SABIRA’S REFLECTION STARED back at her from the lavatory mirror. She hated what she saw. Hated the miasma of shame that haunted her every interaction, every touch. Hated the swollen pink eyes threatening tears that she held at bay with tensed jaw and clenched fists. Godsdammit, she never used to cry. But since drinking the eon, she had cried more in the past few weeks than in her entire life. Last time had been after Maia and Rain’s funeral . . . sharing a bed with Zonte and Playa.
Most of all, she hated that disgusting hair sprouting and curling all over her scalp, covering her glyph tattoos beneath tangled white fuzz. She wanted it gone, and she wanted it gone now.
Sabira pulled a small razor from a dispenser beside the mirror. She had never shaved before, had never needed to, but couldn’t stand that gross mess on her head a second longer. She splashed some water into her hand and rubbed it into her fuzzy scalp, then crudely dragged the razor over from back to front. Spots of red blood simmered up where the razor passed. With the lingering effects of the painkiller withdrawal, every swipe of the razor felt like scraping away a layer of skin. Seeing her bare scalp emerge after each pass brought some small measure of satisfaction.
Soon, what little hair she had grown had been sheared away and lay scattered at her feet. Thin rivulets of blood traced the small ridges of her head, dripped across the old black glyphs that marked her bloodline. That marked her as property. As much as she hated what those tattoos represented, seeing them unobscured once more comforted her with their familiarity.
This new life was so confusing, so alien from her old one. In the Servants, she only needed to be brave, faithful, and fierce. Her fellow servants would get hurt, would die, but the survivors would move on. If anger or resentment built up, they’d fight it out—or drill it out—during the drum rites. She always knew where to go, what to do next, or who to confront. Now, Sabira found herself lost in a maze of emotions and consequences she’d never been prepared for. Growing up in the Labyrinth below Nahgohn-Za, she had learned by heart the twists and drops of ancient mines and tunnels. This new maze—of freedom, of family—led down too many dark, blind corridors. Which paths were dead ends? Which turns led down endless spirals, or brought her to the edges of unseen, lonely pits?
In the mirror’s reflection, the lavatory door opened tentatively behind her. Torque stuck her head in. Face downcast, she darted furtive glances at Sabira.
“I can’t even be left alone in the godsdamned shitter.” Sabira grabbed a towel and wiped the bloody streaks from her head.
“We passed through the Gates,” Torque said, half in the doorway. “Came out in the right place this time. Just outside the Constellation’s Home Cluster.”
The nicks and scratches left behind by the razor blossomed red again. Sabira scowled and wiped them once more. “You coming in or not?”
“Orion said once we leave the stochastic horizon, we’re going to stop at a space station called Krishnamurti Tower. There’re people like mechs that study the Gates. That’s what he had to say about it.”
Sabira pulled the bloodied towel away and studied herself in the mirror. It took longer this time, but the bright red drops beaded up in all the same places.
“Drop it down the shaft and let it bleed.” Sabira squeezed the towel into a ball and threw it across the lavatory.
“This is it. We made it,” Torque said. “We’re free. Free to do whatever we want with our lives. I want to learn more about spaceships. Fixing them. Maybe even making them. That’s what I say.”
“I want the freedom to be left alone, but apparently that’s not coming true on this drilling side of the Shattered Gates, either.”
Torque pulled a small gray box from her pocket and placed it on a counter near the door. “Orion made these for us. Said to stick them on the round bony part behind our ears. He calls them little birds.”
Sabira turned to face her directly, though Torque kept her eyes down. Sabira eyed the box but made no move to pick it up.
“Orion said once we get to the station, he and the Shishiguchi’s nodes and lems may not always be around to translate. The little bird’ll translate everything people say into Khvaziz for us. And it’ll tell any local nodes or little birds how to translate what we’re saying into Connish for other people. More than Connish, really. They have lots and lots of languages in the Constellation. I haven’t learned much Connish yet, so I think this will be really good to have, that’s—”
“That’s what you say. I get it.” Sabira snatched the box and shoved it into her pocket. “Maybe with this thing, someone will finally understand me when I tell them to shut their mouth and leave me alone.”
Torque hunched her shoulders and covered her face in her hands. She turned to leave, but smacked into the door frame and stumbled back. Huddling further into herself, she hurried away.
Sabira’s chest squeezed tight, as if the sight of making her friend scared and upset somehow clamped down on her ribs, her lungs, her heart.
What in all the hells am I doing?
Sabira reached to open the door and follow Torque. Her hand paused and clenched into a fist instead. Turning back to the mirror she saw her own stupid face, dappled with bloody streaks, staring back at her. The face of the woman who chased away her friend. Who inspired shame and disgust in former lovers. Who let friends and family die. Whose treason led to the deaths of thousands.
Sabira yelled and punched her reflection. Cracks radiated from her fist, spreading a serrated web across the mirror, turning her image into a hundred jagged bits.
After three heaving breaths, she dropped her fist. Blood dripped from her knuckles. Slowly, shard by shard, the mirror began healing itself, each cracked and broken tributary sealing shut. Her reflection’s accusing stare wouldn’t be so easy to escape.
These wounds wouldn’t be so easily healed.
“Daggeira . . .” she whispered, studying the blood dripping between her fingers. “You didn’t have to kill him. Damn you. Orion could have slagged you all and I stopped him. You could have been with us. You could have been family. You didn’t have to kill him.”
She grabbed another towel and wrapped it around her knuckles.
Daggeira might think the same about her. That Sabira could’ve stayed loyal. That over two-thousand servants aboard the Pyramid Zol-Ori didn’t have to die for her freedom.
All those dead servants, dead humans . . . it wasn’t Sabira’s choice, yet she still bore the responsibility, no matter how much she tried to bury the memory of it. Maybe because she didn’t know them, because they weren’t the servants of her task and duty, because it wasn’t her pyramid, she thought she could leave it in the past. Not carry that weight. Not remember what her freedom cost others. Yet, no matter what she hoped to leave behind, the Gods, or fate, or meaningless dumb chance demanded what was due, and it was Zonte who paid. Zonte, when it should have been her.
No leaving some things behind . . .
“I know you can hear me.”
“What’s crunchy?” Orion’s disembodied voice answered.
“I need to go back.”
“Know you do. Same here. We both have glitches that need resolving. We both need to go back.”