Jaqi
LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE tried to come see me. The nurses turn someone away every couple of minutes. “She is resting.” “She has performed great feats, yes.” “Yes, she already has a copy of the Bible.” “I do not think it is wise to give her any supplemental reading right now.”
The Thuzerians believe a potential Saint needs her rest, which is a fine idea. Also good, I reckon, as I’ve been eating all the fresh bread and sweet nut paste they can bring. Probably best to keep folk out when the Chosen Oogie’s got crumbs in her bed.
This time, my bone-masked nurse—being a nurse, his mask exposes most of his face save the nose—says, “I am very sorry, Sa—miss Jaqi, but this is one of the seven.”
“The seven?”
“Those who went into the heart of hell, and returned with the prisoners,” the nurse says. “Yourself, Adept Taltus, God honor his memory, the cross, the children, and two Zarra, God honor the memory of she who fell.”
I notice he don’t mention Scurv. I reckon our famous friend must be keeping a low profile as, if the holos told it even half correctly, vi killed one of them Saints.
“The surviving Zarra is here. Ah . . .” He frowns at his datapad. “Zarag-a . . .”
“Just call him Z,” I say. “Let the big slab in.” I’ve been hoping to see him. Glad he survived. And time to give him a piece of my mind.
Z comes around the curtain. At least . . . I think it’s Z, but he en’t got no tattoos! And no scars—that puckered scar from the poison sting has gone. He’s got new, ice-white skin smooth as a babe’s. Same build. Same frown. Whole new skin! “Slab! What is this? You starting over on them tattoos?”
He sits on the bed. Don’t look at me. Reaches out and pages through a couple of buttons on my monitor, like he’s checking my vitals, but I know my vitals is fine, and I know as much as he knows about blood, he en’t a medical sort.
“Z? You thinking about blood and honor again? Forget to talk?”
He speaks, and even his voice sounds different, like he got a new throat. “Suits.”
“Say what?”
“They found Suits inside of me. Microscopic Suits.”
“Oh. Nano-Suits? Like what took down the Vanguard ship?”
He grunts. I reckon that’s what goes for a yes among the Zarra.
I sit there trying to think of a thing to say, but he speaks up. “They heal my hurts, the doctors say. They are better able to speed my body’s processes—clotting, growing new skin, healing bones—purging poison.”
“That’s how you came through that explosion—” Hang on. “You reckon the Suits healed you back on the moon of Trace?”
“They must have. I told them not to interfere with me. I told them the knowledge in my head was my people’s alone, and they—they—” He starts to talk. In his Zarra language. I en’t ever heard it before. It’s low and guttural and has a lot of snorts and snarls and sounds like he’s about to let loose a coughing fit. “All has changed, and my honor has been stripped, cast away into space. Ancestors wait at the River of Stars, but I cannot call there. Not when my body is violated.”
I want to answer, but this is crazing news to me.
It weren’t me did the miracle.
All that time, all that messing with the nodes, a near-impossible thing I done, and I wasn’t a miracle worker?
Here I am, having done another miracle, only to find out the first one weren’t really it.
“How can I bear this?” He stands, sits down again. “They violate our world, and they violate our bodies—”
“You’re alive, slab,” I say, and reach out to run a hand over his soft skin. Real soft, brand new. “Without you, them seven thousand people we saved would still be dying in them mines. That’s enough.”
“It is not enough simply to live, Jaqi. I must live with honor.”
“En’t there honor in just living? Just fighting on through?”
He thinks for a moment. “No.”
“You’re hopeless.” I can’t help a chuckle. “Guess Araskar was right.”
“You knew?” Z tenses up like he’s about to fight me—but just glares. “You knew! You knew I was dishonored!”
“Didn’t know a thing, Z,” I snap. “Just something Araskar said.”
“What has he to offer this?”
“That whether or not I done a miracle, I had to act like a miracle worker.”
Z don’t seem to have an answering thought for that. I feel relieved, a bit. Oh, sure, I done some funny things with a node, but maybe I en’t no miracle worker after all. Maybe there en’t such a thing. Scary to think, but good all at once.
“I must return to Trace. I must challenge the Engineer and see why he has done such a thing.”
“Hold on now. You en’t going to go get yourself killed picking a fight with a planet full of Suits, Z.” I get up out of the bed, despite the way the hospital gown blows freely around my starkers. “Kalia read me Araskar’s report on Shadow Sun Seven. You could have gotten out. You could have kept X alive. And without them Suits inside you, you would have died. Araskar would have too. Way I see it, you were doing your best to get killed, here when I told you to stay alive!”
“The Faceless Butcher—” Z starts to say.
“Heard about that too. Reckon you owed him quite a debt. But Araskar was right. You had a mission.”
Z don’t say a thing.
“Should have stuck to the mission, if you cared about our Reckoning.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I sit back down on the bed, brush some crumbs off the spot next to me, and pat it. “I’m gonna be heated with you for a bit, Z, but I want you to sit here anyway and keep me some company. I can think of a few ways to take our minds off miracles and honor and—”
“No.”
“What?”
“Jaqi, you are right.” Here’s a thing I never thought I’d see. The big slab is ready to cry. “I have no honor. I do not even understand honor. I am a child. I have learned nothing from the time when I was pit-fighting, thinking that only in battle can I find honor.”
“Now Z, I didn’t say all that.”
“I must go. I am truly sorry. You are a shining soul, Jaqi. A true Jorian come again, and may the galaxy have rest from pain by your gifts. Do not give into despair, in the dark days coming.”
“Z—don’t run off!”
“I must.”
“En’t you learned anything? You can just live! Don’t need to go.”
But in the time it takes me to say that, he’s gone. I’m left staring at the curtain.
A few minutes later, I hear one of the nurses turn someone away, with a snap of, “No, she is tired, and she does not do miracles on command!”
Sure don’t.
* * *
Araskar
It’s a good thing the Thuzerians have a nice hospital facility. I get even more synthskin over the burns, some gel-grown tissue replacing the parts of myself I broiled away. I must have more synthskin than the real stuff now.
It’s a lot of work to preserve a grunt like me. They treat me like an actual sentient, not something vat-cooked.
The Thuzerians also have a tranquilizer that puts me down for a good seventeen hours. It’s the most sleep I’ve had, ever.
When I wake, the ship is still crossing the nightside of their planet, with the scattered lights of population centers dotting the darkness below, like clustered stars, reflecting the sky.
I lie in my bed, in what I guess is a long-term patient room, my face pressed against the window.
Down there, seven thousand refugees are being sorted, fed, clothed, cleaned. For once, my actions have resulted in lives lived, instead of lives lost. For once, this was about civilians saved, not slugs, not soldiers, but civilians. I spent so long trying to protect my own battalion and failing, it’s a funny feeling to have succeeded at this.
Seven thousand.
Funny things, numbers. Over the thousand-year lifespan of the Second Empire, eighteen trillion crosses died fighting in the Dark Zone, taking heavily armed dreadnoughts to destroy Shir nests, to use planet-crackers and dark bombs and techno-viruses to try and kill those monsters, whatever they are.
And then John Starfire, with a force of maybe a few hundred thousand, put a stop to that. Promised us something like peace.
Now he’s well on his way to killing every human in the galaxy. Three trillion humans in the galaxy, and seven thousand is but a tiny sliver of that. There’ll be other bluebloods, hidden in other dark spots like Shadow Sun Seven. There’ll be mass graves, whole empty corners of space filled with corpses.
There’ll be new Shir nests, soon enough, springing from the Dark Zone into the wild worlds. Millions of new Shir.
All because we had to have one. A Chosen One.
One. Just one. We want to think that one person in this galaxy of ten trillion sentients can change something. I think that says less about the Son of Stars than about people in general.
Hang on. I hear something—no, I feel something. A faint stirring of strings, and winds, a faint symphony rising in the distance, a few crackling electric notes.
My door opens.
“Yes?” I roll over, wincing at the fresh pain in my leg.
“Araskar?”
“Jaqi?” I sit up. “Didn’t expect you.”
She closes the door. “You didn’t feel me coming through that music you always going on about?”
“A bit,” I say. “But I thought you would be—I don’t know, with the kids, or with . . .” I don’t say with Z.
She creeps closer, stops halfway across the room. “Hope no one’s expecting me. I’m trying to sneak around. May be the last sneaking around I ever do, what with being famous.”
I wait. She’ll keep talking; that’s how she is. It’s nice to hear her voice, after so many times clutching a soulsword and listening for it. Nicer to hear the music, sweeping over me with her this close.
“Salutes.” She sits down on the bed next to me.
“Salutes.”
“They done released me from the hospital, gave me a room, and I think they figure I’ll stay put, but I needed to do some thinking.” She catches a look out the window. “En’t that pretty! Look right there.”
We’re crossing the terminator line; below, night shades into day on a vast ocean, a wide blue thing dotted with brown and green islands, covered in a feathering of cloud.
“Would be nice to get down there, breathe some real air and eat some real matter.” She sits back.
“Oh, yeah. I bet a lot of that’s agricultural. Apples and potatoes, and chickens in pens eating all the protein that’s not fit for the planetside. They’ll serve you up a nice crispy bird, and plenty of vegetables on the side.”
“Quit making me slobber.” The music shifts, yearning with slow sweeps of deep stringed instruments. “I can’t go down there without getting all worshipped and nonsense.”
“I might have something to eat.”
I reach into the pockets of the coat I wore—just an everyday, normal coat the Matakas provided, now rather singed—and fish out the crumpled, partially melted remains of the Routalais chocolate I bought on Shadow Sun Seven.
“I’m sure it got damaged in the explosion,” I say. “But I figure you and the kids would like the chocolate.”
She snatches it out of my hand. “Slab! You didn’t!” She breaks off a bit of it and starts chewing on it, winces as she realizes the wrapper has melted partially into the chocolate. “That’s fantastic. It must have gotten all fixed back up after it melted.”
“Not any worse for having gone through a pit fight, and an explosion? And near-vacuum? Also I bled on it.”
“Quiet, Araskar, I’m living in this moment. Mmm.” She keeps chewing, and stops, then says, “Oh, I’m sorry. You have some. Reckon you earned it.”
“I’m okay,” I say.
“What? Araskar, you been through hell and back a few times. You deserve a little something nice. What’s your garbled mouth taste like now? Blood?”
“Synthskin, actually.”
“Well, if you got the choice, why en’t you tasting chocolate?” She laughs, breaks off a piece and hands it to me.
I have to admit, it tastes damn good, even with the bits of the wrapper. The taste lingers in the mouth, and it’ll shade everything for the next few days. I may have a few good days, for the first time in a while.
“Finest thing in the whole universe, this,” she mutters through a mouthful. We eat in silence, then she says, “I’m leaving afore we make planetfall. Might have to steal one of them fancy ships, but I reckon Scurv and I en’t no strangers to that.”
“What? Why?”
“Reason you gave me back on Trace, slab. Gotta figure out what’s going on in the Dark Zone. Scurv says there’s a planet and star in there the devils don’t disturb. Vi can show me the coordinates, and I can find the node, what with the star-map the Suits decrypted.” She eats more chocolate, chewing in the silence. “You were right, slab.”
“Right about what?”
“I en’t no miracle worker, but I got to act like it. It was Suits who healed Z back on the moon of Trace.”
“Suits?” I suppose it makes sense now, since he’s become unkillable. Something has to live inside him, restoring him like that. “Nano-Suits. But how’d they get inside him? I mean, wouldn’t he have noticed?”
“They’re tiny. Crawled in his ear or some such.”
“Still.” I can’t help remembering the order of things. Z was nearly dead of poison on the planet Trace. Then he did die, on the moon. Back on Shadow Sun Seven, after he was shocked insensate, he was back up on his feet within a few minutes.
And I remember what Jaqi did with the sword. I remember how it felt.
Felt like a miracle.
Though I don’t say that. “Don’t be so sure.”
“Slab, I en’t sure about anything anymore. But it feels good. Feel a bit free now. I en’t the special oogie. But I can figure out what John Starfire knows. I reckon if we’re going to find some clue, something that makes sense of all this, it’ll be there. The devils leave the place alone for a reason.”
“A reason Scurv knows?”
“Vi en’t exactly wordy on that.”
“But you trust vim.”
“I think vi understands why John Starfire went bad, why we have to stop this crazing before the Resistance can kill most of the galaxy.”
“I should go with you.”
“I need you to stay here, slab, for a couple of reasons. One is that you got plenty of intel in your brainpan about what the Chosen One—or I figure he’s the Usurper now—is up to. The other is that I want you here, packed in with a batch of sword-wielding Thuzerians, because I reckon now you been seen elsewhere, John Starfire and half the galaxy going to come for you.”
“Well.” I snatch a piece of chocolate out of her hands, and she glares, grabs for it. I play a little game of keep-a-way, her reaching for it, me holding it just out of reach. “Come on, how will you kill John Starfire if you can’t steal some chocolate back?”
She smacks my face playfully, then snatches it out of my hand. “Just like that, slab. I learned this in them pit fights.”
“Easy. I don’t need any more scars.”
For a moment we’re silent, and for a moment, I think about telling her about the music, the way it swells and soars and lifts me, and how there’s something waiting for her, I know, not just a devil, though I can’t say how I know.
Instead, I realize she’s looking at me funny.
Shit, she probably thinks I’m about to drop a line on her, being playful like that. I’m acting like I haven’t acted since Rashiya.
Can’t help it. It feels good, to have done a mission for something other than death’s sake. “So, ah, you have a plan for when you get to this planet?”
“No.” She laughs a bit. “I en’t got a clue what I’m going to do about them devils. Scurv says there’s a temple there vi couldn’t get into, a thing filled with secrets. All the bits that don’t make it into the books.”
“You have to come back,” I say. “Don’t leave me alone, promising everyone the real Chosen One’ll be along any second now.”
“You’ll do well on your own, slab,” she says. “Head of the Reckoning, wielding a mighty soulsword.”
“Presenting a beautiful target.”
“Come on now. Fella like you? I en’t never seen someone so unkillable. And with them scars, there’s going to be a whole batch of warrior women lining up at this door.”
That leaves me speechless. “Scars?”
“A real mate don’t want a lover who’s too pretty.”
I’m well aware now that we’re just looking at each other, by the light of the planet’s dawn outside, silently eating chocolate, while the music pulses softly. It’s a shame she can’t hear it.
“What’ll you do once this is over?” she asks.
“Over? This is going to be over?”
“I have to believe it’ll be, slab. I have to believe that if I just figure out this miracle business, and this Dark Zone, and take out John Starfire, I’ll get something like a normal life. Then I can learn that reading, and see some nice shows, and drink some of the good booze and maybe even something like a family . . .” Her voice falls. “It’ll be someone else’s time to fight, once we’re done. That crazing talk?”
“Not crazing,” I say.
“You wish for that too?”
“I’ve never thought of it that way.” I hold up the last piece of my chocolate. “In my experience, all the good things in life are like this. Your memories might be the reason someone kills you. Might as well enjoy the moment, and make the memory good.”
She does’t say anything to that. Now that’s unusual. I wonder whether I offended her. Hard to tell by the low beat of the music—
And then she kisses me.
I haven’t been kissed by anyone, ever, save Rashiya. Jaqi’s different—hungrier, less familiar—but she breaks it off after a minute, turns away, says, “Sorry.”
“Why sorry?”
“Oh, seemed like the thing to do in the moment, and—well—damn it, Araskar, I’m about to go face them devils again, and I don’t see how I’m supposed to come out alive, and maybe you could just indulge a girl a bit?”
“Indulge.” I didn’t think I was so easy to stun into silence. “Indulge you?”
“You know!”
“I get what you mean, I just—I thought you hated me.”
“I en’t never been picky!”
Well, that’s . . . It takes me a minute to think of what to say, a minute in which the silence grows more pronounced. “That’s quite an endorsement,” I say with a forced laugh.
“So . . . you saying no.”
“No. I mean, I’m saying yes.” Damn, in my short life I doubt I’ve ever sounded this stupid. “I’d be glad to indulge you. I can’t say I’ve had much experience, truth.”
“For a fella so good at fighting, you ought to know the importance of coming on strong.” She lifts her shirt off. “I just want you to help me forget there’s a morning.”
I take off my own shirt, showing whole maps of scars. She touches my scars, each one. I touch her smooth skin. Slowly, just growing used to the idea of touching each other.
We were never made to love.
Never made to live.
But tonight, we do both.
* * *
Jaqi thinks I don’t hear her leaving. She doesn’t know I’ve been awake most of the night, just listening to her breathing, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her shoulder blades. I watch as she rolls out of bed, grunts and throws on her clothes, mutters something as she takes a sip of water from the bag hung next to the door.
And I watch the figure that stands outside the window. Floating right there in the vacuum, her green eyes piercing me through the clear plasticene, her red hair drifting in zero gravity. She lifted one callused hand, presses it against the window.
No. I turn my head away, look into the darkness. No, I don’t want to die anymore.
It’s a strange feeling.
And beautiful.
So this is living.
* * *
Jaqi
I make a seal check around the outside of the shuttle while Scurv examines the cockpit. Shuttle was due to take folk down to the planet; they will think we’re just another load of refugees, and we’ll be through the node before they’re the wiser.
Then I hear the voice say, “You aren’t leaving without us.”
Kalia says it with a smile, and I reckon I smile back. It is good to see them. I thought it best to sneak off, but truth is, I en’t got the strength to go into another risky situation like this without seeing the reason for it one more time.
The kids have been scrubbed, and look clean, well-dressed, the sorts of clothes they ought to be wearing. I feel strange, embracing them, as I still look a space scab, with my frizzy hair and my shipboard scrubs. I’ll always look the part of a spaceways scab, no matter what miracles I make. “Aiya, gonna miss you kids.”
“This is the whole reason we had that map!” Kalia says, from where she’s tucked her head against my neck. “Let us see it!”
I laugh a little, look over my shoulder at Scurv, who is giving the shuttle a once-over. “Would have been nice if someone told us that ahead of time.”
“Jaqi,” Kalia says, and pulls away from me. “Please. Let me come with you.”
“Kalia, I didn’t take Araskar—or Z, for that matter, why’d you think I’d take you?” I knew she’d have plenty of reasons, so I go and cut her off. “Your uncle needs you. Your brother needs you. Stay here. Guide them. The trouble en’t over, not a bit.”
“Jaqi, you can’t even read those prophecies! I—” She stops. “I think there’s something dangerous waiting for you. I’ve read the prophecies over and over, and I think that this is when the Children of Giants—”
“There’s plenty of dangerous things waiting for me on this mission.” I kneel down, pull Toq in my arms one more time, and signal for her to come here as well. “I got you here, all right? Now your uncle and them other refugees are going to need your help. They got to make their case to the rest of the galaxy, help the worlds see what John Starfire done wrong, turn the worlds against him.” Swez’s words come on back to me. “Most folk en’t thinking beyond their next check, and what makes it easier to cut that check. They en’t going to make a fuss if them bluebloods are gone. You need to make them listen, aiya? Make them see there’s more to worry about than what’s for dinner. You been through hell and back. You got words to say.”
She doesn’t answer. After a moment, she says, “Okay, well, promise me you’ll take the Bible.”
She shoves her own copy of the book at me, all ragged with her notes and folded pages. I hold it up, looking between her and this book. “Am I going to ask Scurv to read it to me?” I say. “Come on now.”
“Please take it.”
I don’t want to, but I do. Hell. This’ll be the death of me afore I even learn the words in it.