even in a normal Ardulan. You of all people should know that.”
A brief desire to take the andal bowl at the center of the table and throw it at Arik’s head seized Atalant. That was enough, apparently, to make the bowl a weapon, because it exploded into cellulose powder a heartbeat later.
“Don’t,” Atalant warned when Arik opened his mouth to speak again. “I’ll deal with it when I get back.”
Arik did not look convinced, but Atalant ignored him in favor of the new presence that filtered to the front of her mind. The door to the stairway creaked open, and Emn, her hair even more disheveled than Arik’s and sticking much higher up, emerged. She was still in her loose sleep shirt and pants she had put on for her nap, the marks of the flaring visible on her hands, feet, and face.
“Atalant, when you said we should eat together, I didn’t think you meant—” Emn’s eyes fell on Arik. She straightened, the last of the sleepiness vanishing from her face, and looked apologetically at Atalant. “My apologies, Eld. I didn’t mean to intrude on a Council meeting.” She turned to go back up the stairs, but Arik called over to her.
“It’s all right, Emn.” Arik gestured to the cha
ir next to Atalant. “This concerns you too.” Emn looked to Atalant for approval before she moved to the chair and sat. “I’ll let Eld Atalant talk to you about Neek, but right now, I need to do better with the flare reintegration. We should talk, too, one-on-one, but that can wait. Right now, do you have any thoughts on how the general integration might best be approached? Something we haven’t tried? Some big thing that would show the level of control they wield? You’ve been at the palace a lot more than I have,” he added sheepishly.
Atalant slid a hand over and caught Emn’s. A touch of the tightness in the younger woman’s face drained away. “I don’t think some big stunt is going to do much, unless it’s of mythic proportions. You want suggestions other than time?”
Arik let his head hang down. “We’ve had a lot of time. It hasn’t helped. I was thinking something bigger.”
Emn’s grip tightened. “Think smaller. Your continued presence at the palace would be most welcome now, my Eld. The general populace doesn’t understand us and is having a hard time with integration. Since no one knows what causes flare disease, they worry that it is contagious.” Emn’s tone dropped. “Your…your change has not helped things, either. Your interaction with the planet is seen as Ardulum curing you, not as you burning through your extra Talents as we’ve assumed. If one can be cured by our gods, then why not all? Perhaps we are not worthy. Perhaps—” Emn’s eyes narrowed and her grip on Atalant’s hand became uncomfortably tight. “Perhaps those of us that are genetically modified could simply be cleaned up in a lab.”
Atalant cursed, and Arik’s head snapped back upright. He looked aghast. “They’re not saying these things to you, are they?” Arik asked. “What about Corccinth? She’s reported that things are moving along as expected.”
“Forgive me, Eld, but I believe her expectations and yours—” Emn looked to Atalant apologetically. “—both of yours, are different. Corccinth’s are perhaps more in line with the achievable. Every day, she brings a handful of flares to the palace construction site. Sometimes, the architects let them help. Sometimes, they do not. They generally do not speak directly to us, unless to give instruction, but the eating area is communal and conversations often carry. Corccinth works on visibility. Inevitability. Normalization.”