The Wilding

IT TOOK ALL the self-control K’teva had not to pace while she waited. The nervousness inside her demanded outlet, and the fact that she wouldn’t even let herself wring her hands, or tap her feet nervously against the cold marble floor, only made the tension harder to bear.

This was it. The end. All that she had worked for, all that she had fought for, lied for, manipulated men for . . . all of it was here in the Citadel, waiting for her.

She was certain they were watching her now, though the means was invisible to her. It couldn’t have been otherwise. The proud Braxaná would never welcome someone into their ranks who could not hide her emotions at such a time. It was a final test, for the woman who had passed all others.

She had no idea what the procedure would be, when the Elders received her. Tezal had said only that she was summoned here to meet them, and had left her to guess at the details. Her spies had already told her that Tathas had returned to the Central System safely, not only with a woman for his Wilding, but with a prize whose value (it was said) was inestimable by Braxaná measure. Twice what she had expected of him. For a moment she felt a twinge of regret at using her former consort the way she had, but that was quickly banished by the thought of what she had gained by doing so. Surely if he knew, she told herself, he would understand.

It was cold in the Citadel. If she’d thought about it she would have anticipated that. The stifling layers of grey and black wool that the Braxaná always wore, the thick black gloves and boots and the collars and cloaks and all the sartorial accoutrements of their rank, all those things begged for a chill environment. On the planet’s surface they had an image to maintain, and bore with silent discomfort such bodily discomfort as would leave other races gasping. Here, in the Citadel of the Kaim’-erate, where only the purest of the bloodlines might gather, there was no need for such subterfuge. Visitors were few and far between, and not likely to be taking notes on Braxaná weaknesses when they were present.

She had dressed in black and grey, not overtly Braxaná in style, but acceptable to their tradition nonetheless. Walking a thin line between the fact that she was not yet one of them and the fact that she hoped to be soon. Not that her own status would change in any legal sense, of course. But at a time when the Pale Ones were seeking the blood of outsiders to strengthen their failing gene pool, a half-breed woman might earn herself a special place as the mother of a Braxaná . . . if the elders saw fit to grant her that right.

You were my Wilding, Tathas. My proof to them that Kesserit blood—my blood—was worthy of inclusion in their circle. Where was he now, her valiant Viak’im? Returned to Braxi, to take up his life anew and struggle to rebuild the tribe? Or betrayed by the same Pale Ones who had sanctioned his Wilding, and removed from the playing field forever? A pang of regret surfaced briefly in her heart. How strong he had been, how brave, and how ambitious! But in the end the only game that mattered was the one the Braxaná played, and that required a willingness to sacrifice everyone and everything in the name of your goals. Loyalty did not win you points in the Great Game . . . and when your blood was only half Braxaná to start with, every point mattered.

She heard a sound from within the meeting chamber, and tried to still the beating of her heart. It was said the purebred Braxaná had senses so acute that they could smell fear, like an animal could. Probably that was part of the reason they dressed the way they did, so their own biochemical cues would be hidden.

“K’teva, daughter of Xanat.” His tone was utterly formal; she might as well have been a stranger to him. “The Elders bid you come to them now, and receive their judgement.”

Elders. The word meant a different thing here, among the Pale Ones, than it had among her own people. Kesserit Elders were those whose accumulated wisdom had made them fitting guardians for the tribe. Braxaná Elders were those who had managed to add four purebred children to their tribe’s failing numbers. Even the very nature of their status was a reminder to her of how desperate they must be for outside blood, strong blood . . . fertile blood.

The hall was of stark marble, and the floor echoed to the cadence of her footsteps as she went to the place Tezal indicated, at the focal point of the room. The five semicircular ranks surrounding her provided more seats than there were currently Elders; this room had clearly been built in the Braxaná’s heyday, and now, in the dusk of their Race, the empty seats only served to highlight their genetic failure.

K’teva could feel her heart pounding as she took her place before them, with no chair or pulpit or even railing to define her space. Just her in this empty, open arena, and the bleached faces of the Pale Ones like ghosts on every side.

“K’teva, child of Xanat.” Tezal’s voice was cold and solemn, his speech mode one of formality and distance. A reminder to her, that though they had shared a bed, that meant nothing here. Though K’teva was well versed in the many modes of upper-class speech she knew she was no master of the language—few outsiders were—and she strained to the utmost to catch every subtle shift in language and tone, to decipher every layer of his meaning. “You have come before the Elders of the Braxaná to petition for the right to bear a child of our tribe. Such a right is rarely granted, and only to those whose blood is most worthy. Tell me now, what you have done that you feel you merit such an honor?”

This wasn’t right, she thought. Where was the Pri’tiera? He was the one who was supposed to present her petition, not Tezal. The prize she had sent Tathas to fetch was something meant for him, not the rest of the tribe.

There was no helping it, she realized; she would have to manage alone. “The Pri’tiera set a test for me,” she told them. “A Wilding to be played out not in the far reaches of space, but in power invoked from the Mother Planet. I was to manipulate another to serve the Pri’tiera, to seek out a prize of great value to Braxi, and to see that he retrieved it.”

The room really was cold; she resisted the impulse to wrap her arms around herself for heat. Maybe that was some kind of test as well, she thought. The Pri’tiera had said she would be tested somehow, but he had not told her the process. “Yes.”

Surely that was what her informants had referred to. And if not? Then Tezal was weaving a trap with words, testing her somehow. Did he expect her to show doubt, or fear, or hesitation? No Braxaná ever would. Therefore she would not.

Tezal nodded; his expression was unreadable. “It is good to know who planned this.” His speech mode was an ancient one, that hinted at ice and pain and death. “It is good to know who claims responsibility.”

The words crashed down upon her like an avalanche. The floor and ceiling spun, and for one dizzying moment it seemed the whole world had gone mad. Just for a moment, and then all was still again. She managed to catch her breath, somehow. She managed to find her voice. She could not stop herself from shaking.

Tezal nodded. “Your tool apparently managed it.” His speech was in the Mode of Condemnation, chillingly severe. “So . . . you brought him here . . . and set him up . . . and sent him after whatever ‘prize’ he came to deliver . . . is that what we are to understand?”

She met his gaze head-on, knowing that even now, in the jaws of death, she dared not appear weak. There was still a slim chance this was all some terrible kind of test . . . that the Pri’tiera still lived, that he wished to see how she would handle this challenge . . . she dared not appear weak. “I promised Tathas would seek out and bring back that prize which the Pri’tiera sought. That much was done, yes? I am not Shem’Ar,” she said coldly. “I do not command every action of a man. If he chose the course of a traitor when his quest was done, it was not my doing.”

“And we are to believe that this one man, all by himself, managed to plot this thing out in its entirety?” He glanced back at the assembled elders as if to let her know that his words were not for her alone, but for them. “Forgive me if I find that a bit hard to believe, K’teva.”

“If you were not allied to him, then perhaps others were.” He tapped the hilt of his Zhaor suggestively as he paced before her, studying her first from one side and then the other. His eyes, once the eyes of a consort, were so cold that she tried to turn away from his gaze . . . but whichever way she turned, he was there. “Perhaps it is your tribe we should blame, for giving him such backing as this assault required. I’m sure there were many Kesserit who helped him. Yes?” He stopped before her, directly before her, and waited until her eyes met his. “Is it your tribe we should blame for this, K’teva? Should we honor you for the strength of your blood and hunt down the last of the Kesserit, that this band of revolutionaries shall not trouble the Holding again?”

The chamber was silent. So silent that her own breathing roared in her ears, as her mind raced to absorb what he was saying. So silent that she could hear the thudding of her heart as it drove blood through her chilled veins, driving desperate thoughts before it.

This is the test, she thought desperately. Maybe the Pri’tiera was really dead. Or maybe he had only withdrawn to watch this drama from some secret place. What was it he wanted to hear? What was it that would prove her worth to these callous Elders, who cared for nothing beyond the struggle to maintain their Race?

Or perhaps it was not a test at all, she realized suddenly, but simply Tezal’s attempt to give her a safe way out of this situation. The Kesserit were doomed anyway, if not before now, then certainly now. Could she place the blame upon their shoulders and come out of this safely herself? Was that what he wanted her to do, to save herself, to prove to him that the Braxaná mattered more to her than a mere common tribe? Was this all a test to see if she still owed loyalty to the Kesserit?

So many paths to take, she thought, but in the end, only two destinations. She took a deep breath and looked into Tezal’s eyes, trying to read the truth there. Black, black eyes, a pair of twin mirrors in which a woman’s soul might be tested. She could not read him. She had never been able to read him. It was a gift of the Braxaná, to close the windows to their soul so that no outsider might steal their secrets.

“It may be,” she said slowly, “that some members of my tribe were involved in this. As you say . . . it would have been a hard thing for him to manage alone.”

“Too bad.” He said it quietly, in the Basic Mode: Your mistake speaks for itself. “The Braxaná have always respected treachery, when it is well managed. Was not our Creator himself a traitor, who betrayed his own Maker? We are his children, and thus it is in our blood that even when a sword strikes at us, we take the measure of the blade . . . and its wielder.”

A gloved hand moved to the handle of his Zhaor, black-clad fingers wrapping around its grip. “I thought your blade was sharper than this, K’teva. What a pity. To take down the most powerful man in the Holding . . . imagine how such a woman might be received! Imagine how she might have been courted by Braxaná bloodlines that needed strengthening!”

The Zhaor slid soundlessly out of its scabbard. She found herself mesmerized by its blade, by the play of the chamber’s cold light upon its edge. “Instead, you would have condemned your entire tribe to save yourself.” He spoke quietly, but with such personal disgust she could not help but cringe. “Are these the genes we should accept into our Race? Would you have us breed Braxaná who would turn against their own blood, and condemn their own tribe for a moment’s gain?”

But. . . . But. . . . She tried to mouth the words but nothing would come out. In that moment she had a terrible inspiration, that Tezal was not only the messenger of this judgement, but its originator as well. Did their time together mean so little to him?

In the silence of the room the sudden sweep of the Zhaor was like an arc of sunlight. When the blade impacted the flesh of her neck it was almost silent, its edge so sharp that muscle and bone parted with but a soft squelching sound. The blow was swift enough that her look of horrified surprise was frozen in place as her neck parted. . . . then it fell. Her head hit the ground first and then her body followed, its lifesblood pulsing from the neck for a few seconds, then slowing to a trickle, then dying.

THE STATION WAS dark, as befit a structure nestled in the middle of the War Border’s vast blackness, without planet or star to mark its location. The humming of its motors was barely perceptible as they came to life and stirred the air a bit, creating a simulacrum of a weak breeze. Monitors flashed arcane signals to no one, measuring oxygen content, carbon dioxide, and the thousand trace gases which war stations might contain. Acceptable, the mechanical guardians indicated, then faded back into their eternal half-sleep.

Lights came on in one room, then another, following the man who traversed the seemingly abandoned hallways with a steady step. Black leather boots glistened in the lights of the tiny cleaning robots which swept the floors for dust. Black-gloved hands idly brushed the wall, then stopped at the lock to a conference chamber. A small box was raised to the handplate; its display plate blinked Override. After a minute the portal dissolved and the visitor passed inside.

It was a conference chamber like any other in the War Border, vast and circular and divided in two by a long table flanked by static chairs. On the far side stood a figure, tall but thin, swathed in a black cloak and hood. Tezal assumed it to be a male, by its height, then remembered as its two slender hands pushed back the hood that the enemy had women who stood as tall as men.

Her skin was golden, a warm contrast to the cold synthetic surfaces surrounding them. Her cheekbones were sharp and high and her white hair was plaited into a crown of twisted braids, in a style he had never seen on an Azean before. Not that he had seen many Azeans in the flesh, of course. A few prisoners, on their way to being broken. An occasional messenger. Direct contact with his counterparts in the Empire meant risk of discovery for both sides, and was something to be avoided whenever possible.

Her expression darkened a bit. “You know we don’t choose our personnel for your convenience. Or to kowtow to your prejudices. If you don’t want to speak to a woman you’re free to leave.”

She nodded grimly. Her office had supplied him with the evidence he had needed to make sure that no one learned the true source of the original message . . . or its intended recipient. It was, in many ways, a true test of their alliance, that effort. The memory of it remained the glue that bound conspirators together, when tides of tradition and prejudice threatened to tear them apart.

“Of course not.” The question was not one of procedure, he noted, but of power. Only men of the highest rank could subvert the Central Computer, erasing all files of a starship’s passage. That was as it should be. Only men of power—or women, in the enemy’s case—knew of the conspiracy that bound their worlds together. Others might serve it, but they called it other things, and lacked any real knowledge of what they served. Some of them even thought they served the Great War, and that their efforts would help one side win it.

He stared at her for a long moment before answering. Even knowing why he spoke them, the words were hard to bring forth. “The Kaim’eri haven’t decided.”

She nodded. The focus of her eyes shifted elsewhere for a few seconds, shifted nowhere, as she digested his news. Finally she looked back at him and said, “Give us at least a few days, if you can. There’s a system on the far Border that can be . . . destabilized. Enough ships committed to that front and Azea would be hard pressed to mount a meaningful assault on the Holding, at least on short notice.” She paused. “They will come for you, though, regardless. I can’t stop that, in the face of this kind of news. This will buy you a bit of time, nothing more.” She paused again. “The blood of a wounded animal is irresistible to predators.”

“The absorption of the entire Holding as conquered territory . . . think what a dreadful fate that would have been for Azea! The end of your peace and stability forever. No nation can occupy or control that much enemy territory for long. You would have been torn to pieces politically, unable to control us, unwilling to leave us to our freedom. A conflict ten times worse than the Great War, which would never be ended.”

“And what of you?” she countered. “More willing to play victorious conqueror, no doubt, but to no better end. How many planets would Braxi have to destroy in subjugation before the rest rose up against you? Our population is larger than yours, our planets more independent. How many starships would you be willing to lose in the battle to dominate them all . . . and how many of the Holding’s past conquests would see in that battle a chance to break free of your control at last? Oh, Braxi loves a good war . . . but that wouldn’t be a good war, would it? It would be the beginning of the end for you.”

“We have enough people in place. We will do what needs to be done.” He paused, then added, “There are enough in the leadership ranks who understand that a stable War is required, if we are to prosper.”

He stepped back from the table that divided them, took one last look at her face—if it was her face, and not some temporary construct produced for the sake of secrecy—and then bowed his leavetaking with all the formality of Braxaná custom. “I thank you for coming, Lady.”

He turned upon a booted heel and presented his back to her as he left. A sign of trust perhaps . . . or else just acknowledgement of their interdependence. She remained behind a moment after he was gone, musing upon his exit. Or perhaps instead upon the strange politics of a universe that made such a meeting necessary.

Then she drew up her hood over her face again. A faint sparkle beneath her throat caught the light as she did so, a tiny bit of jewelry flashing in the light. Had anyone else been present they might have caught sight of a small silver pendant in the shape of a crescent, before her cloak enveloped it in shadow.