by Jack Conner
“She’s really done it,” Janx said, after the surgery, which Avery had performed himself. The big man sounded tired, even more so because of the painkillers. “She’s really gone down to help the fuckers. After all she’s done to fight them ...”
Avery rubbed his middle, where he could still feel her tentacle digging into him. “I’m just glad we’re alive.”
“You and me both, buddy.”
Outside the tent drifted the sounds of innumerable people, some screaming in pain or moaning for medicine. But there were countless other sounds, too: the sound of talking and laughing, the creak of wind, the roar of the sea to the south. The vast Eberlithian camp spread along the southern cliffs, the same cliffs which had so recently been shelled by Segrul’s fleet. Most of the houses and other buildings along it had been reduced to rubble, so there was no one to complain about being kicked out of their homes.
Many thousands of people had been killed or wounded by the recent violence, and Ghenisan and Ysstral doctors assisted those of Eberlith in patching up the men and women who could be saved. Avery was still blinking away the sight of the sea of bloody forms stretched out along the ground or on narrow cots as grim-faced figures bent over them, working with what tools they had. Janx was not the only one to lose a limb today. It had pained Avery’s heart to see the devastation, and he'd fought back tears even as he worked on sewing up Janx’s stump.
“Stop itching,” he said, swatting the big man’s hand away from the blood-soaked bandages.
“Feels like godsdamned ants,” Janx said.
“I know, and it’s going to for awhile,” Avery said. “I’ll get you some more morphine, but there’s not enough to go around, so you’ll have to use it sparingly.”
“Fuck the morphine, Doc. I can’t be doped-up if I’m going with you.”
Avery smiled sadly. “You’re not going anywhere, my friend.”
“But the fleet—the attack on the R’loth—”
“You’re not going, Janx.”
The whaler’s great jaw stuck out. “I didn’t come all this way to sit on the sidelines at the end. I’m a sailor. I belong on the sea. In battle.”
“I’m sorry, Janx.”
“Just plant a stick on the end of my leg and get me up an’ movin’!”
Avery patted Janx’s shoulder, gently forcing him back down on the cot. The big man was serious, but his voice was weak, and he’d lost a lot of blood. He might pass out at any moment. A gust of wind rattled the tent, and Avery glanced up.
“Storm’s comin’,” Janx said.
“A bad one, by the sounds of it.”
The big man rubbed his forehead. “Think ... it’s them? The R’loth, gearing up their Processor?”
“Gods help us. But I suppose it could be.” Avery shook his head. “Layanna must have reached them by now.”
“Bitch.”
“She’s a woman without a country. Without a people to belong to. She’s only trying to find a home.”
“She’s not a woman at all. And I can’t believe you’d defend her, after ...”
Both of their gazes went to Janx’s stump.
“You’re right, Janx. Of course. I ... I’m sorry. Your cock will get us all killed, I believe was your phrase.”
“I ain’t dead yet.”
“No, but the Failsafe might do for us all.”
General Yolust ducked his head inside and saluted. “Your Majesty, the ... things ... they’re at the docks. They want permission to board the ships.”
“Where’s Ani?”
“I’m not sure, sir. Want me to find her?”
“No. No, I’ll go.” Avery turned to Janx. The whaler’s eyes were already closed. Before he could leave, though, Avery was stopped by the sound of Janx’s voice:
“Get ‘em, bones. Get ‘em for me.”
“I will.”
Avery turned and followed the general outside. They passed through the same devastation Avery had seen before, but grown worse. In the time since he’d last been beyond the tent, many of the relatives of the wounded and dead had found their loved ones in the chaos and were weeping and wailing over them—either that, or haranguing the doctors and nurses as to the whereabouts of their kin.
Avery saw one woman crying over a small form that must be her infant son, not moving, and he felt something twist in his gut. What is the human cost of this war? Just how many had the R’loth killed, directly or indirectly? How many were trapped in the prisons their bodies had become because of mutation? And it was possible the bastards were just getting started.
He was grateful when Yolust led him to a jeep and, in an armed convoy, took him down the switchback roads along the cliffs to the sprawling docks below. Set between two spurs of the island, the docks were in disarray due to the ruin left by the pirates as well as the poorly coordinated unions of the multiple navies and peoples. The Ghenisans and Ysstrals eyed each other with distrust and suspicion, and the islanders proved wary of and contemptuous of them all.
The docks were in even greater confusion now, as the countless human soldiers and workers stood rooted in shock at the glinting ruby shapes descending the cliff-face like spiders and arraying about the dock. Many soldiers pointed guns at the automatons, and the great guns of various warships were also being aimed, not very subtly, at the beings.
“Order them not to fire,” Avery said, and Yolust shouted the command through a bullhorn, an order that was then repeated up and down the line and presumably aboard the ships, as well. No one fired, and squad captains made their people lower their weapons. The automatons stepped forward, and Yolust directed Avery to their leader, striding out before them all. Avery had to hop off to meet her, and he wasn’t at all surprised to see the ruby girl, the copy of Ani the Monastery had made.
“Where’s Ani?” Avery said. The last he had seen of his daughter had been near the ruby girl before the console in the heart of the Monastery.
“Where she was,” the ruby figure said. “Communing with the structure.”
Avery glanced upward at the towering building with its great twisting limbs blocking out the light of the sun and throwing great shadows across the island. They were so big that one shadow was large enough to drape half the docks in darkness while the other side sparkled in the sun. Birds skimmed over the water, the light flashing on them brightly. Sails snapped gaily. Avery tried to imagine Ani bonding with the core of that terrible place, but could only shudder.
“I want her down from there,” he said.
“I will pass on your concern.”
Avery gritted his teeth. You will, will you? “Have you come to begin arming the fleets?”
The ruby girl nodded, saying nothing. Light glimmered on her red eyes—unblinking. Her mouth did not move.
“I’ll need you to set lieutenants of various units and have those lieutenants coordinate with the ship’s captains,” Avery said. “A captain is in charge of his own ship, but I’ve already instructed them to admit you. But you do need to make them a part of the operation. And you need to teach them, and the crews, how to operate the weapons.”
“We will, sir.”
Sir. Did Ani teach you that? “How soon can you begin?”
The girl smiled, and Avery blinked, unnerved. “We’re ready to proceed.”
“Good.” Avery paused. “Once we’re done here, I’ll want to visit my daughter. Can you ... send her word?”
Unblinking, the ruby girl looked up at him. “I just have. She says it’s not necessary.”
“The hell it isn’t.” To Yolust, he said, “Send an airship for me.”
* * *
Avery waited outside the Monastery for what seemed a long time, shouting at the walls of the structure, before the portal finally showed itself and his zeppelin was able to coast inside, flanked by a dozen military dirigibles. They were met by a great spinning red crystal with a thousand spokes and spikes jutting out of it. It almost looked like some microscopic mote, alien yet simple, and it hovered in the air befor
e them humming and blinking with lights from within. The whole thing stretched two hundred yards in diameter at least, but it floated weightlessly.
“Where’s Ani?” Avery said into the intercom system of the bridge. Speakers boomed his voice outside.
The great mote pulsed, and Avery heard in his head, Follow me.
The mote drifted away, and the air fleet followed it through one hall and another, finally spilling out into the great chamber where the aerial maze was. It ushered them through the stairs and bridges and towers to the center of it all, and Avery was allowed to land on a platform close to the most inward one, the one with the console, and from there he, and he alone, was shown “up” the various levels to the central one by glinting, smooth-limbed automatons. Avery watched them move with eerie grace and silence and wondered, Ani, are these your new playmates? It was a horrible thought, and yet ...
He found her, standing as before at the console, but this time an automaton bore the weight of the staff while she directed it. She continued communing a moment after Avery was brought before her, then snapped her head up. Her eyes popped open. Smiling, she ran into his arms and surprised him with a hearty embrace. He laughed in relief and hugged her back. Maybe the Blue Ghost was wrong. She hasn’t changed, after all.
“Papa! It’s good to see you again. How’s Janx?”
“He lost half a leg, but he’ll live.”
“Thank goodness. And her? Sheridan?”
“Aunt Jess, you mean? I had her placed in one of the buildings the islanders have given us to use as command centers. It’s a mansion, actually. I think you’ll like it.” Don’t get ahead of yourself, Frank.
“Is she ... a prisoner?”
Ani had drawn back now and was looking at him speculatively. There was nothing idle about her question, though.
“No,” he said.
She looked away. “Oh.”
“I know you’re mad, Ani, and you have every right to be. What she did ...” He squeezed Ani’s frail shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
Something changed in Ani. Something sudden and awful. Her face twisting, she shouted, “She’s evil and she should die!”
Avery opened and closed his mouth. Dear gods, could the Blue Ghost have been right? The rage he saw on his daughter’s face was unlike anything he’d ever seen there before. Don’t jump to conclusions, he told himself. Sheridan murdered her entire family. She has every right to be furious with her.
“Don’t say that,” he said cautiously. “Me ... and Aunt Jess ... well, it’s complicated, but—”
Ani’s face filled with horror. “You don’t mean it! Say you don’t mean it!”
“I ... I just meant ...” He hung his head. “Don’t hate me, honey.”
“She’s not Mama! You can’t make her my mama!”
Ani’s voice had gone hysterical, and tears sprang from her eyes. Avery tried to reach for her again, but she slipped away. When he rose to go after her, two automatons planted themselves in his path and wouldn’t let him go.
She will become … like me.
“Let me pass,” he told them.
Silent, they resisted.
“Ani! Tell them to let me pass.”
“She’s evil and she should die and you want her to be my new mama!”
He counseled himself to be patient. His fears were probably misplaced, anyway. Her anger was genuine, not something engendered in her by the fact of her, as the Blue Ghost had styled it, feeding to completion. A person’s soul couldn’t change. “Ani, I don’t. I just ... gods, honey, let’s just talk this out normally. What Sheridan did, she had to. If she hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been made queen and you never would have been able to open the Tomb.”
“You’re defending her?” Beyond the automatons, Ani had spun back around. “How can you defend her, Papa? After what she did? I wish Layanna had killed her!”
Wretched, Avery could only watch his daughter’s narrow back as it heaved in pitiful sobs. At last, red-eyed, Ani turned back to face him. Her face was set like stone. “It doesn’t matter, Papa. I’m not going back with you anyway.”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
She gestured around her. “This is my home now.”
Oh gods no. “Ani, you can’t mean that. Your home is with me. In Ghenisa. Or Salanth, if you prefer.”
“No, Papa, it’s here. It seems like I’ve been searching for the other part of myself forever, and finally I’ve found it.” Slowly the anger left her face, replaced by serenity, by honesty. “This is where I was supposed to wind up. This is what I was supposed to find.” She smiled toward the nearest automaton, then the console. “I was supposed to tap into this, to find out where I came from, what I’m here for.”
“You’re the one who awakened the Sleeper, Ani.”
“But what if there’s more? And even if there’s not it doesn’t matter. I’m happy here. I feel at home. I was literally made to interact with this place, to be part of it. I have so much to learn. Maybe ... in time ... if I learn enough, or if ... well. Someday. But not for a long time.”
Avery’s mouth had gone dry. He had traveled from one nightmare to another. “Ani, you can’t do this again. I just got you back.”
“I’m staying.”
The automatons took an aggressive step forward, and Avery stumbled back, suddenly and for a terrible moment afraid of his own daughter. Then the constructs stepped back, and Ani looked apologetic.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Papa. I don’t mean to be ... and earlier, when Layanna was saying those things, and for a moment ...” Impatiently, she wiped a tear away. “That wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?” Beyond good or evil.
“I didn’t mean it,” she said. “It was just, like when you touch something hot. A reaction.”
“I know, honey. I know. But, about staying here, surely you see it’s ridiculous. How would you eat?”
“The Monastery can provide. More than that, I plan to start a regular interaction with the islanders. Offering services and tours, trading healing and labor abilities for food, clothes and company.”
And will you accept sacrifices from them, too? “You’ve thought a lot about this in a short time.”
“Like I said, Papa. This is where I was meant to be. The nexus and I’ve been discussing it.”
The nexus. He swallowed. “And just whose idea was this?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Mine. The nexus has no control of me, nor does the Sleeper. Nor would they want any.” She groaned in frustration. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Not until your, ah, helpers finish installing the weapons, no.” He watched her between the bulks of the automatons. The Sleeper. Is it truly dead? “Is this really where you want to stay, Ani? Away from your people, away from ... ?”
“You? Sheridan?” Ani blinked rapidly, then inclined her head, and the automatons moved away. Still, when Avery began to step forward, she shook her head. “Give me my space, Papa. I have to do this. Don’t you see?”
“No.”
“Then I’m sorry for you.”
Avery barely heard his captains speak as they descended through the skies toward the ground. He could only see Ani turning back to face the console, a dreamy look stealing over her even as knives tore at Avery’s insides. He could only hear buzzing, and the sound of engines. Gradually, voices and information faded in, but even then he received it all dully, as if in a cottony haze.
“My lord?” one captain said. “Is there anything the matter?”
Avery wiped sweat from an eyebrow. “Take me to the command center,” he said. Take me to Sheridan.
He found her gazing out the window in her bedroom—really, theirs. Officially he was aware that he had a larger one at the end of the mansion’s hall, but he knew he would never use it. For as long as he resided here on the island, he would stay with her.
“What are you looking at?” he said as he picked his way across the plush suite toward her. They were much nicer acco
mmodations than he was used to, and they made him feel self-conscious. He knew he would never grow accustomed to his current status. Another good reason for ending it.
“That,” she said, nodding at the horizon.
He reached her and wrapped his arms around her middle. She leaned back, against him, and he felt some of the tension go out of him. It wasn’t a sensual lean, but it was a comfort. And it wasn’t completely un-sensual, either. He looked toward where her nod indicated: the sea. Dark clouds boiled on the horizon, and the bubbling water crashed against the shore. The mansion was perched on a high cliff with both a view of the city and a view of the Atomic Sea. Lightning flared up from the water, and answering bolts glimmered in the thunderheads. A chill breeze washed in, wet with rain, and he shivered. Hopefully the processors were up and running at full capacity.
“Another storm,” he said, and he could feel her nod against him.
“It looks like a rough one.”
Suddenly, she turned around, and her face was next to his. Lightning flickered behind her, silhouetting her but apparently illuminating him all too well.
“What happened to you?” she said.
A long breath escaped him. “Ani.”
Taking his hand, Sheridan led him inside, closed the door behind them, then took him to the bed and laid him down. She flung herself beside him.
“What happened?” she said.
“Ani’s decided … to stay.”
“Excuse me?”
Avery glanced away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then why did you come straight to me?”
He didn’t bother asking how she knew. Her powers of observation were eerie. “Fine,” he said, and briefly told her what had happened.
“I’m so sorry,” she said afterward. “It was because of me, I know.”
“Don’t think that.” He’d left that part out for a reason.
“There’s nothing else to think.” She shook her head. “It’s normal, Francis, what’s she going through. Or maybe normal’s not the right word. She’s right to be mad at me. And you. What I did ...” She reclined backward against the pillows, and this time he turned to her.