SABIRA STARGAZER FINALLY stood before the Shattered Gates of Heaven—alive and free, not dead and judged like in the prayer.
The Shishiguchi’s observation deck displayed the Gates, nebula, and surrounding stars with such fidelity, Sabira lost all sense of the room. The confines of walls, floor, and ceiling had transformed to appear as interstellar space. After a life of mines and tunnels and tight spaceship corridors, the expanse of stars always thrilled and centered her. The illusion that she and her new brood hurtled unprotected through cold vacuum was hard to resist, not that she tried. The subtle echoes of laughter bouncing off bulkhead walls undermined the illusion slightly, but she was glad to hear it. They had all already spent enough time weeping and mourning, and Sabira relished their sounds of joy, even as she stood in rapt silence.
With the help of the three Embassy founders, strange humans from the other side of the galaxy, Sabira and the others had escaped slavery and degradation in the Holy Unity. Once they traveled through the Gates to the Constellation of Aligned Star Systems, their shared journey, and all the suffering and sacrifices it required, would finally be completed.
The Shattered Gates lurked in the outer tendrils of a vast nebula of swirling crimson gasses. She struggled to comprehend the size of the ancient structure. Nine tentacular shapes, hundreds of kilometers long, extended from a gigantic central sphere with three cracked, triangular mouths. Each dark opening yawned wide enough to admit a battleship pyramid with ease. Across the shattered surface, carven eyes within triangular geometries cast their cracked stares back at them. Massive bolts of blue-white lightning flashed and scattered across its millions of broken pieces. Easy to see how anyone would think its builders had been gods.
Someone took Sabira’s hand, squeezing it gently. She turned to see the two beautiful faces of Playa and Zonte Freebrood smiling back at her. Playa caressed Sabira’s palm, her other arm draped around Zonte’s waist.
“We’re going to watch the rest from our cabin,” Zonte said.
“We could do with some alone time,” Playa added. “You don’t mind?”
“Of course not. It’s all gold.”
“We’ll see you on the other side of the galaxy.” Playa leaned in and kissed Sabira’s temple. Her soft lips lingered for a long, sensuous moment before pulling away. How did she manage to smell like flowers aboard a spaceship? Zonte’s lips, even fuller than Playa’s, pecked her cheek.
“Hey, you’re blocking the view for the rest of us,” Derev complained playfully. Playa and Zonte departed in a whisper of flowing garments while Sabira chuckled at Derev.
“What’s the matter?” Sabira teased. “You’re taller than I am.”
He blinked. “Dawn wants to see the Gates, too.”
Sabira looked from Derev to the woman seated on a smart-foam couch in front of him.
“Sorry.” Sabira stepped to the side. “Got so caught up in the view, didn’t realize I was in the way.”
“It’s so beautiful and scary,” Dawn said. “I can’t believe we’re really here.” Dawn Freebrood looked only a few years older than Sabira, though with fewer glyphs. She was far into her pregnancy—twins—and preferred to sit as often as possible.
Sabira took Dawn’s hand in hers. “I can barely believe it, myself. Ever since I was a little mine rat, my blood-grandfather told me stories about the Shattered Gates of Heaven.”
“If you’re a hen, the overseers and chosen never bother to tell you the stories, not really,” Dawn said. “Before you give birth, the medic would say a prayer. ‘Should you find yourself before the Shattered Gates of Heaven, may you be found worthy of eternal service.’ That’s all I know. Will you tell us the story?”
“It’s all lies, though,” Sabira said.
“We know, but tell us anyway.”
Sabira chewed at the inside of her cheek, looking to Dawn, and then Derev behind her, and Coraz, the group’s only ahno, sitting beside her.
“Of course it’s a lie, but it’s still part of our story,” Coraz Freebrood said. “Part of who we are, where we come from. I’ve heard it a thousand times, and never once thought I’d see the Gates for myself. Not while I was still alive, anyway. But here we are, for better or worse, before the actual Shattered Gates. It’s only appropriate to tell the old story before we start a new one, don’t you think? So, get on with it, girl.”
Sabira shrugged. “Long ago, before the shattering, the Nine Gods came through the Gates and warred with the Old Masters of Nahgohn-Za.”
“The Old Masters?” Derev Freebrood shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Before the Gods came, the Old Masters, the Nahg, were the masters of machines.” Coraz looked at Derev, his small, intelligent eyes crinkling at the edges. “According to the story they told us in Medic discipline, when the Gods came through the Gates, they came to the Old Masters first, trying to impose Their Divine Will. The Nahg had the audacity to say, ‘not interested,’ and sent their war machines to fight the Gods. Didn’t turn out well. The Gods destroyed their war machines, then wiped out the Old Masters. Nearly wrecked the whole planet while They were at it. That’s why we had to live underground on Nahgohn-Za.”
“I thought you wanted me to tell the story,” Sabira said.
Coraz made an off-hand gesture. “Go on, girl. Go on.”
Sabira continued. “The Gods took the few remaining Old Masters and transfigured the Nahg into the Nahgak-Ri, the Divine Masters. Instead of machines, they became the masters of life. All life. It was the Divine Masters’ duty to unify every living being in the galaxy under Divine Will.” That had been my dream once, too, conquering the stars and all that lived, for Masters and Gods. Sabira shuddered.
“But the Gods were betrayed. Trickster allied with the Vleez, and shattered the Gates of Heaven, forever separating the Gods from us. The Vleez have been at war with the Holy Unity ever since. In the Servants, we were told we had to eliminate the Vleez and the other races of the Monarchy entirely. Unify the local cluster first, and then the rest of the galaxy. Grandfather told me that only when the Divine Masters finally unify all living beings will the Gods return through the Shattered Gates.”
“That’s what I believed, too,” Cal Freebrood said. At sixteen, Cal was the youngest of them and didn’t have a shaft glyph tattooed on his pale right cheek. Though only five years younger than Sabira, he looked more childlike. He and Edlashuul, an orphaned vleez, had been chasing their pet eeshl around the observation deck, looking like young deities at play in the cosmos. “I believed it all . . . until Maia and Gabriel set us free.”
“And Orion, too,” Dawn said. “He gets pouty if we leave him out.”
“Maia’s story sounded even more fantastic than my grandfather’s,” Sabira said. “After all those years of being told that the Divine Masters had created Humans to be their property, it was hard to believe anything else.”
“You all had the eon to help you understand,” Dawn said. “I couldn’t drink it since I’m pregnant. But I still think I accepted easier than you, Sabira.”
“Hearing that the Overseers had taken our ancestors from Humanity’s homeworld thousands of years ago, and fled through the Gates before the shattering, just seemed so . . . blasphemous!”
“That’s what the Godseers and Overseers did. They made us think truth was blasphemy,” Cal said. “Now, we get to see what a Human world is like without Overseers and Divine Masters controlling everything.”
“Gabriel and Orion call us the first diaspora, the first to leave,” Sabira said. “Now we’ll be the first to return.” And the first to leave the Unity and the suffering of its nameless humans behind. Was it wrong to start a new life under distant stars, when countless others would never have the same opportunity, or even dream such liberation existed?
“What will it be like? Going through the Shattered Gates, I mean.” Derev shifted from foot to foot, still unsteady on his prosthetic leg. “Do you really think Orion can get us through?”
“—Orion did it before to get to Dlamakuuz.” Edlashuul’s voice was translated from Vleezian by the respirator he and the eeshl always wore to breathe the Human atmosphere. “He can do it again.”
“If anybody but Orion said they had done what no one else in two thousand years has been able to do, I’d kick them in the knee. But after everything I’ve seen . . . I believe him.” Sabira gestured toward the nearing megastructure and glowing nebula. “In the meantime, let him handle it while we enjoy the view.”
A muffled whimper informed Sabira that perhaps not everyone found the view enjoyable. Her cabinmate on the ship, Torque Freebrood, lay trembling and curled into a ball on another foam couch, face buried into the cushion.
Sabira let go of Dawn’s hand, then went and knelt beside Torque. She tried to gently caress Torque’s shoulder. The former Mech cringed away, burrowing deeper into the couch. Sabira remembered she wasn’t fond of being touched, especially when she was upset, so she took a seat beside her without making contact.
Sabira’s sembler-made drum sat nearby on the floor, looking like it soared through the starry void. Torque must have brought it with her. Sabira picked up the small drum and placed it between her thighs. She tapped out a short rhythm. The drum didn’t sound bad, but it didn’t sound right either. Drums were for servants, and though she had left that life behind, the drum’s familiarity comforted her, even if it sounded different. Well, Sabira was different now, too. Besides, there wasn’t any chance of crafting a new one from real pillarwood and cug hide.
Torque whimpered again, continuing to shiver.
“Orion, can you come here a moment?” Sabira looked around when she called his name. She knew he wasn’t in any one direction, but the natural urge to look for him would take time to outgrow.
In the space in front of her couch, a pale gray mound of smart-matter forma extruded from the floor, as if growing from the void. A quiver ran through the mound from base to top. Wild, tangled spikes extended from the back; a sharp face coalesced in front. The bust of Adept Orion Hanada, the ship’s pilot and captain, took shape and regarded Sabira with a lopsided smile.
“What’s crunchy?” Orion asked.
“I deep love the observation deck you made for us. Extra gold. But can you shrink it down for a while?” Sabira nodded toward Torque.
Orion winked, his dark eyes sharp as daggers. When he spoke next, his voice filled the room so everyone could hear. “We’re coming up fast on the Old Portal, and I need all the calculating crunch I can get my minds on, which means a slightly smaller display until we are through and beyond.”
Cal and Ed groaned in complaint as stars and void contracted, leaving a dark blue ceiling and green floor in their passing. The image of the megastructure and nebula shrank, so that the view outside the ship filled only one wall.
Even within the smaller display, the shadowed, triangular opening gaped ever wider as they neared. Crimson and scarlet gasses filled the background. Electric discharges arced, scattering across the megastructure’s nine shattered tentacles. The rusted iron coloring of the debris flashed pure white beneath the great branches of lightning. One of the Gates’ many mysteries was how it retained its basic form, even after shattering to bits in hard vacuum.
“I like it better this way.” Dawn crossed her arms protectively over her pregnant belly. “I was starting to feel dizzy. Oh, Torque. See me, are you feeling alright?”
“I’m functional.” Torque peeked her head up, plainly relieved by the display reduction, but not yet ready to uncurl.
“There’s a seat by me if you want it,” Dawn offered.
“I’m functional,” Torque answered.
“Young woman”—Coraz touched Dawn’s wrist at her pulse—“you need to tell me when you’re not well.” Coraz had been a medic in the Unity and still looked after the medical needs of the Freebrood, especially Dawn.
“I’m not feeling deep bad,” Dawn answered. “Don’t worry. I’m functional.”
Derev placed his broad hand on her shoulder and gave a tender squeeze. “You should listen to Coraz, though, even if you don’t feel deep bad.”
Dawn gently patted his hand.
The forma bust of Orion began melting back into the floor. “I really do need as many of my minds as I can muster right now. But call if you need anything.”
Edlashuul picked up the eeshl in two of his four hands. He and Cal ran over, and Ed held out the eeshl to Torque. “—Want to hold her?”
At the sight of the little six-legged creature, Torque partially uncurled. Ed placed the eeshl in her lap.
“Where did Zonte and Playa go?” Cal asked. “They were here before.”
“They decided to watch from their cabin,” Sabira explained.
“Again? Didn’t they drill a shift ago?”
“Are you keeping track?” Sabira teased.
“No. It’s just hard not to notice.”
“That’s no lie.”
“I’m surprised you’re not with them.”
Sabira gave him a sidelong look. “You know?”
Cal answered with pursed lips and a look of his own. Sabira had shared Zonte and Playa’s bed after Maia and Rain’s funeral. It had been beautiful and heartbreaking and binding. Zonte and Playa’s love was something utterly rare, something to be cherished. They had been generous to share a little of that with her, when they were all hurting, needing to heal, and grateful to be alive after so much trauma and death.
“It was just that one time.” But if they offered again . . . “Not that it concerns you deep much.”
Cal turned to the quickly approaching Gates and changed the subject. “It’s even more incredible than in the stories. I wish Rain could see it. And Maia.”
“I do, too.” Maia had once told Sabira that even though they had to flee the Warseers and return to the Constellation, she intended to come back to this star cluster again. She wanted to bring the eon sacrament to the nameless and unseen humans enslaved by the Holy Unity, to free their minds along with their bodies. Sabira thought it was a crazy, selfless, and remarkable goal. Her throat tightened. Maia would never see her vision realized, because Sabira hadn’t been able to protect her.
Cal took Sabira’s hand in his own. “It’s deep incredible any of us made it.”
She squeezed his hand, before letting it go to rub the scar of her left breast. She traced the familiar slash of hard tissue.
“This is a momentous occasion! Who would like some wine?” Carrying a bottle and stack of glasses in each gloved hand, Emissary Gabriel Mbala entered the observation deck. He wore his official Emissary uniform of dark purple and blue, trimmed with gold.
Gabriel and Orion, the two surviving founders from the Constellation side of the Gates, were the only humans aboard the Shishiguchi not to be former slaves of the Holy Unity. They called themselves the second diaspora, descendants of the second wave of migrations from Humanity’s original homeworld of Tierra. Gabriel’s obsidian complexion stood in stark contrast to the pale alabaster of Sabira and the Freebrood. His long, ropy locks had been brutally shorn by warseers after they were captured on the Vleez world of Dlamakuuz. Instead of growing his hair back, he kept his scalp shaved smooth like Sabira’s had been naturally.
Lately, Sabira had begun growing a thin white fuzz on her head, as had most of the others. She ran her fingers through the new hair along her scalp. Still such an odd sensation. The Masters had genetically modified humans to be nearly hairless and drained their skin of pigment to better suit life underground. Somehow, drinking the eon had stimulated latent hair growth. Perhaps it had something to do with the eon flushing the psychotoxins from their systems. Perhaps it was something else entirely. Many mysteries surrounded the eon.
Even though Gabriel’s smile beamed, and his proud voice filled the room, Sabira caught a twinge of sadness that darkened his look. Since Maia’s death, the golden gleam in his eyes had dulled.
Though he never showed any aggression toward her, Sabira couldn’t help but wonder if Gabriel resented her for blocking his revenge. She had to admit, if their places had been reversed, she would hold that grudge for a long time. But she had to stop Gabriel’s vengeance. She couldn’t have stomached Grandfather Spear’s death, no matter how much he deserved it for killing Maia and maiming Gabriel.
The Emissary uncorked the bottle and poured. “Who wants the first glass?”
Cal perked up. “I do.”
“Think again. Here, Torque, have some. It’ll help.” Gabriel passed her the glass, then poured another. “One day, I hope to show all of you the West Valley region of Babylonia, where both myself and this lovely bottle of wine come from. It’s beautiful country. Rolling hills, blue skies.”
Derev took the offered glass. “Is your family still there?”
“Some of them, yes. Both of my parents and one of my brothers work for the Embassy as well, so who knows where they might be.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Dawn said. “Can we go there first? I’d love to meet your family.”
“Our first stop will be Krishnamurti Tower.” Gabriel handed a glass of wine to Sabira. “A science station in orbit around our side of the Old Portal. Orion and I have some friends to check in with there. We’ll have to go through standard quarantine at the tower while I establish your refugee status, and then you can all begin your new lives in the Constellation.”
Sabira sipped her wine. Its tart, rich taste still required some getting used to. So did the idea of a new life. She’d been so focused on escaping her old one, what to do with a new one was a question she hadn’t spent much time with yet. Once her new brood—her family—was safe in the Constellation, if there was a life for her where she could leave behind violence and death, she’d take it.
“Coraz, yours is coming right up.” Gabriel sloshed wine around the mostly empty bottle. “Have no fear. Still enough left for both of us.”
“I hope you brought enough for everybody,” said Orion’s disembodied voice. “New guests are crashing our little party.”