CHAPTER 55
lt’s not a fix, but a reminder of
what we lost. By the time March pulls out, I’m shivering.
I’ll never give up on him, but this will take time. We have to
figure out how to repair what’s been broken, as Mair did.
Instead of walking
away, I sit with him quietly in the dark.
Hours later, I locate
my crew in the starboard lounge. They all seem to be in good shape,
drinks in hand. Vel sits with his handheld, tapping away. The last
vestige of fear dissipates, and that’s new, too.
I feel responsible
for these people, not in the usual way, which involves making sure
I get the jump right. In the past, that’s all the accountability I
acknowledged. What befalls someone when I’m not in the nav chair,
well, that’s not my fault. Right?
Wrong. For crazy
misbegotten reasons, they follow me, so what happens to them, it’s
on me. They call this leadership, I think, but it’s new. I crackle
with it.
“Hell of a thing,”
Dina says with a grin. She pushes from her chair and limps over to
me, just about crushing my ribs in a hug.
“I am glad to see you
recovered,” Constance tells me.
Is she glad? Can she
be? For just a moment, I put aside my questions about her nature,
or what she can learn, and accept what she says at face
value.
“You did a helluva
job,” I answer. “Without you, everyone would be dead, and I’d be
captive to my mother’s warmongering.”
The PA pauses as if
parsing my words. And then she says, delightfully, unintentionally
modest: “I am here to help.”
We all snicker, and
it doesn’t matter that Constance regards us with puzzlement. Each
of us brings our own gifts to the mix. We stand together, or we
fall. I get that now.
Once the chatter dies
down, I cross to where Jael sits, slightly apart from the others. I
drop down beside him. “What were you trying to tell me? On the
skiff?”
He shakes his head
with a bittersweet half smile. “It doesn’t matter. The moment’s
passed.”
What did he think he
needed to apologize for?
Before I can question
him, Hit announces, “Planetfall in fifteen minutes, so bundle up in
your winter clothes and strap in.”
Four planets in eight days.
For the first time, I
don’t envy someone else the nav chair. If I were sitting up there,
I’d be dead. I know it. I need to rest and recuperate while taking
my daily injections, or I may never see grimspace again. And while
the hunger hasn’t lessened—I still long to jump like I want nothing
else in this world besides March—my ability to tune it out has
improved.
I feel drunk with
remembered wonder. First glimpse of the sun rising over the
glaciers on Ielos, sunset at the Freeport falls, and an afternoon
walk along the famed Avenida de Marquez on Axis V, where the
bloodshed began so long ago. I tread along the paths where my
predecessor Karl Fitzwilliam made his infamous missteps.
So many people waved
and cheered when the convoy passed by, as if I deserved those
accolades. What have I ever done to earn
them? I’ve touched history this last week, seen and smelled it.
Perhaps I’m even becoming part of it in ways I can’t comprehend. I
imagine it like threads of a tapestry woven together with such
expertise that I can’t see the separate pieces anymore.
Whole worlds fade
like that beneath me. The towns become patchwork textures and then
blur into misty colors. Finally, I can no longer see the people who
believe in me, who seem to think I can step into the breach and
persuade the Ithtorians to side with us in the coming war.
Because, make no
mistake, I’ve seen the bodies in the first skirmish. Now more than
ever, the Morgut see us as prey. And the only thing that might give
them pause is an alliance with Ithiss-Tor.
I’m not ready. I
don’t know enough. I’m terrified I’ll fuck this up, and humanity
everywhere will pay the price. Maybe my mother’s still banking on
that, and that’s another thorn in my side.
But I’ll step
up.
My gut gurgles as if
in answer. I’m bloated from heavy food, eaten at too many parties.
And my right hand hurts from all the meet-and-greets. I wore the
right clothes and smiled for the press, dandled unfortunate
children on my knee, and played a politician for the vids. That was
the easy part.
Now the last stop on
our tour recedes beneath me. Seeing so many worlds rouses an odd
sensation; I’d call it wanderlust, but it’s more like a fierce need
to move on, because I don’t have anywhere
like these folks do.
Whatever its faults,
they have somewhere they call their own. One they’d fight for, die
for. Home.
I don’t put down
roots. I live for the next jump, even though the next might be my
last. How did somebody like me wind up in charge of something so
important?
A disembodied voice
tells me, “Five minutes to jump.”
Once it would’ve
bothered me to strap in with everyone else, but today I have far
too much on my mind to make room for something so minor. I make my
way to the hub and take a seat next to Vel, but this time I strap
in without assistance. I’m an expert passenger now.
“Afterward,” he says
in lieu of greeting, “we have work to do.”
Damn right. Constance
doesn’t ever let up on the customs—I half suspect she recites the
list to me in my sleep—but I need to know the rest. By the time we
reach Ithiss-Tor, I need to be the foremost human expert in native
customs.
I nod. “I’d like to
start with religion.”
I give my safety gear
one last tug. The helmet feels strange, but as the ship trembles,
it can’t block out my awareness of the beacons entirely. As if
through a veil of water, I feel the jumper scanning grimspace.
She’s better than the Syndicate navigator, more confident, and she
takes us right there.
My skin prickles, the
hair standing up on the back of my neck. Though I can’t see what
she sees, the wildfire and the glorious, cascading colors pouring
over the hull, I sense it. Grimspace runs through my blood and
bones, boiling inside my cells. What that means, I can’t begin to
guess.
But a tiny part of me
withers and dies when we make the jump back. Yearning sears me like
a live wire. I wish I could stay there, utterly unfettered.
Beside me, Vel
unbuckles and holds out a hand. “Shall we?”
It takes me another
moment to get out of the chair, and then I accept his help. If only
things come this easy on Ithiss-Tor. But I know better. He’s warned
me about the reception I’ll receive—and given the shame of his
profession, they won’t be ecstatic to see him either. I just count
us lucky to have gained their initial agreement to take the matter
under advisement and permit the arrival of our delegation.
Ten minutes later, we
settle in my quarters. The room is a little larger than the space I
enjoyed when I worked for the Corp, but nothing like Keller offered
on the Syndicate yacht. I guess piracy doesn’t pay quite as well as
being a crime lord.
“I am going to molt,”
Vel warns me. “If you are to function on my homeworld, you must
accustom yourself to the way we look.”
“No problem. I’m used
to you.” I hope that’s not an overstatement.
But there are no
surprises this time when his faux-human skin drops away. A boxy
little cleaning bot activates and whirs into action at his feet,
but I don’t break eye contact. I’m not uncomfortable gazing into
his faceted eyes. He’s still Velith, the person who’s saved my ass
more times than I can count.
Maybe I can do this
after all.
“Religion,” he says.
“We revere something called the Iglogth. Not God as you understand
it, but rather vitality that gives life to everything in the
universe. My people believe everything is cyclical, and that the
spark which makes you unique returns to the Iglogth, only to be
reused at a later time.”
“Sort of like
reincarnation?” Primitive humans put faith in that, before we
proved the soul doesn’t exist. When I remember everyone I’ve lost,
my father foremost among them, I wish that wasn’t true. I wish I
believed we might be together again. I left too many words
unsaid.
His mandible moves,
clicking sounds result, and then his vocalizer translates. It’s
funny how much I miss beneath that false skin. “In a manner of
speaking.”
“Is there anything
else I should know?”
“Only as relates to
death customs,” Vel answers. “We burn our dead and scatter the
ashes to the four winds in a formal ceremony. It symbolizes the
return of the spirit to the great Iglogth.”
“No other religious
rituals?”
He turns his head
from side to side, a learned human gesture for the negative. It
sits strangely on his alien face.
“Moving on
then.”
We work for hours,
covering art, architecture, and world history. By the time
Constance interrupts us—what a PA, she even reminds me to eat—my
head feels like an overripe melon. If there’s another human being
who knows more about Ithtorian physiology, mating habits, or
customs, well—the Conglomerate should’ve hired him. Because I don’t
think I can learn another fact before we put down. I eat with one
hand and rub my temples with the other.
Vel watches me, his
side-set eyes studying me with what I take to be concern. “Are you
well, Sirantha?”
“I’m not sure it’ll
be enough. I can’t do more, but what if—” No, I won’t give my fears
credence by speaking them aloud. I’ll bear this by myself. “Can you
work with Constance and download everything we’ve talked about to
her database? That way, if I’m about to make a dire mistake, she
can nudge me or something.”
“Yes, I believe I
can.”
I need insurance, but
that’s the best I can do. Shortly thereafter, the bounty hunter and
the droid head for his quarters to fulfill my request. I appreciate
that, too; I’m sure Vel sensed I need some time alone.
For at least an hour,
I wander the ship, trying to calm my ragged nerves. Fear threatens
to choke me from the inside out. If I fuck up here, the whole
civilized world will suffer. The Conglomerate needs an alliance
with Ithiss-Tor—a rebuff at this juncture would be catastrophic. I
battle back my doubt, shove it into the dark place where it can’t
touch my conscious mind. It will return in the form of nightmares,
but I can pay the cost later.
If it lets me
function, do what I need to do, then that’s enough. I wind up in
the observation lounge, where the wall has been replaced with a
cunning electronic screen that mirrors what’s right outside the
ship. It mirrors a window, down to the last shimmer of smoky
glass.
Even before they make
the announcement, I recognize Ithiss-Tor beneath us. From up here,
it’s a beautiful world, all pale whorls and dark curls that must be
land. My fists clench.
I can’t do this without you, love. But March is
shut away in his quarters, fighting his own demons, so I can’t
lean. I have to be strong for him now.
He needs me.
Thinking of what he’s
suffered and suffers still, tears fill my eyes, the first I’ve
allowed since I wept in Jael’s arms. These can’t fall. I will them
away, turn them to ice. I squeeze my eyelids shut until the
weakness passes. I can’t allow it.
When I sense someone
behind me, I turn and find March waiting, half in shadow. I
should’ve known he wouldn’t let me down, no matter the cost to
himself. In this light, I can’t see his eyes—best he doesn’t see
mine.
“Ready?” he
asks.
In the frosted pane,
I see a slow progression of faces, people I’ve loved and lost. I
carry their shadows in my skin. Then I turn from the window,
setting such memories aside for a time when I can afford to indulge
in them.
Like my first glimpse
of Ithiss-Tor, cloud shrouded and indistinct, the future
awaits.
