Araskar
OUR CHILD HAS JAQI’S EYES. The minute she looks around the room, I can tell. Open, bright, inquisitive. You could mistake her for scared, but you would be wrong. She’s examining everything, from under her fuzzy crop of hair, her chubby little arms moving as if she still expects to be pushing against the inside of her mother’s womb. I half expect her to ask me if there’s any fresh veggies left, aiya.
I put my big, scarred finger in the little tiny hand, and the tiny brown fingers close on it. Her little clouded eyes look at me, and she twitches.
“You know me?” I say. “You recognize my voice?”
Our child twitches again, kicks out unthinkingly, but the swaddling wrapped around her legs keeps her contained.
“You know me?”
She looks up at me, almost like she’s saying yes. I think—no guarantee, mind you, but I think I see recognition in those eyes.
The music sweeps through me. A faint whistle, like a low organ, a rumbling like a piano in the distance, a shimmer of cymbals, and soaring melody like some instrument called down from heaven.
“Doing great,” the doctor tells me. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Thuzerian without a mask, exposing a scaly Sska face. They will remove them for sacred events, like a birth, and given that she’s just midwifed the birth of a confirmed Saint’s child, this event seems to have qualified as sacred enough. “Four hours of labor is a lot for a cross. We were worried.”
Jaqi and I have been sequestered during the last few months of the pregnancy—not much to do but talk to the ever-growing bulge in her middle. Now, Jaqi is lying down while the orderlies check her over—and over, and over, because they still seem to think she turned to glass when she became a confirmed Saint—for any damage from childbirth.
“Yeah,” I say, not really listening. Our daughter’s eyes flicker up toward the ceiling, down again toward me. Now she’s just back to being a confused little baby.
But for a moment there, we knew each other.
“Bring her over, Araskar, aiya?” Jaqi says, her voice soaked with exhaustion.
“Here she is,” I say, walking to the bed. Jaqi blinks up at me, her eyes half lidded.
“Hey there, fella. Hey there, little girl.” The baby curls up against her and paws at her breast, and Jaqi slips her breast out of the frock the doctors have given her, tries to get the baby to latch on. The little girl stares cross-eyed and opens her mouth and falls on the nipple. She tries like mad to fit the entire thing in her mouth, straining at it half-blind.
It’s beautiful.
God, I never thought I’d see this. Birth, to me, is an adult body being yanked from a vat, hooked up to a dump and absorbing information straight into the brain. At my birth, I got vacuumed down, and given a data dump about the glorious struggle of the Empire against the Dark Zone. By the afternoon, I was at the shooting range, making sure the data dump worked for target practice.
There was even more goo, and plenty of blood, this time, but it was like watching something from another plane.
“Got her mater’s appetite, ai?” Jaqi says. “Come on now. Latch on there. You can do it.”
The Sska orderly seems a little fascinated by the lactation. Not standard for her people, I’d guess. “Be patient. Even for crosses, this may take some time to settle into a normal nursing pattern.”
“How you feeling?” I ask.
“Hungry already,” Jaqi says. “Nurse, you got anything that en’t protein packs?”
“I can look,” the nurse says, with a resigned air. She is used to these requests from Jaqi.
I take my new guitar from the corner and pick at two very slow, subdued chords. I know more chords now, but I’m trying to give the baby some mood music for nursing.
“Come on, there, little Dina,” Jaqi says.
“Dina?” I ask. “You naming her already?”
“Dina was my mother’s name,” Jaqi says. “I reckon it works for a girl.”
I want her to be able to choose her own name, when she gets older, like I did. But as Jaqi points out, and has pointed out many time, she wants something to call the little girl when she’s toddling off.
“Dina,” I say.
It feels right.
I put the guitar down and collapse into a chair nearby. I can’t help noticing that everything aches more than it used to. And hanging out with Jaqi means that I don’t fold as well—we’ve been eating good, and my middle bulges when I sit.
Not that I would trade it for what I had before.
I blink, and realize I’ve just slept an hour or so, and the orderly is standing by my side.
“The Minister wishes to congratulate you.”
Kalia is fourteen years old and has changed, too. Something about those symbionts advanced parts of her aging process, but I suspect that governing in the madness of a war-torn galaxy has aged her all the faster. “How is she?” Kalia looks over at Jaqi.
“Sleeping, looks like,” I say. Kalia and I creep to the bed and I peel back the blanket to get a look at Dina’s face. The little baby’s cloud of hair is all dry now, and her lips are pressed together, folded together.
“Aww,” Kalia says, tracing a finger softly along one baby cheek. “She was so worried about the labor, but it sounds like it went fine.”
“Yeah,” I say, and then laugh. “Well, she screamed and threw a couple of things, and she bled a lot and there were other strange bodily fluids. All my instincts told me to draw my sword.”
Jaqi blinks and says sleepily, “Kalia, girl, I put a sign on the door. DO NOT DISTURB. I read the words myself and everything. And they made sense. Sounded like they was spelled. Unlike half them words you folk write down.”
“Sorry!” Kalia whispers. “I just wanted to see the baby.” She leans over and watches Dina sleep a moment longer. Can’t blame her.
I kiss Jaqi on the head and Dina as well, as gently as I can, and escort Kalia to the door.
“I need to speak to you in the situation room,” Kalia says to me.
“Ah, damn it, can’t it wait?”
“I told you it would wait until after the baby was born,” Kalia says. “The baby’s born.”
I think about saying no, but I don’t, because this is the kind of person Kalia’s become.
We leave the birthing room and go a few steps down the hallway. The communicator on the wall is disabled, but still, Kalia’s got a small, scrambled-frequency comm on the table. And a blanket in the chair. She’s been sleeping here.
Toq is in here too, and he runs to me. “Araskar! Did you have a baby!”
I pick the little guy up. “I did. Her name, at least for now, is Dina.”
“I want to see the baby!”
“Let Jaqi sleep, Toq,” Kalia says, sounding every bit the annoyed older sister.
His face falls. “You can wake her up, Toq,” I say. “She won’t mind seeing you again.”
“See?” he says to Kalia.
“If Araskar says it’s all right, Araskar can deal with Jaqi’s wrath,” Kalia says, and motions her brother to go.
It’s the most human Kalia’s been in a while.
She settles into a chair, flicks the holo. Father Rixinius’s face comes up. He’s still nursing a wound from the battle that kept us from Irithessa a week ago.
“Praise to God and all the Saints, including our newest confirmed Saint, Saint Jaqi the Lightbringer. Our fleet continues rearguard action against the Resistance forces at Galactic Center. We will soon move to the location we discussed”—that’s one of the disused nodes nobody but Jaqi knows about—“and with God’s help, we will assault Irithessa again, once we have resupplied.”
This is the first I’ve heard of this. My heart sinks. I knew it was possible, but it’s bad news all the same. “The attack on Irithessa failed.”
“The blockade is still too strong. The Resistance still controls Keil, and they can make ships and soldiers faster than we can.”
Kalia speaks up, adding to Rixinius. “If John Starfire is alive, like the rumors say, he’s still got a thriving movement waiting for him.”
“He’s dead. What are you going to do with the prisoner?”
Kalia doesn’t answer, an answer of itself. I can almost hear her saying, Whatever the hell I want. Not that Kalia would ever admit to that. She reaches down and grips the guns that sit naturally at her waist, massages the grip in a way that reminds me too much of John Starfire and his soulsword.
“You can’t prosecute Aranella,” I say. “Not now.”
“Just because she saved your life—”
“She made the operation against the Shir at Rocina possible. Without her, those mothering triads would have been busy elsewhere. We could have lost ten star systems, not four, before Jaqi . . . did what she did. You’ve run the numbers.”
“Aranella committed genocide,” Kalia says, her voice dark. “Remember Shadow Sun Seven? We’ve found six other dark spots like that. Close to a hundred thousand people died in ‘consolidation.’ And that’s what we know so far. The rest of the bluebloods from the central worlds have disappeared. Billions.”
“I’m not arguing with that. I’m saying that we can’t try war crimes as a coalition.” I try not to let the desperation show in my voice.
“I agree with Father Rixinius. The Thuzerians’ bylaws will have to do. There’s precedent. We wouldn’t be the first people to haul in war criminals under religious jurisdiction.” The last time we talked about this Father Rixinius was there, and nodding right along with Kalia when she said, Aranella is going to pay for the crimes of the Resistance.
“No. I won’t accept that. That’s the first step in a religious autocracy.”
“It is not.”
The silence hangs between us, Kalia looking petulant. Sometimes I can reduce this girl to sounding like a normal teenager. Less and less lately, but sometimes I can.
Kalia speaks again. “You never should have promised to let her go free.”
“There it is,” I say. “Can’t have a conversation without that.”
“By what authority could you make a promise like that? She’s just as guilty as her husband of war crimes. We deal with her, we show how we’ll react to his return.”
“John Starfire is dead,” I say. “I shot him off a planet-cracker then blew up the planet underneath him. He’s dead, all right?” Why does she always bring this up?
“You know what I believe.”
I know. Kalia says that she has six reliable John Starfire sightings since Rocina.
It’s nonsense. But as something between a missing, soon-to-return Chosen One and a martyr, John Starfire’s become very useful for the Resistance. And Kalia’s never hidden her disappointment at my failure to produce a corpse.
In the last five months of cross pregnancy and gestation, I’ve learned just how hard it is to change the reins of power within the galaxy.
The Reckoning is a movement, not a government, and all our allies—the Hukas, the Necros, the Thuzerians—aren’t interested in forming anything more than a coalition. Well, each one wants a government, but they want something different. The Kurgul nests and the Necros would like a very weak confederation subject to bribes. The Thuzerians would like a strong central government. A religious one.
We don’t want any of that. But we have to figure something out. The vats, as impossible as it sounds, are still running. The Resistance, depleted, with more than its share of defectors to the Reckoning, still believes and fights. We have the command of the nodes, but they have more ships every day. We’ll win eventually—the crooks of the galaxy are on our side, and that’s an advantage—but what then?
We’ll have criminals on one side, religious warriors on the other, and the bluebloods—led by Kalia—in the middle.
“Aranella is more useful as a prisoner,” I say.
She looks back up, and her face is that mask again, the mask she’s gotten so used to making. “Aranella is never going free, Araskar. You had no right to make that promise. Our next destination is going to have to be the Thuzerians’ system. It’s the only place you can raise that child safely. For better or worse, that’s where we’ll try her.”
I leave off saying anything there. If there is one thing Jaqi and I are very tired of, it’s believers treating her like the Chosen One. Well, she’s not tired of the part where they’ll bring her fresh food whenever she asks, but otherwise . . .
“Sleep,” Kalia says. “When you awaken, when Jaqi’s strong enough, we’ll go back to Llyrixa.” It has an air of finality about it. “You two and the child will be safe there. I can finally relax.”
“Kalia,” I say, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “You will never relax. Neither will I. We’ll always be looking over our shoulder, one hand on our weapon. We’ll always have the voices of the dead in our ears. You choose whether you listen to them, or you live.”
“Don’t tell me about the dead,” Kalia snaps. “You’re still a cross.”
The room goes as silent as vacuum for a moment.
And then she’s horrified. And she apologizes. And touches my hand, deliberately, tells me how tired she is. I nod along and say she’s forgiven. I go back to the birthing room.
My mind’s made up.
“Hey,” Jaqi says, as I climb into the bed next to her. “You’re looking like you just went a couple rounds with a Zarra.”
“With Kalia,” I say, and Jaqi groans. I lean in close to her, whisper in her ear. “Definitely not changing my mind now.”
Jaqi stokes Dina’s little cloud of hair. “I want this little girl to get raised normal, not in a monastery where folk treat her like she’s made of glass.”
“Me too.” I nestle my head against Jaqi’s shoulder. “I need to go see her.”
“Her?” Jaqi looks back at me, her eyes bleary. “Now?”
“You think I’ll get a chance when we’re surrounded by Thuzerians?”
“Just keep your wits up, Araskar.” She kisses me tiredly.
So I get up, and get dressed. Really dressed. Including the soulswords I don’t like wearing anymore. And I walk through the ship. Our ship is under blackout and secrecy warnings tight enough to keep the fleet from knowing whether the Chosen One—Jaqi—is really even here. Which means it’s not far to a prisoner who is also under blackout.
Aranella.
Vanaliel, now sporting a pair of synthskin-and-steel legs, guards her. She lights up when she sees me. Vanaliel was one of our most high-profile deserters. She’s devoted her life to paying me back for saving her. “Araskar,” she says. “I’ve asked to pray with her again.”
“Didn’t go for it, eh?”
“I used to think she had faith,” Vanaliel says, shifting. “Not anymore.” I nod. The victory has been good for the Thuzerians. They’ve attracted, for once, millions of converts and are opening up new monasteries on worlds all across the galaxy. Gives the Reckoning a few million new soldiers.
That worries us too.
“How’s the legs?”
“Better than new.” She dips her head, in just a hint of a bow. “Praise be to Saint Jaqi the Lightbringer. And the child.”
“Saint Jaqi’s got a few words for you.”
“For me?” Vanaliel goes white. Her brush with death really affected this girl. “The Saint wishes to speak to me?”
“Yes,” I say. “But not via a comm.” I press my soulsword into Vanaliel’s hands.
This is the big risk. Vanaliel’s our one wild card in the plan. But I’m pretty familiar with Jaqi’s ability to inspire people at this point.
So while Vanaliel speaks to Jaqi through the soulsword, I enter the cell. And Aranella turns and looks at me. That face. In the shadows, haggard from imprisonment, it looks even more like Rashiya’s. “You’re back.”
“It’s been a while,” I say.
“I heard celebrating. Did you have your child?”
“Yes. Named her Dina. She’s beautiful.” I pause. “I understand.”
Aranella doesn’t answer.
“I understand what I did to you when I killed Rashiya.”
“Araskar, I said I forgave you. What else do you want?”
“Peace.” I close my eyes for a moment, open them again. “Even when they thought you had betrayed him, the Resistance respected you. I need you to go back and build a coalition. I need peace. The longer this war goes on, the louder the extremists get.”
“You expect me to go back and preach this nonsense your Reckoning is spreading—that Jorians and humans were the same race?”
“Believe whatever the hell you want,” I say. “Just respect the cease-fire.”
“How are we supposed to get past your guard there?”
“The Saint has pull,” I say.
Aranella laughs. “I remember the same moment with John. The moment when he decided to take advantage of his followers’ faith, rather than try and run from what they wanted to put on him.”
“Let me guess. It was the moment he changed forever.”
“No,” Aranella says, standing. “Just one of many small changes. To the day he died, he was still the man I married, Araskar. He believed. That was who he was.”
And that’s another thing that worries Jaqi. “Come on.”
I step outside and face Vanaliel, whose face is streaked with tears. She hands the sword back to me. “I’ll do what she asks.”
Jaqi is never far from Taltus’s old sword, and it was more difficult to forge a connection between the two, but not impossible. The ship’s ready?
Node’ll open when I said.
We’ve planned this.
I hate what we have to do to Vanaliel. She’ll be the one who deactivates the sensory network within our ship. She’ll be the traitor at the highest level of her rank. She’ll be the one who faces Kalia’s wrath, and the wrath of all the other soldiers who believe as she does, because of what Jaqi and I asked. I saved her life because it was the right thing to do, not so I could call in a terrible favor.
I watch Vanaliel walk away, toward the sensor array.
And a moment later, I hear the telltale change in the hum of the systems that means the sensory block is in place.
“Let’s go,” I say to Aranella.
It’s a relatively quiet walk to the cloaked hangar bay, where sits the shuttle that has been home to Jaqi and me for the last few months.
“You’ll broadcast Sanctuary Acts refugee codes on every channel the minute you leave the node,” I say. “I assume they’ll be very interested in a stolen Thuzerian shuttle.”
She nods, looks between me and the shuttle.
“I hope you find your children,” I say. “Aranella. I really do.”
And then the strangest thing in all the universe. She embraces me.
I didn’t expect this one. Aranella’s not very good at hugging me. She’s stiff as a blade, her arms awkwardly wrapping around my back.
I start to pull away. “I uh . . . I didn’t expect—”
That’s when she yanks out my short soulsword, and stabs me.
I lurch backward, grab my long soulsword, draw it halfway, but by then she’s stabbed me three times.
That’s strange.
I’m so soft.
And it hurts. More than any other wound I’ve taken.
I stumble back, bleeding like mad from the gut wounds. I’ve got my sword out, but Aranella is already stepping back.
“I’ll give you your peace. But I lied about forgiving you. My daughter’s memories deserve their rest.”
And then she’s in the ship.
And I’m on the ground, bleeding from three deep stab wounds.
Not dead yet. Not dead yet. Plenty of time. Plenty of time, like I told my daughter. I drag myself across the metal floor, to a safe point away from the ignition of the shuttle, leaving blood and offal and probably pieces of my guts on the floor. Not dead yet. Just cut my guts. And by the amount of blood, maybe a few crucial arteries. I don’t have to examine it. My whole chest is aflame with pain.
But not dead yet.
This would be a stupid way to die anyway. I took Irithessa with the Resistance. I fought the Shir. I . . . I can’t remember what else I’ve done but I’m sure this would be a stupid way to die.
I just need to slap the emergency protocol door opener.
The emergency protocol that Vanaliel disabled.
It’s all right. I can tell Jaqi. I’ve got my sword in my hand—no wait, I dropped it when I fell. Did I? It’s hard to see. The light of the shuttle is washing everything out. I think I see the soulsword over there. I crawl along the ground.
I’m crawling, aren’t I? I can’t tell if I’m crawling or holding still now. I think my arms are moving.
It’s all right. Not dead yet.
Like I told Dina, we have lots of time.
All the time in the universe.