YOU’RE HERE EARLIER than expected.” Sabira had finished bathing after her morning exercises when the dome announced someone at her door. She had opened it to find Coraz Freebrood’s round face staring back at her.
“I usually check in on your blood-grandfather first.” Coraz stepped inside. “But he had visitors. So you’re first today, girl. How are the headaches?”
Visitors? Keeping Spear out of sight and over the hill had kept the peace so far. Hopefully, Dawn hadn’t decided that Maia’s killer was still living too close for her liking.
“Gold, extra gold. Only deep hurts when I get dehydrated.”
Since arriving on the Safehold a week ago, Sabira ran daily laps, practiced combat disciplines using tree branches for weapons, and she pushed herself to exhaustion. Each day the headaches were a little better. Meanwhile, Krishnamurti Tower, the Shishiguchi, the CDV Egalitaire, and the Legacatic Republic cruiser stayed put—as much as anything can stay put in orbit—each seemingly waiting for one of the others to make the next move.
“Who’s visiting Spear?”
Coraz went about the diagnosis ritual, laying hands on pulse points, hearing lungs breathe, and prodding the back of her head. “I see. Breathe deep now. Gold, that’s gold. Those two Lead Shastri were at his dome when I arrived. They could have let me know. Saved me the trouble of hiking back and forth.”
“She managed to pull herself away from Ed?” Since their arrival at the tower, Aquila had taken a keen interest in Edlashuul and the eeshl. She seemed especially intrigued with how their sense tendrils, so utterly alien to human eyes, ears, and nose, perceived the world.
“Guess she finally broke free of the boy’s charms,” ahn said. “How have you been sleeping?”
“Alone.”
Coraz bobbed ahns head side to side, as if rolling around a thought. “Well, when we move on to the Constellation proper, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of boys and girls to help you with that.”
When? More like if we move on to the Constellation proper . . .
“That’s not . . . I mean, you know, falling asleep without anyone else around is deep weird. On the Shishiguchi, Torque and I shared a cabin. Before that, in the warrens, in the Servants, there were always so many others. First time I ever really slept alone was in the Embassy. I had so much on my mind, sleeping alone was the least of it.”
During those first days in the Embassy, she had spent her time hatching plots to escape and find a way to get her and Daggeira back to the Servants. Now, she had no plans. No schemes. Nothing but lying alone in her dark little dome with no one to talk to, or to drill. Nothing but that gnawing feeling at the back of her mind that she wasn’t a slave anymore, but that she wasn’t yet free either.
And that Daggeira’s heart was still beating while Zonte’s had long stopped. That needed fixing. But she couldn’t see any passage leading to that end. Not yet.
Coraz nodded and leaned back against the little desk.
“When I can’t sleep I use that thing.” Sabira pointed at the desk “Trying to learn Connish, some Constellation history. Usually it’s so boring, I’m asleep and dreaming before long.”
“Strange dreams?”
“Huh?”
“Have you been having strange dreams? Most of us have since we arrived.”
“Sure. I guess.”
“Want to tell me about them?”
Daggeira wrenching the nihkazza from Sabira’s hands. Daggeira’s weight crushing her. Daggeira smirking as she slit open her throat, or drove the tip into her belly.
“Why are you doing this?” Agitation added a harsher edge to Sabira’s voice than she intended. “Poking my skull isn’t enough, now you want to see what you can pull out?”
“Sometimes dreams offer insights into health. It can be helpful to talk about them.”
“Sometimes it can be helpful to be left alone. Why are you still acting like you’re a medic, anyway? We left our shafts behind. Between the CDF and the Emissaries, there’s plenty of medics aboard.”
“You’ve been talking to Cal.”
“How’d you know?”
“He gave me the same speech. Why am I acting like I’m still in the Medics shaft? Because I want to, that’s why. See me, girl, we’re all brood now. Even if some of us aren’t happy about it, that’s what we are. And I’m going to take care of my brood the best way I know how. Even if you act like an ungrateful pain in my ass about it.” Ahn stood. “Besides, if I didn’t do something to keep myself busy, I’d lose my drilling mind. No one wants to see that.”
“That’s no lie.”
The dome announced that someone else was at the door.
“You’re a popular one,” Coraz said.
“Must be Gabriel and Persia. They like to come by and drop hints about cooperating with Arkrider at least once a day.” Which Sabira really wasn’t in the mood for, right now. She couldn’t stop thinking about Aquila and Jiddu visiting Spear’s dome and wanted to see for herself what they were doing.
“I better look in on our two pregnant girls. In the meantime, stay hydrated and don’t get hit in the head. See you tomorrow.” When Coraz opened the door to leave, it wasn’t the two Emissaries on her porch, but Derev. Torque crouched half-hidden by his broad frame a few meters behind.
“We brought you something to eat.” He held a plate of something round and colorful.
“None for me.” Coraz stepped around him. “All these unlimited rations, my fat ass will be rolling around in circles soon.”
Sabira joined Derev on the porch. She gave Torque a quick nod. At least Torque wasn’t hiding from her anymore. Sabira still needed to apologize to her, but as the days ticked by, she couldn’t find it in herself to apologize to anyone about anything.
“It’s cake,” Derev said with a big, warm grin. “And it’s the best thing in the galaxy. Have some.”
Sabira accepted the plate. A small dome shape decorated in colorful swirls sat in the middle.
“Torque’s been helping me find and make different things to eat from the semblers,” Derev continued. “Some of them were pretty odd, right Torque. Then we found cake and decided you needed to try it. Go on, have a taste.”
Sabira shrugged and took a bite.
Her mouth rejoiced. Her reaction must have been obvious, because Derev’s grin spread even wider. Even Torque smiled a little.
“See, I don’t lie,” he said. “Best thing in the galaxy.”
Sabira greedily downed the last bites and handed him back the plate. “It just might be.”
“If you like that, there’s also mochi. And ice cream! We can show you how to make it with the sembler if you want. Or I can bring you some.”
“Not now.” Sabira was already stepping away, heading into the grassy circle. “Tomorrow maybe?”
“Sure, we’ll come by tomorrow, Torque and I. With mochi.”
Sabira considered getting some more of that cake first. It really might have been one of the most wonderful things in the galaxy. But curiosity pulled her. She headed south, then stopped mid-stride and turned back.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, both.”
“We see you.” Torque lifted her face, made fleeting eye contact, and ducked away. She snatched the empty plate from Derev’s hands, then jogged over to the sembler/cycler kiosk.
“We both do,” Derev said.
Sabira walked past the disc that marked the lift and its control stand. Beyond the domes, she spotted Ed teaching Cal how to climb a tree. The eeshl slumbered nearby. As Sabira cut across the slope of the south hill, the perimeter display emerged into view. Massive, sluggish eddies of bloody red filled the wall, bathing trees and grass in a wash of scarlet. The Safehold’s orbit around the Gates took them through the outer reaches of the nebula. The ship kept its orientation, so that the tower and the Gates always lay off the sanctuary’s east, while the nebula and the star cluster appeared to rotate continuously around them.
Approaching Grandfather Spear’s dome, Sabira heard him telling the same stories—lies, really, all lies—about Humans and Divine Masters that he had told her all her life. How the Divine Masters, newly ascended as the Nahgak-Ri by the grace of the Gods, created Humanity in the deep tunnels of their ruined world. How it was a Servant’s purpose to unify all life in the galaxy under the Masters’ reign. How all of this was decreed by Divine Will.
Jiddu, Aquila, and Persia sat on cushions beneath golden trees beside the south pond. Two white and chrome nodes orbited slowly nearby. Instead of mocking or correcting Spear for the errors in his stories, they appeared to want more, constantly asking for additional details and context.
“—And this Loshan Bastion where you were detained, what connections does it have to your Nahgak-Ri?” Jiddu asked.
“No connection,” Spear answered. “It was a hive of abominations. Nothing divine about it.”
“There’s more to it than you know, Grandfather.”
They hadn’t noticed her arrival until then. One of the hovering nodes pointed its lenses at her.
“Sabira, I’m so glad you joined us,” Persia said. “Please, have a seat.”
Aquila beamed a smile at her. That one was always smiling. What an odd thing to do. “Please sit. We’d love to hear more about Loshan Bastion. You were the only one to make it all the way inside? To the Hara, they called it?”
“The only one to make it out, too.” Sabira looked at Spear. He neither greeted her nor gave any indication he wanted her to leave. After a brief glimpse from his mismatched eyes, he turned to watch the monitors.
“What you really want to know about is the Godsfall superweapon.” Sabira eyed the node that mechanically eyed her back. “About how to get it for yourselves.”
“—We seek knowledge.” Jiddu stroked his thick black mustache. “Data. Facts. That’s why the ARW exists. To bring together the best minds of the Constellation, so that, collectively, we can better understand the mysteries of the universe.”
“I doubt that Commander Arkrider is trying to understand the universe.”
“Commander Arkrider wants to keep everyone safe,” Persia said. “To do that, he needs information.”
But what would he do with that information? As Sabira had learned from Maia and her sacramental brew, just because you were given truth and facts doesn’t mean you would believe them, much less understand the contextual foundation supporting that truth.
“Have any of you imbibed the Oracles’ eon?” Sabira asked.
“I have,” Aquila answered. “Only a small dose though. Not the full three-night ritual. Still, it was truly wild. All of you except Spear and Dawn went through the full ritual, right?”
“Supposed to. My third night was interrupted.”
“—As I understand it, eon is brewed from a mixture of plants found only on Tierra and Nu’esef,” Jiddu said. “The hallucinogenic effects, combined with environmental conditions created by the Oracles, often convinces the imbiber they’ve received profound insights of a personal, or even cosmological, nature.”
“You were close to Oracle Maia del Seta?” Persia asked.
“I was,” Sabira said. “Until he blasted a hole through her chest.”
In the silence, eyes darted to Spear and quickly away again. He remained quiet and unmoving as he stared at the nebula.
“And yet you gave him refuge when he asked for it,” Persia said. “Gabriel was right about you. A warrior with an open heart.”
“My heart is still beating, that’s all I know.”
“Will you help us then?” Persia asked. “Will you tell us about the weapon? About Godsfall?”
“I’ll tell you what I told Arkrider. Let me go back to the Shishiguchi. Take care of the others and keep them safe, but let me go with Orion, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“You want to leave?” Aquila’s green eyes widened with surprise. “You just got here.”
“She wants revenge.” Gabriel approached around the base of the grassy slope.
How under the rocks did he always dramatically enter the middle of conversations like that? Maybe it was something they taught in Emissary discipline.
“We lost one of our companions when they entered the Hara,” Gabriel continued. “Killed by a servant named Daggeira, who was in our care for a time at the Embassy on Dlamakuuz.”
“—Yet Playa blames Sabira for his death more than this servant.”
The look on Sabira’s face was all the confirmation she needed to give.
“You think vendetta is the answer to your problems with the Freebrood,” Persia said. “Not an uncommon tactic. Nor a particularly fruitful one, either. Did Gabriel ever tell you how the First Embassy was founded?
“Long before the Constellation or Republic were formed, the colonized worlds of the Home Cluster lived in relative isolation, but not in peace. Babylonia was rich with q-el and other valuable ores, yet, for generations, most lived in fear and want as different factions fought over resources and cultural beliefs. Each battle led to more battles. Every act of retribution led to more vengeance. It wasn’t until the first Emissaries brought the factions together, with a vision of restorative justice over retribution, that Babylonia truly found peace and prosperity. In time, the Emissaries brought that vision to more worlds throughout the cluster, bringing them into peaceful, mutually beneficial alignment.”
“Your people set aside their vendettas?” Sabira said. “It actually worked?”
“Nothing is easy as drinking water,” Persia admitted. “They burned the First Embassy to the ground. Second one, too. The third was bombed. But the fourth First Embassy, that one stands to this day.”
Sabira felt outnumbered and outflanked. Empty words about open hearts and restorative justice weren’t going to help her accomplish what was needed. Why wasn’t Orion here? He was smarter than all of them together, and he wanted to go back, too. He needed to do something about his father just as much as she needed to do something about Daggeira. Do something? Kill. She needed to kill Daggeira. Whether it was called restoration or revenge, she didn’t care. Only that it was done by her hand.
“What do you think, Grandfather? Should I tell them everything they want to know? Should I just leave Daggeira be, and find some way to put things right with my brood?”
With a wince of pain, Spear rose from his cushion and approached the monitor. His broad shoulders, now slightly stooped and weakened, had once seemed more powerful than the pillarwood trees of Warrens Zevna. He turned from the nebula to face them, but looked to none but his blood-granddaughter.
“These people are not your people. They are not your crew and not your brood. No matter how many stories I tell, they will never understand our ways, who we are. They fear you because you are stronger than them. They’ve taken you from everything you’ve ever known. They’ve even taken your weapons. Blade and gem that you’ve earned by conquest—where are they? This freedom you spoke so highly of—where is it? Not in this green prison. If they have something more they want from you, I would not offer it up lightly. Not until they have given you what you want, or until you’ve taken it for yourself.”
“Zonte, Rain, Maia, those losses have hurt us all.” Gabriel’s normally heavy voice was much softer now. “They died so that you and the others could have a new life, new opportunities you can’t even begin to imagine. That new life is here, now. Sabira, you’re just at the very start. Don’t turn back now. Don’t let their sacrifices be for nothing.”
Before Sabira could answer either of them, frantic shouting interrupted their gathering. Cal and Ed, with the eeshl darting around their feet, ran along the curve of the monitor wall, shouting and waving their hands.
“Hey! Hey! Something’s happening. The Shattered Gates. Something’s happening at the Shattered Gates!”