SORRY. NO WEAPONS can be taken aboard the Safehold.” Lieutenant Tavia Djeli stood solidly in the medbay entrance. Three marines waited at attention in the corridor outside. Djeli no longer wore a transparent bubble, and the marines’ faces were no longer hidden behind helmeted respirators. The two Lead Shastri had apparently cleared the ship and its passengers as disease free.
“Don’t think you’re all that sorry.” Sabira hopped off the medical cot to stand beside Grandfather Spear. A lem had just assisted him to a sitting position. She held out a hand to help him to his feet. He brushed both her and the lem away but remained sitting.
“You’re right. I’m not.” The corners of Djeli’s lips carved into her broad cheeks.
Sabira couldn’t tell if that was a smile or scowl. She pointed at the stun gun holstered on Djeli’s hip, then at the marines outside. “You have weapons. They have weapons.”
Grandfather Spear cut Sabira a look from the corner of his eyes.
“The Safehold is our ship,” Djeli said.
“And the Shishiguchi is our ship. Maybe we should stay here.”
Lieutenant Djeli hooked both her thumbs into her utility belt. “You could. We won’t force you off the Muyama ship by gunpoint.”
“Perfect. Hear that, Orion? We’re staying.”
“But it does put the asylum status of the rest of your family in significant peril.”
“They can stay on board, too. I’m sure nobody minds.”
“But they’ve already left.”
“What? They’ve all gone already?”
“Affirmative. Due to the heightened security risk you two pose, we’re taking you over last. Which is now.”
“Heightened security risk. Is that Connish for, ‘I threw you on your ass’?”
That one got a smile out of her. “Technically, I was speaking Swasa, but the little birds translate it all the same. I don’t have to bring you over in restraints, but it does sound fun.”
“Oh, I’m certain it does. But in whatever language you were using, you just said you won’t force me over.”
“No, I won’t. But you don’t seem to me like the type to abandon her family and ruin all their chances at a new life.”
You have no idea who and what I’ve abandoned.
“What do you mean?” Spear asked.
“The Emissaries have been hard at work with your asylum request. It’s an all-or-nothing agreement.”
“All or nothing?” Sabira squinted, her fists clenched. “Does ‘nothing’ mean they come back to the Shishiguchi? You send us back through the Shattered Gates?”
“I’m not sending anyone anywhere. I’m here to escort you and your grandfather to the Safehold. But if I were to hazard a guess . . . ‘Nothing’ probably means your family spends the rest of their lives in a detention center. And that meaning goes for Connish, Swasa, Fajik, or whichever language you prefer.”
“No.” Sabira took a step back. The medical cot blocked her movement. “Gabriel . . . he’d never allow that.”
“Emissary Mbala is no longer overseeing your asylum status.”
“Why?”
“‘Why’ is above my rank. But think about it. It’s been two thousand years since the Gates Infernal opened, and that’s when over a billion people ended up enslaved and taken God-only-knows-where in the galaxy. Suddenly you all show up like a bunch of characters out of the old stories. With an honest-to-God alien and his pet alien dog along for the ride. All while the Republic is breathing down the Constellation’s neck, trying to see if we’ll flinch.
“Sabira, no one, and I mean no one, wants to deal with you and your shit right now. You give them an excuse to stuff you all away on some prison moon in the ass end of the cluster, they’ll take it. And gladly.”
Sabira gripped the edge of the cot so tightly her fingers cramped. She looked at Spear. His silent gaze didn’t give her a thing. He was waiting to see what she would do.
“You don’t have to worry about us,” Sabira said. “We’ll come over to the Safehold, no restraints or stun guns required. Isn’t that right, Grandfather?”
“We will comply with instructions.” Spear eased himself onto his feet. With his right arm hidden behind him from the view of the lieutenant, he steadied himself against the cot to keep upright.
“I just need to stop by my cabin to get a few things,” Sabira said.
“Can’t do it,” Djeli replied. “Told you already. No weapons.”
“I’ve got other things besides weapons.” Sure, the nihkazza blade wouldn’t get past them. Maybe they wouldn’t know what a yarist gem was, and a deactivated palukai looked like a yellow and black stick. Those she might be able to take.
“I’ve seen your cabin.”
Sabira rubbed her right knuckles into her left palm. “Which means you’ve already taken everything.”
“That’s a negative.” Djeli’s eyes darted to the lem tidying up in the back of the medbay. “We don’t confiscate anything on a Muyama Adept’s ship. Not without the Adept’s permission. Now, if there’re no other questions, let’s get you two to the hangar.”
Djeli took two packages from a marine and tossed one on each of the cots. “Vacuum suits. Just in case.”
After they’d both pulled on their jumpsuits, Lieutenant Djeli led Sabira and Spear down the corridor to the lift. The three marines fell in silently behind. Sabira glided her fingers over the corridor walls. It had the appearance and texture of hard botanical reeds. Would she touch these walls and walk these corridors ever again?
The lift took them down to the hangar, where Orion-lem awaited them. His smart-matter body was tuned a woody green. Blue conkanj characters streamed vertically down his length, from spiked hair to toes. Behind him, an unfamiliar shuttle waited. Its running lights cast cones of stark illumination on the hangar walls, lined with images of trees and bushy plants.
“Adept Hanada, our squad is appreciative of your cooperation and hospitality during our stay aboard the Shishiguchi,” Djeli said. “We’ll take our leave now, with the last of the asylees.”
“Fly safely, Lieutenant,” he answered. “Take good care of them.”
“Only the best.”
Sabira approached Orion. “Is this it? Off to your next adventure?”
“You won’t be rid of me that quickly. I’m sticking around Krishnamurti Tower for a while. You’ll be able to see me from the Safehold.”
“See the Shishiguchi, maybe, but not you.”
“Eh, same thing.” He held out his arms to her and she embraced him. His lem body was warm and sleek while lacking a heartbeat or biorhythms of any kind.
“Don’t worry,” he said, pulling away. “Like I told you once back at the Embassy, it’s all just stories within stories within stories. Our story together isn’t over yet. Now, in the meantime, try and stay the fuck out of trouble.”
Though the design and aesthetic inside the shuttle were obviously different, Sabira found it oddly familiar. There were only so many ways to efficiently and safely harness a human for space flight. She and Spear were given seats in the passenger hold across from Djeli and her marines. Other than the passenger harnesses, there wasn’t much else in the hold. A tall locker stood by the airlock with spare vacuum suits and what looked to be emergency med and repair kits. All the weapons racks stood empty, which was disappointing, but expected. No ports or wall displays dotted the bulkheads, which was the most disappointing of all.
“Don’t we get to at least see the view?” Sabira asked.
“Not that kind of ship.” Djeli’s eyes twitched so quickly it was almost imperceptible. Sabira and Spear’s jumpsuit collars hummed and vibrated. Transparent forma sprung from the collars, enclosing their heads in a hard, clear bubble.
Lieutenant Djeli reached within her own collar and pulled out a pendant attached to a short necklace. It looked like three humanoid figures connected together by pairs of wings. Djeli kissed her right thumb, fore, and middle fingers, pressed the fingers to the pendant, then tucked it away. After that, from out of her collar an armored helmet formed around the lieutenant’s head. She gave the command to the pilots that they were all set. The shuttle, lifting out of the hanger, thrummed and swayed beneath them.
“What did you just do?” Sabira asked.
“Just a little prayer I say any time I fly.”
“A prayer?” Sabira looked to her left to see Grandfather Spear’s eyes cut toward her. She remembered Orion mentioned something about Djeli praying in his pagoda chamber, or at least pretending she was. “So you believe in the Gods?”
“I believe in one God. The God of the Final Covenant.”
“Huh. Is that a picture of your God on the necklace?”
“No, ma’am. That’s the three Revelation Angels that brought the Final Covenant to the community of prophets. It’s a symbol of my religion.”
“What’s an angel?”
“They don’t have angels where you’re from?”
“Gods yes. Angels no.”
“Angels are God’s messengers and heralds . . . and God’s wrath when necessary. Beings of great power that look like us, like humans, but with four wings of light and fire.”
Sabira darted another glance at Spear. He pursed his lips and asked, “Have you ever met one of these angels?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Me neither.”