‘If you don’t accept TerraCorp’s generous offer, then I will continue to live with your mother,’ Colonel Lilon Neron stated, his voice devoid of any emotion as he delivered his threat.
Fei’s hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. She knew her mother wasn’t entirely happy about sharing the townhouse with Lilon and she suspected he wasn’t particularly pleased about it either — he had only moved in with Berale for the extra space, after all. But Fei wasn’t going to let Lilon manipulate her, even if she had made the mistake of letting him into her apartment.
The conference had finished an hour before dusk, despite how badly things had gone earlier. Agreements had been drawn up, stating that Bock now owned the twenty-nine functioning terraforming machines in return for surrendering all copies of the files exposing the connection between the Agency and TerraCorp. But GLEA knew Fei was Bock’s best hope for using the machines. So they’d sent her father along with a contract of employment. If she accepted it, Moz would be her boss again, but at least they’d offered her a pay rise.
‘I see,’ Fei said calmly. ‘You are attempting to use my mother’s happiness against me.’
‘Don’t be unreasonable about this, Feiscina,’ Lilon said from his position at the window, where he was studying the streets below as they became steeped in shadows. Yalsa 5’s nearest star was dropping below the horizon.
‘Unreasonable?’ Fei echoed. ‘No. I’m not that girl you destroyed. And I don’t think you cared that you did it. You certainly don’t care about Mum — you’re only in this for yourself. If you get me to sign this contract, your superiors will give you a better room and a promotion. That’s it, isn’t it?’
Lilon turned towards her, shaking his head, apparently disappointed. ‘Very well. GLEA will report to the mediaists — but not that Ton Tinel fellow, even if he did promise he would never use the footage from the conference — that you are a disgruntled former employee motivated by jealousy and greed. Your colleagues had more impressive salaries, after all.’
‘What!’ Fei threw her eyes up at the ceiling. ‘You mean I should have asked for more money before now? Is that it?’
‘The other programmers at TerraCorp are not as good as you,’ Lilon continued. ‘You knew this, of course, and were angry about their work being rewarded when yours was so much more superior.’
Fei scowled. ‘Moz. This is all on Mozel Zan. He wasn’t paying me enough because he could get away with it — I bet the budget always looked good in his yearly reports! He took advantage of me not being able to stand up for myself. But he can’t do that anymore, poor Moz…’ Her laugh sounded harsh and inhuman, even to her own ears. ‘You can smear my name. I don’t care. Bock and Ala won’t fire me over anything the mediaists say, so my position here is safe. Now that your stupid attempt has failed, what are you going to do?’
Lilon had the nerve to graze a knuckle against the corner of one eye, as though he was wiping away a tear. ‘You don’t care about your mother’s wellbeing? How sad. She will have hoped for better from you when I tell her this. But I think she will still cook my food and sleep beside me, because she is desperate for any companionship.’
And then he smiled.
Fei’s heart was flooded with hot fury that shot out through every vein before cycling back to stab into her chest. ‘And you Chippers wonder why everyone’s abandoning your god in droves. You’re scum. The lot of you.’
‘And you are an anxious little girl who is going to cause great pain to her mother and lose the only proper job she’s ever had,’ her father fired back.
‘Oh, fuck off.’ Fei glanced around, looking for Ala, but the words belonged to her. ‘And I have a job. Here. Because you idiots handed over ownership of the terraforming machines. So go back to your temples and have a good sulk about it. I won’t be your casualty anymore.’
‘Fei…’ Lilon tried.
She wondered how he could simulate remorse when he clearly didn’t feel it. The corners of his lips were appropriately downturned and he even held out his arms to her, as though requesting one last conciliatory hug.
Fei shook her head. ‘No. I’m sticking with the people who listen to me and apologise when they don’t. You’re nothing to me, Lilon.’
She raised her hand to better display the small vine curling its way through her fingers. She didn’t need to ask him to leave. He got the hint and fled into the waiting hoverlift.
Fei’s smile felt cold and brittle, but she kept it in place as she went to the window to watch GLEA’s departing starships rise above Atsa City, blotting out the stars on their way to Gerasnin.
Ton Tinel might no longer have any proof of GLEA’s collusion with TerraCorp, but the mediaist was good at making his audience wonder about it. Tinel had even told Fei that the footage containing the boy GLEA had held hostage had contributed to a thirty percent drop in temple attendance rates. The reduction in donations, as well as the recent loss of so many expensive TerraCorp machines, had to be hurting the Chippers.
Fei rested a hand over her stomach, soothing her son as he made his displeasure known. ‘It will be alright. We won’t have to deal with them ever again.’
Fei supposed she had better finish testing the simulation program that Bock wanted for Yalsa 5 — she no longer had any excuses. But her temples tightened and her skin went clammy at the very thought of sitting down to work again. There was no way she could get anything done feeling like this. And it wasn’t like Jalen needed her help to run the test suite.
‘I need another holiday, a real one,’ she muttered, hoping — pleading — that this was the solution.
She picked up her communicator and contacted Bock, willing to bet he was still in a good enough mood from obtaining the machines that he’d allow it. She’d bet right. Bock was more than happy for Fei to ‘sort your shit out’ because he needed time to hire more scientists to gather data, seeds and genetic samples. The program wasn’t going to do much without those anyway.
After Bock warned Fei that she’d have to interview potential new programmers when she got back, he asked her where she wanted to be dropped off.
Fei decided on Bagaran, because it was the only place she could remember finding any peace.
And she just might run into a certain someone there…someone who needed to be told that he was going to become a father. Because there was no way, no possible way, for him to know.
There was no way for him to be visiting you either, Fei thought, smiling.
She hoped she’d get to tell him off in person about that.
He’d probably have a thing or two to say about her removing the implant, but Fei was sure he would be happy to see her again. He had to be.
• • •
Fight. Fight. You might even win.
Despite his determination and Zareth Sins’ words echoing in his ears, Kuja’s heart still stuttered when he stomped his way between the white columns that heralded his arrival into the Everything Portal. He wasn’t surprised to see Fayay waiting for him, the Watine’s cruel smile parting as he prepared some biting remark.
Kuja didn’t even give him a chance to speak.
He threw up a hand and thin, twisted branches whipped out from his palm like cords, binding the Watine to the nearest column. One particularly thorny twig snaked around Fayay’s throat, tightening so that his attempted words became unintelligible croaks. Water began dashing down from the invisible ceiling but Kuja rose above the puddles growing on the floor, walking steadily across the ropey bridge that his vines created for him.
You can’t do this — how are you doing this? growled the Watine, apparently remembering that he could revert to mind-speech. He gave a vicious tug against his bonds but the branches held.
Kuja wondered if his grin looked as maniacal as it felt. ‘Because I can’t fail. Not this time. I’m stronger now, so much stronger than when you destroyed me.’
What are you dithering about? Of course you can fail!
‘Oh, shut up, Fayay,’ Kuja said.
He took hold of the connection between them and hacked through it like a machete through dense foliage. Fayay’s voice died completely. Kuja continued on his way, hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, trees and plants exploding into being around him. He had to dodge one particularly tall fern when his vines lowered him to the floor, the white surface now stained with roots and soil.
Kuja’s triumphant smile slipped when he saw Finara and a handful of other gods standing in a line between the last two columns, barring him from the thousands of maze-like passageways beyond.
Finara bounced a ball of fire in and out of her palm. ‘Kuja, what the stark are you doing? You can’t seriously be thinking about challenging Father over that woman. Just go back to the Enocian Harem and sort yourself out.’
‘Is that what you’ve been telling them?’ Kuja jerked a hand at their siblings. One or two of them actually ducked, expecting him to unleash his powers, but Kuja had no intention of hurting anyone who didn’t come after him first. ‘That you can solve your ills by visiting a brothel?’
Several gods nodded mutely.
Finara’s expression grew stony. ‘Kuja, stop this right now. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will. To protect you.’
‘We outnumber Fayay,’ Kuja said, moving his eyes along the line of gods, ‘and you saw what just one of us can do to him. If you think ignoring what you want will make the desire for it go away, then you are all fools.’
‘What does he know — he’s just a boy,’ Isabis, the goddess of savannah, said snidely. ‘The youngest of us.’
Kuja levelled a finger at her. ‘I’m young, sure, but unlike you I haven’t forgotten who my mother was. We’re half mortal. We can know love — Father even made sure that Sandsa experienced it so he would get better at caring for his people!’ Kuja drew a breath. ‘Sandsa would still have his wife if she hadn’t left him. That wasn’t the Ine’s doing. It was Callista’s.’
‘Doesn’t mean we’re all allowed to jump out that airlock — and barging on in here with righteous fury won’t help you against Father,’ Finara warned. ‘He doesn’t want any of us messing with his grand design.’
Kuja slapped his thigh and Fayay dropped to the floor behind him, cursing. ‘Did you see what I did to our brother? I can do that to any of you. So get out of my way.’
The gods parted to let him through. Fayay’s heavy strides gave chase, but Kuja didn’t bother to turn around. He knew his brothers and sisters would halt the water god with their own powers. Some of them called out encouragement, but most were silently watching, no doubt waiting to see if Kuja would be punished — or if they could benefit from his bravery.
Kuja heard the intake of breath when a ring of blazing white light swept from his crown to his feet. The colourless powers that bore him away belonged to the being who had created the universe, the being who had then created the sub-level gods so that all the galaxy’s people, human or otherwise, could be cared for as they spread across a starry sea.
Kuja could not discern the limits of the room he found himself in; there were no walls, only a white horizon that spread out in every direction. He was alone at first, but then furniture arrived, clashing with the bare surrounds. Battered and brown, the chairs would have been considered prized Old Earth antiquities by the mortals. It was hard to know if they had been transported from that time or if they had been created in situ.
Kuja sank into one of the chairs and willed tiny roots to grow over his hands like wrinkles. He drew strength from his plants as they came to him, but they were silent, as though afraid to tempt the ire of the one who had given them life before they’d ever had the Rforine to watch over them.
A fire roared into being several paces away. Old blackened bricks rose to encase it. Kuja sat up straight, his chest constricting painfully when he saw what the flames were shedding their uneven light on.
The Ine’s white hair and tidy beard did little to soften the frightful intensity of his blue eyes or the angular lines of his skeletal form. He lounged in the other chair as though he had been there for hours, nursing a mug of liquid that steamed and carried a floral scent. Tea, something the Ine’s late wife had enjoyed. And it was also Fei’s preferred drink.
Kuja swallowed. The tirade he’d been forming in his mind faded.
‘Um, hi,’ he said, then winced. This was no mortal to be swayed by friendly pleasantries. ‘Father. I…I do not know how to say this, but surely you’ve seen my thoughts…’
The Ine set his mug down on vines that rose from the floor at his feet; the green cords curled around the item, keeping it clear of the ground. This display of Kuja’s own powers was a deliberate reminder that the Ine could be bested by no one. He had no weaknesses.
Except his lack of compassion, Kuja thought, uncaring if his father heard it.
‘Compassion is one of the gifts I gave to the mortals,’ the Ine said in response to this. ‘While it is not an attribute of mine I do possess an understanding of it, though I know you would disagree.’
Kuja gripped the arms of his chair. ‘Do I need you fight you?’
‘Why would we need to fight, my son?’ the Ine asked, his voice grave.
‘Because you’ll have a plan for me that I won’t like!’ Kuja cried. ‘And if I defy you, if I threaten your grand design, you’ll stand by and let Fayay go after Fei — the way you let him go after Sandsa and Callista!’
The muscles in Kuja’s legs screamed for him to leap up and defend himself, but he remained where he was, trying to calm his erratic breathing. He could admit that he was terrified at the prospect of dying. Did he and his siblings have the same options that the mortals did after death? Would he be given the choice between resting eternally or returning to make something better of himself in the next life?
Kuja wasn’t so sure his father would allow him that second attempt.
‘You do not need to risk your life,’ the Ine said and waved a hand. His mug of tea slowly descended into the floor where it vanished, along with the vines he had created. ‘I wish you and your brothers and sisters had come to me instead of letting your doubts affect your duties.’
‘How are we supposed to come to you?’ Kuja demanded. ‘How? We saw what you did to Sandsa when he wanted to follow his heart! And worse, you made a lesson out of it — no wonder Callista ran! I can’t blame her for wanting to take her son away from this mess. You know what? Stark you. Stark you for letting it get so far between me and Fei if all you were going to do was take her from me. I won’t let you — I won’t!’
He jumped out of the chair and kicked the furniture back a pace. His powers rose within him, conjuring soil that spun around his feet, birthing miniature versions of every plant he could control. Kuja felt the nearness of death with such clarity, such certainty, that he wondered why he’d ever been afraid of it.
‘Kuja, sit down,’ his father instructed.
‘No!’
‘You are not some mortal child — you are seventy-five years old.’ The Ine gestured at Kuja’s chair. No vines twisted there, no water dampened the cushions, no sand filled the dips in the fabric — the furniture remained innocuous and free of threat. ‘Sit and I will tell you why you will not be fighting me.’
‘Because I’m doomed if I do, right?’ Kuja snarled.
‘Do not assume that you know anything about my grand design,’ the Ine said mildly. ‘It is too complex for you.’
Kuja eyed his father, still wary. ‘I won’t be the last to challenge you and your grand design. The others will do it, sooner or later.’
The Ine’s laugh was soft, as though riding a breeze. ‘You are so much wiser than them, Kuja. They forget that they, just like my mortal children, are afflicted with fears and doubts and the guilt from decisions that cannot be unmade.’
‘Am I about to make a mistake?’ Kuja asked, lowering himself into his seat.
‘Are you?’ his father countered.
Kuja made a face. ‘Just tell me what I’m not allowed to do so I know which points to argue with you.’
The Ine raised his symmetrical eyebrows; a gentle rebuke. ‘Cease making assumptions. What do you know for certain?’
‘Alright,’ Kuja said. ‘I love Feiscina Neron and I want to be with her and our son for eternity. I can’t deny that because you’ll see it in my head anyway.’
‘And you believe that this desire is at odds with my plans for you.’
‘It’s not like you had any trouble punishing Sandsa for straying from the plans you had for him,’ Kuja muttered.
The Ine released a heavy sigh. The effect it had on him was startling — it gave his face lines, shadows, even crow’s feet. He suddenly had the appearance of a man who had long been wearied by the galaxy instead of the immortal being who had created it. ‘In your pursuit of love, you have never once abandoned your duties or ignored your people. Sandsa, however, did. That was why I did not stop Fayay from forcing your oldest brother to return to the pantheon.’
Kuja gnawed on the tip of his tongue. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It couldn’t mean what he thought it meant. He couldn’t be that lucky.
‘It is not luck, Kuja,’ the Ine told him.
‘Not luck,’ Kuja repeated. ‘I suppose it’s not luck that I found Fei and she’s so perfect for me. It’s not luck that she can read my thoughts the way I can hers. Me meeting her…was deliberate.’
The Ine bowed his head just slightly.
Kuja’s laugh was wrenched from him like a piercing that was too new, too fresh. ‘So she’s been in your plan for me all along.’
‘She inspired Bagara to reach out to those who needed him, but whether or not love followed was up to the two of you,’ the Ine replied, his face smoothing out as he regained his usual mysterious countenance. ‘If you mean to be with Fei, you must tell her the truth now or you risk losing her forever.’
‘You want me to tell the truth, even though you’ve never done it yourself,’ Kuja said, glaring at the fireplace, wishing he could hurl his father into it but knowing the desire was never going to eventuate into something real.
The Ine nodded gracefully. ‘It is your decision, of course. I have no problem with you binding yourself to Feiscina Neron for eternity — and Fayay won’t either, once he realises the opportunity has always been available to him. I will ensure that he feels my displeasure if he harms any of my children’s chosen spouses.’
Kuja’s lips trembled. ‘Why didn’t you explain this to the others earlier? You let them think that love was a distraction, a threat to the grand design. You let them think you’d send Fayay after them if they slipped up!’
‘It was not the right time for my children to meet the mortals destined for them,’ the Ine answered. As if that explained everything. As if it made up for years of fear and uncertainty.
‘This isn’t fair,’ Kuja said through clenched teeth. ‘It’s downright cruel. And I’m glad you put us in charge of the galaxy because at least we inherited Mum’s empathy. I’m afraid to know how you treated the mortals before you gave them to us.’
The Ine’s blue eyes grew distant. ‘Now you realise why I needed you and your siblings.’
‘Did you forget the part where I said it was cruel?’
‘You know your purpose now,’ the Ine continued, relaxing against the chair, seemingly unbothered by Kuja’s words. ‘You have shown them, gods and mortals alike, that they are allowed to doubt. They should not blindly accept things the way they are. They need to ask questions.’
Kuja leapt to his feet. ‘Father! Listen to me! I don’t care — I don’t care if my brothers and sisters can fall in love because it’s the right time. I don’t care if people like Zareth Sins can now challenge the status quo. You did all this in the worst and nastiest way possible — Mum would have hated you for it!’
The oldest being in the universe pressed two fingers to his lips, viewing his son with timeless patience, as though he was watching a glacier slowly melt. ‘I will not explain my grand design to you. It would only incense you further and it is not your place to know.’
Kuja kicked his chair again. This time it flew out of sight. ‘Fuck you!’
‘Kuja, I suggest you go to Fei and be honest about who you are,’ the Ine told him gently. ‘You will be very happy with her.’
‘Stop deflecting me!’ Kuja cried. ‘Are you going to tell your children they can know love or will I have to do it?’
‘Would it not give you great pleasure to lord it over Fayay, that you succeeded where he never dared to try?’
Kuja backed away from the Ine, horrified. ‘Cruel and petty. I think I understand where Fayay gets those attributes from. He didn’t get them from our mother. I’m so glad she left you in the end. How did you not see that coming?’
The Ine’s expression darkened, though it was hard to tell at first because he was fading away as he returned to oblivion. ‘Your brother is right. There is so much more to it than love. Understanding, support and honesty…these things are paramount.’
Within moments Kuja was alone, invisible walls pressing in around him. Scowling, he turned and walked through one of them. This led him directly to the columned entrance where his siblings awaited his return. All of them were there now, not just the ones Finara had gathered to stop him. They stared at the Rforine, their faces filled with awe. Fayay kept to the rear of the pack — he would not attack Fei now, not when the Ine himself would punish him. But that was cold comfort to Kuja.
‘It’s allowed, so long as we don’t neglect our duties,’ Kuja said, clenching his fists, letting vines twist around his forearms. ‘And Fayay has no right to come after our chosen spouses. We can balance relationships with our work, just like the mortals do. Happy now? Happy that you get to have what I fought for handed right to you? You better hope Father lets you fall in love without making some lesson out of it. He tends to choose who we’re drawn to. As if we can’t make our own decisions!’
He began storming towards the exit. He could have teleported away, but it felt good to stamp his feet into the ground, to make his knees ache and his calves burn. He deserved this discomfort. He was a liar. And he had no intention of telling Fei the truth.
He loved her, loved the unique connection they shared, but the mind-reading ability the Ine had bestowed upon her wasn’t a gift. It was a curse. Because if Kuja was ever careless with his thoughts, even for a moment, she would realise what he was. And she would leave him.
‘She’ll never know,’ Kuja vowed.
Even when she begins to show no signs of ageing? the Ine’s distant voice asked. The binding ceremony will confer your immortality onto her, my son. She deserves to know before you do this.
Kuja ignored him.