Intentionalities

Aimee Ogden

Sorrel never intended to confer a child to the Braxos Corporation. But Sorrel had never intended a lot of things that managed to happen with or without her say-so.

She had scarcely marched across the auditorium, diploma in hand, when Congress passed the Protecting America’s Children Act. Education was handed over to the private sector; mostly to prison corporations whose personnel already had certifications in Sublethal Youth Management. Sorrel didn’t have a SYM license, nor the heart to teach with a taser on her hip. Instead, she found work serving as a custodian at Mission Health’s main hospital campus. Mission belonged to the parent corp that owned her student loan debt and her father’s end-of-life bills too. Having them deduct the payments straight from her paycheck cut her interest rate by a full half-percent.

The hospital had Braxos ads everywhere, of course, along with those for several other parent corp holdings. One holovid played in the air over the middle of the cafeteria several times a day on a twenty-minute loop. Braxos: Our Future and Yours, Hand in Hand. A blurb about the Future Career Training and Advocacy Act. All the ads became white noise to Sorrel sooner or later. But she caught herself sometimes humming that little jingle, or the one for the new Hyperloop line.

So Sorrel made plans, the kind of plans that can only be made because believing they could come true was the only thing that got a body out of bed in the morning. She was making ends meet. She would find a cheaper apartment and save money there. She would skip breakfast a couple times a week: another couple bucks to sock away. She would stop going out to the matinee theater on her Tuesday mornings off, cancel her Vidja streaming service, skip the occasional beers with friends who still lived nearby. The Shell sparkled overhead, reflecting sunlight back into space, but Sorrel’s apartment sweltered in the hotter-than-ever summers with the air conditioning off. In her head, the numbers added up slowly but steadily, building sturdy mountains out of nickel-and-dime molehills.

But the balance in her checking account never fell in line the way its imaginary counterpart did. After two months of overdraft fees, her bank transferred her account to a High-Risk Financial Management Plan. When she sat down at the first required meeting with her assigned case manager, the man didn’t even look at her as he typed her entire biography into a two hundred-character field on his form. When he asked how she planned to develop her financial outlook to prevent reaching felony levels of debt, he called her Sara. Her hands refused to warm to the temperature of the office; she clasped them on her lap so he wouldn’t see them shake. Nothing she could say would be right. No secret money stashed away, no education and career development plan, no chance of an inheritance. Her head was an empty box and the only thing bouncing inside of it was the stupid Braxos jingle.

“I’m going to confer a child to Braxos,” she said, and he looked up from his tablet.

Sorrel meant to have a plan in place before the screening test arrived in the mail: another part-time job, underemployment relief funds, crowdfunding. But her BizPass résumé only ever racked up a dozen hits and no leads, her relief application bounced, and her HitchooUp ended up in the red after she paid the fee to close it out.

So, when the screening test came, Sorrel viciously swabbed the inside of her cheek and then dropped it back in the postal box, postage paid. By the time the response arrived, she’d convinced herself not to read it in detail. She would check to see if there was a contract, and if so, she could sign it and send it back. If not, no harm—she would simply be back where she’d started. Knowing what small genetic accidents kept her from being a viable candidate wouldn’t change things.

She opened the envelope. The cover letter fell out; behind it peeked another document, on heavy paper. At the bottom, a hungry signature line waited.

Her fingers brushed the letter, not hard enough to sweep it aside. Instead they crawled word by word over the ink, collecting the Scrabble-tile names of celebrated genes. A novel mutation in the POLB gene was her crowning glory, promising a vastly increased rate of replication fidelity that would help her offspring to withstand the withering radiation of space.

It would keep the baby’s genes hewing closely to the original versions that Sorrel would bestow upon it, in other words. A tie to bind them between worlds. Her hand seized, and she crushed the cover letter.

Her signature on the contract wavered more than usual, but still recognizable as her own. She put it into the envelope and dropped it into the mailbox downstairs before she changed her mind.

It was only five years. Sorrel could make it through five years unscathed, if it meant a light at the end of the interminable tunnel of debt she’d fallen into.

Sorrel got sucked into an argument with the crowd outside the clinic. She was supposed to keep her head down and follow the company liaison from the taxi to the door, but then some asshole hit her in the head with a sign declaring THE YOUTH OCCUPATIONAL SUCCESS ACT IS SLAVERY!!! It wasn’t slavery, it was just ten years of service after their training, and after that the kids would be set up for any career they wanted—she tried to say that, at least, but the protesters shouted her down, calling her corporate broodmare and mother of the year and, more succinctly, bitch. And then the liaison was pulling her away, through the bristling cardboard signs and grabbing hands, and into the cool, clean lobby.

While she waited for her appointment, Sorrel considered asking about the sperm donor. It was doubtful that Braxos could tell her much, but even if she couldn’t know who he was, she would have liked to hear what he was like, where he’d lived. Why they wanted to knit her DNA to his. But when the technician called her name, he didn’t look up from his tablet, only rattled off her identifying information.

“Yes.” She stood up and fumbled for her purse, her jacket, the outdated magazine where she’d been staring at a recipe she would never make. “That’s me.”

“Follow me.” He disappeared into the hallway behind the waiting room and Sorrel trotted to keep up. The waiting room had been full; he must have had a lot of clients that day. Knowing it was true didn’t make Sorrel feel better about it.

In the patient room, a sheet and a green cotton gown had been folded neatly and left on the edge of the exam table. The technician excused himself while Sorrel changed. “Don’t forget to take your underwear off,” he reminded her before the door whispered shut.

Sorrel slipped into the gown and lay back on the table. Her skin prickled with cold where the sheet touched her legs. She wriggled, trying to find a comfortable position. Exactly how many people had lain here expecting to get pregnant while still snugly encased in a pair of Hanes?

A knock on the door pulled her fingers taut on the sheet. “Come in,” she called, and another technician—a different sandy-haired white man—entered with a small cart. “Sorrel McIntosh,” he said, reading from a vial label on the cart, and compared it to the readout on his tablet. “Thumbprint here.”

She pressed the tablet where he indicated, and it chimed its approval: she was, in fact, who she said she was. No allergies he should be aware of, she averred, no new health conditions since the mandatory complete physical last week. At his instruction, she fumbled her feet into the stirrups and stared up into the clean white fluorescent light. Someone had hung a suncatcher from one intersection of the drop ceiling tiles. A crib mobile, for adults. Suspended, it twisted on its string in the draft from the HVAC vent, beaming faintly flower-shaped patches onto the white wall while the cold speculum stretched Sorrel open.

“This is the lidocaine injection.” The technician pulled up beside her on a rolling stool to show her a syringe. “You might feel a little pinch.”

That little pinch darkened the edges of Sorrel’s world. When she swam nauseously up from the depths of her dizziness, the technician had stripped off his latex gloves and tossed them into the used kit on his cart. “You did great,” he said, entering data on the tablet. Sorrel craned her neck, but couldn’t see what he wrote, nor guess what he’d need to. “Please remain in this position for ten minutes before you get up. There are tissues to clean yourself up if you need. Thanks for coming in today.”

“Thank you,” said Sorrel, foolishly, awkwardly. He pushed the cart out with one foot and shut the door. Sorrel stared at the ceiling, alone with the realization she’d forgotten to ask about the donor. Alone altogether, now.

Five years wasn’t forever. She could be alone for five years.

Sorrel wasn’t supposed to be the first one to hold the baby. The predelivery instructions had been clear that the Braxos technician would handle the infant before she did. First things first: turn the newborn into a number. Break her up from a person into a DNA word search puzzle.

But the C-section had run long, and the technician had left the operating room for a bathroom break, and so this pink, wrinkled, cotton-smelling thing had been pressed directly into Sorrel’s arms. Her whole body trembled, convinced she was ice-cold in the wake of the epidural. “I’ll drop her,” she cried, as the little mouth pushed and puckered against her neck.

“You can do this, Mama.” The nurse tutted and draped a warm felt blanket over her head and around her shoulders, anchoring it under the baby’s tiny weight. Sorrel didn’t have the energy to explain it to her. If anything happened to the child, if she wasn’t contractually perfect, then these nine months of worry and wellness checks had been for nothing. Then she was still in the same tunnel, digging ever downward, too turned around to hope to surface again. “No one’s ever dropped a baby on my watch. But if you do fumble her,” the nurse went on, appending a wink, “I’ll catch her before she hits the ground.” She collapsed the wave function of Sorrel’s violently oscillating knee by squeezing it through the sheets.

Then the Braxos technician stumbled back into the OR, scrubbing in and making his apologies concurrently. Sorrel hadn’t stopped shaking by the time he lifted the infant from her arms, nor during the trip from the operating floor to the recovery ward. She was shaking still when her predelivery clothes, folded on the room’s empty chair, buzzed. The nurse brought her the phone, wrapped in Sorrel’s wadded-up jeans, and Sorrel fumbled her passcode twice before it unlocked.

There was a new message from her bank: the initial Braxos payment had been received. Every zero in the number looped her around and around inside it, dizzying her with relief. She shut the phone off and tossed it by her feet before the nausea overwhelmed her.

“Here we are, now!” The nurse appeared in the doorway with a swaddled infant in her arms. When Sorrel didn’t hold her arms out, she nestled the baby in the bed alongside her. “She’s been fed according to your wishes. You two should get acquainted and get some rest. Not necessarily in that order.” Her smile had ossified since earlier. Maybe she was at the end of a long shift; maybe she’d remembered that Sorrel was a Braxos parent. “If you’re going to name her yourself, you can start thinking on that; otherwise, we’ll use the random generator tomorrow for the official certificate. In the meantime, you just buzz the nursing station if you need anything. All right, dear?”

“Okay.” The nurse dimmed the lights. Sorrel frowned down at the infant beside her, scrying for her own reflection in the opaque blue-black eyes and petulant face.

In the morning, she had the nurse enter the name Abigail onto the birth certificate. Abigail had been Sorrel’s mother’s name. “You can use the generator for a middle name,” she said, aiming the little plastic bottle at Abigail’s incompetently pursed mouth.

The nurse’s reading lenses jumped as she wrinkled her nose at the tablet. “Abigail April! Doesn’t make much sense for a little girl born in July.”

“It’s fine.” Sorrel nudged Abigail’s lips with the bottle nipple, the way the nutritional consultant had showed her. This time, she latched on. Tiny bubbles rolled up to the top of the chalky liquid with each of her sluggish pulls. “Just put in Abigail April.”

The nurse turned her back to tap on her tablet. Abigail’s feeble gulps competed with the room’s silence, then were absorbed into it. Sorrel rearranged to hold the baby and the bottle with the same arm and fumbled her phone out to watch the day’s news. The top story detailed the construction project that would house the new Braxos crèche. She scrolled past it to a bit about a Hyperloop derailment outside Rio, then glazed over the coverage of the Water Riots—nothing new to see there.

A loud slurping noise roused her from behind drooping eyelids. The baby had made it to the end of the bottle and failed to distinguish dry air from milk. Sorrel flicked the bottle onto the bedside table and hefted the baby toward her shoulder. The baby burped before she ever made it there, dribbling a mouthful of sour milk slobber down the front of Abigail’s gown. “Goddamn it, Abigail April,” she said, and the words rolled too naturally out of her mouth. She snatched a tissue to wipe off her shirt and the baby’s pointed chin. “Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

She knew from the outset the name was a mistake. Pretending it was the first such she’d made, that was only a concession to what was left of her pride.

Sorrel didn’t mean for Abigail’s second birthday party to be her first and only one. She made a cake, yellow with chocolate frosting, and invited the other three children around Abigail’s age from the Mission housing complex where they lived now. One of the kids’ older siblings who’d tagged along sang “Happy Birthday” with the adults, but the other little ones only shrieked in confused anticipation. When Sorrel stopped Abigail from grabbing for the cake and its still-lit candles—“No no! Hot!”—Abigail burst into frustrated tears.

Sorrel cried too, but only later, when they were alone, while Abigail played with the presents that Braxos had paid for. They sent money every month for toys and games, as well as for childcare and food and clothes and educational programming. They wanted well-rounded humans, not neurotic lab rats. Abigail was currently banging a plastic spaceship against various things in the apartment, examining the different sounds it made when bounced off the couch versus tapped on the wall.

The week before, Sorrel had started to fill out a dating profile on A-More.com until she got to the question about whether or not she had children and froze, as she always did. This time, she’d been saved by the ping of July’s check arriving in her bank account. She closed the A-More tab and studied the solid black numbers. Walls of zeroes, holding off all the awful things lying just out of sight but never out of memory, hunger and sickness and exhaustion. Walls full of holes, gaping wounds through which Sorrel couldn’t help but joggle all the painful possibilities to test how loose they’d grown.

“We could go on vacation,” she said to Abigail, who was banging the spaceship against the toy bin now. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, a habit she’d been trying to break Abigail of. “Neither of us have ever had a vacation.”

Abigail put the nose cone of the ship in her mouth. “Snack, pweez,” she said, around her mouthful of Braxos fuselage.

Sorrel picked her up and carried her into the kitchen to make peanut butter banana, which was too messy to eat on the carpet. She cut the banana into little discs, dabbed peanut butter on top, and placed a single Cheerio halo in the middle of each. Abigail ate three slices and pulped the rest in her fists to paint an abstract masterwork on her high chair tray.

Sorrel hated it when dark fantasies flitted through her head. One day, while waiting to cross the street to do their grocery shopping, she caught herself dreaming about a car blowing through the intersection beneath a bloody red light. She imagined Abigail sailing through the air, imagined her legs shattering into the kind of shrapnel that would never again tolerate space travel. She could hear the sound of Abigail hitting the pavement, the screaming—Abigail’s, her own. Intrusive thoughts, horrible thoughts, that she held on the back of her tongue to savor and never quite swallow.

“Mommy, ow!” Abigail protested, wringing her hand halfway free of Sorrel’s. But she didn’t pull all the way clear, and she didn’t tumble into traffic, and her perfect legs carried them all the way down the street to the Amazon Market, where the animated cereal mascots sang doggerel verse to Abigail, begging her to convince her mother to choose their variety of technicolor breakfast starch.

Sorrel meant for Abigail to get plenty of sleep, to be well-adjusted and happy when she started her Technical Track prekindergarten classes. Yet she woke her up three nights out of four, slipping into her big-girl bed beneath the purple-and-green comforter, shuddering silently with tears that Abigail could not be allowed to hear, but which she certainly must have been able to feel.

“Go back to sleep, baby,” Sorrel begged, every night. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The nights that she didn’t wake Abigail up were the ones that came at the end of the days when she met her Developmental Unit lead, singly or in groups with her future cohort. It was important that she spend time with the unit lead, a smiling Thai woman with a kindergarten teacher’s affect and an out-miner’s rangy stature. Adjusting to other adults and to her peer group would ensure an orderly, nontraumatic transition, the Braxos parent handbook informed Sorrel.

Together, the cohort played what looked to them like games, activities that taught them how to work in teams, how to trust their intuition and each other. The unit lead was generous with praise and rewards alike. Abigail would come home from these meetings with her sweater covered in colorful stickers and explain each one’s provenance to Sorrel over dinner. On those nights, Sorrel’s body was too heavy to lift from her bed.

The rest of the time, though, when she fumbled her way half-awake into Abigail’s room and roused her from her well-earned sleep, she wrapped herself around a single hard-edged solace: the knowledge that a good mother wouldn’t put her own emotional needs above those of her small child, that she wouldn’t wake a little girl and leave her sleepless and frightened. So a good mother was something Abigail could never have snatched away from her.

Sorrel knew she could never let the Braxos rep take Abigail away. She made spreadsheet after spreadsheet, trying to find a way to pay back what she had been given, not so much crunching numbers as being crushed by them. She pored over the contract, asked on law advice forums, but found no gap in the net of legalisms wide enough for even a bony five year old to slip through.

She could never let it happen. She could never. She could not be standing on the apartment complex stairs on Abigail’s cake-less, unsung fifth birthday watching the unit lead, the medical technician, and the legal representative load Abigail’s things, load Abigail, into the company DriveLess car.

The unit lead came back last, to shake Sorrel’s limp hand. “Don’t worry,” she told Sorrel, her voice as firm as her grip. “She will be loved.” She turned to look at Abigail, whose perplexed, nervous, excited face was just visible through the tinted window. “We have a very dedicated training staff.”

Sorrel didn’t cry when the car drove off, and Abigail didn’t look back.

Sorrel wouldn’t have driven all the way out to the Braxos Development Complex outside Baltimore if she’d known the Abbey M. listed on the dark web registry she’d found was the wrong one. Or maybe she would have after all. She had no other leads, no more ideas. Nowhere else to go. Someone’s Abbey M. was better than no Abbey M. whatsoever.

Either way, when Sorrel shook the facility fence outside Newark and screamed her name, no one answered except the company’s private police. After letting her cool off overnight, they sent her home with the bill for an Overnight Security Stay. Along with the bill, there were some QR codes keyed to suggestions on how she might cover the costs.

One of those codes pulled up Braxos’ star-studded logo. Braxos, the site said, its colors hideously familiar. Our Future and Yours, Hand in Hand.

She had enough of Braxos’ money already. She never wanted to see another nickel. She paid the fine with what was left of her last payout and closed the associated account.

Sorrel went to the interview with a tidy CV printed expensively on real paper, armed with preloaded answers to questions and an air of projected confidence for a field she’d never worked in before. Instead, she found herself spilling her every secret to the interviewer, a woman a little younger than herself in an otherwise nice suit with an old coffee stain on one sleeve. She knew, she knew, she couldn’t change what had happened, couldn’t undo her signature on the contract, couldn’t reclaim what had been surrendered. It had been legal. But it hadn’t been right.

The interviewer put a box of tissues on the desk between them. “There are a lot of us with similar stories,” she said.

Sorrel blew her nose. “Did you—?”

“A nephew,” said the interviewer.

They sat together, kneading the silence, making it elastic, making it strong. Making something that would rise.

Sorrel went after the Future Career Training and Advocacy Act with both hands, tearing at it with every weapon she could find: every fundraised dollar origami-bent into blades, every legal precedent and obscure statute fired like bullets into the belly of the behemoth.

In her entire life, there had been so few things that she’d really wanted, really striven for. It had never seemed worth reaching for things, when they had all been set so far above her. A lifetime’s worth of unspent aspiration and ardor now poured out of her and into her work. She wasn’t fighting alone, either. The organization she worked for had siblings all over the country, more people like her, or people who understood her, a chorus of voices shouting down the clarion call of this idea.

Thousands of people. Millions of dollars. A year of work. Five. A decade.

It still wasn’t enough. It still only scratched the surface.

But a scratch can be big enough for the cold to get into and break the whole thing open.

When the Miners’ Union spokespeople made landfall on Earth to negotiate their terms for the release of Braxos company property and their own emancipation, Sorrel was supposed to be on the other side of the planet, filling out documentation for the class action lawsuit. But without her asking, her supervisor quietly swapped a few assignments, and so Sorrel found herself as one of the nonprofit’s representatives at the introductory summit.

The miners stood out in the sea of black suits and skirts. They wore company work suits, emerald green or sapphire blue depending on which project they’d been tagged to, the name BRAXOS defiantly blazoned down each sleeve between the clasps of their exoskeletons. Sorrel avoided them, for the most part, afraid to look too long into their hunger and hurt.

Not all of them responded in kind. One young woman took up a low orbit around Sorrel, falling closer with each passing cycle. Sorrel looked her over from the corners of her eyes, past the sides of her Pocket as she nudged key notes and legal references to the nonprofit’s lead representative. Seventeen or eighteen (the right age); black hair shorn short (the right color); eyes like brown bruises in her face (right and wrong all at once). During a break, her orbital integrity collapsed entirely; she stopped in front of Sorrel’s seat on her way back from the coffee machine, a paper cup in either hand. “Was I yours?” she asked: a challenge, a rebuke. A wish.

Maybe it was wishful thinking to recognize any of Abigail in the curl of close-cropped hair behind one ear; maybe it was self-punishment to look into this stern, stubborn face and see a round-cheeked little girl’s smile. “No,” she said, and it was the truth either way. “Maybe I gave birth to you. I don’t know. But I don’t have the right to call you mine either way.”

The young woman’s bruised eyes did not soften. She did not reach for Sorrel’s hand. Her exoskeleton whined faintly when she set one of the coffee cups in front of Sorrel.

She did not walk away.

Steam rose from the surface and bled away to nothing in the cool dry meeting room air. Sorrel took a deep breath and spoke slowly, stuttering, but doling out every word carefully, to say exactly what she meant, to say it all and leave nothing behind or forgotten or overlooked.

About the Author

Aimee Ogden is a former software tester and science teacher; now she writes stories about sad astronauts and angry princesses. Her work has also appeared in Analog and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and, with Bennett North, she co-edits Translunar Travelers Lounge, a zine of fun and optimistic speculative fiction. In 2021, her novellas Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters and Local Star will be available from Tor.com and Interstellar Flight Press respectively.

Deep Music

Elly Bangs

The emergency call came in before the seagulls had even started crying. It found Quinn lying sleepless on the leaky air mattress she’d set up in the back of the shop, balancing an untouched glass of hours-old scotch on her stomach. She fumbled for her phone and raised an eyebrow at the severity rating the user had entered on the online form: it sounded like there had already been some property destruction.

She took solace in her matching pants and suit jacket, clean and well creased, draped over the back of her chair. So what if her head ached and her eyes burned. So what if the world was shit and life was pain: at least she’d meet the day looking sharp. She laced up her high-tops and smoothed down the new growth on her undercut, then walked down the line of shelves as she looped her necktie, checking on each of the five-gallon jars: tapping her fingers on the happier ones, sprinkling salt or mineral solution on those in need. The jar closest to the door jittered and clinked at her approach. “No time to hang out, Digby,” she told it. But when it kept sloshing insistently, she sighed and lowered in the little waterproof keyboard.

YU NIISE DDO IUS KNIDKNIDENSE, the water inside typed. UNDARSTENDD DEP OCEANOIOSE YOOU DO IS GOOOD TOO NOW CEMBBOE ARBA BA BAM ABORMASDRO ADROABER

As tantalizingly meaningful as a cat’s meow, and roughly as meaningless, Quinn thought. She shook off the little keyboard and returned it to her jacket pocket, grabbed her helmet and goggles and the briefcase of her trade. Only when she’d already swung her leg over her moped and kick-started the engine did she bother to look at the address on the request, and what she saw narrowed her eyes and quickened her pulse in dread and disbelief.

It was her own home address—her ex-home. She looked closer at the contact: first name YOU, last name JERK.

She started to call Jasmine but her thumb hesitated. Instead she pocketed her phone, straightened her tie, and let the rattling 50cc engine carry her down the empty streets of the waterfront under the first glow of dawn. She turned inland and climbed up into the progressively narrower streets, choked with parked cars and bittersweet memories, until she arrived at the curb where Jasmine stood, bristling with anger and visibly sleep deprived.

“Why not just call me if you wanted to talk?” Quinn asked.

“You know why. You know why you’re here.”

“What?”

“I almost called Bill Russet,” Jasmine hissed, “but I wanted you to admit it to my face. Right here. Right now.”

“Who?”

“Your competitor.” Jasmine stamped her foot and angrily clarified: “Your business competitor!”

Quinn shook her head ruefully. “Didn’t know I had one of those either.” It figured someone else would set up shop eventually, with aquids becoming more common now as pets and beasts of burden, but it still caught her off guard.

“Spit it out, Quinn. Did you do this?”

Quinn took her goggles off to let Jasmine see her eyes.

Jasmine’s body language softened. “Well if you didn’t, who—? You know what, never mind. You’re here. You want the job?”

In answer, Quinn grabbed her briefcase and started up the achingly familiar steps, but Jasmine stopped her. “No, it’s next door now. Jumped the fence and seeped under Percy’s window right before you got here.” She added: “We’ve been trying to catch it since 3:00 a.m.”

The neighbor’s front door was open. An unfamiliar scruffy guy in sweatpants and a disposable rain poncho regarded her nervously from the front porch, then followed her inside.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” Quinn said. “You live here?”

The guy hesitated. “No, I’m, uh . . . ” He cleared his throat and Jasmine sidled up to him. Shit. He was the new boyfriend.

Quinn sighed and averted her eyes. She followed the squishy spots in the carpet down the hall to a room where her ex-neighbor stood, feet planted, brandishing a mop.

“In here! I got the thing cornered!” He glanced over his shoulder. “Nice seeing you again, Quinn. Looking dapper as ever.”

“Careful, Percy. Don’t spook it.”

He obeyed her gestures to step back into the hall and she knelt carefully, silencing her breath as she surveyed the room and read the signs: fresh stains in the wallpaper; blisters in the particleboard shelving unit; a splash of anxious droplets across the window. This was one agitated aquid, but where was it hiding?

Most importantly, what was its soft spot?

“It’s not yours, right?” she whispered over her shoulder. “Not your pet or anything.”

“Aquids creep me right the hell out,” Percy declared, too loudly. “I’ll never own one of those slimy little alien water monster things. Not me! No thank you!”

Quinn tried to shush him, but it was too late. The aquid’s frightened glittering caught her eye only a split second before it jumped out from under the desk, bounded off the window, shook the light fixture—

“Shit!” Quinn shouted. “Someone flip the breakers! Quick!”

—and flopped down right onto the power strip underneath the desk. A single brilliant spark burned a heartrending image into her retinas. Someone screamed. Quinn waved the smoke and ozone out of her face and rushed to scoop what was left of the creature quickly into a jar. It slopped greasily down the side like a glob of egg whites and settled in the bottom, barely moving.

“Is it dead?” Jasmine asked. She pulled her new boyfriend down from the chair he’d jumped up onto.

Quinn squirted some saline into the jar and stirred it gently. She checked the readings on her pH meter and breathed a sigh of relief: it would probably recover.

Percy clicked his tongue. “Shoulda left those stinkers on the beach they washed up on, you ask me. Shoulda figured out what weird trench they crawled from and pitched ’em right back in. I don’t care how good of pets they make. Bound to turn evil sooner or later.”

“What happened?” Quinn asked Jasmine. “Where did it come from?”

“No clue. We just woke up and the sheets were damp and that—that slime was flopping all over the place!”

Quinn gave her a look. “You wouldn’t talk about Digby like that.”

“That’s different.” Jasmine shifted uneasily. “Digby isn’t an unholy terror.” She motioned to her boyfriend. “It slapped him right in the face.”

Quinn cleared her throat, squished the smile out of her lips, and packed the jar into her padded briefcase. “Never seen a feral aquid act this aggressive. Must’ve been a plumber’s helper that escaped into the main.” She hesitated to add: “Probably after a lot of mistreatment.”

“Mistreatment?!” the neighbor yelled. “Thing’s a monster! Who even knows what the aquids want from us! Who knows why the damn things crawled up onto land in the first place!”

“So I guess you don’t want to keep it?”

Percy threw up his hands. “Keep it?! I’d flush it myself if I thought it wouldn’t burble up somewhere else! I thought you was here to kill it. Thought you’re an exterminator.”

Quinn handed him a business card. TROUBLED WATER, it read; AQUID CARE AND REHABILITATION. She gave one last look to each of them in turn and then smoothed down her jacket and headed back out to the curb, muttering, “Have a better one,” under her breath as she slid past.

“Hey wait,” Jasmine’s new boyfriend called out. “What do we owe you?”

“No charge,” Quinn grumbled, already putting her helmet on.

Jasmine caught up and planted her hands on the handlebars, looking mortified with regret. “You understand why I thought it was you, right? You haven’t exactly been taking this breakup gracefully.”

Quinn glanced at the love of her life and frowned.

“I mean, it’s been a whole month,” Jasmine pressed. “When’s the last time you ate? Slept? I hope you’re not still living in that dank little closet in the back of your shop.”

Quinn shrugged.

Jasmine gripped her own head exasperatedly. “You are killing me, Quinn! Say something! I never know what you’re thinking or feeling. You barely laugh. You don’t even cry. In three years I’ve never seen you cry once! Do you even realize that?”

Quinn pursed her lips. It was true. She hadn’t shed a tear since fifth grade, and she wasn’t about to start now.

“What do you want?” Jasmine asked, earnestly.

Quinn stared up at her. As if the question needed to be asked. As if Jasmine didn’t know Quinn wanted her back. If all attempts at language thus far had failed her, it was doubly pointless now, so without another word she kick-started the engine and watched her ex-girlfriend (balling her fists and visibly stifling a frustrated scream) shrink in the mirrors.

At the next intersection Quinn narrowly swerved around a big white van pulling out of an alley, the words BILL RUSSET stenciled on the side. She shook off the adrenaline and fought to keep her mind on the road, the case stowed between her knees, the wounded feral aquid inside.

What am I going to call you? she wondered. How about Dorky? Sparky? Regretty?

The sun was up and the harbor gulls were screaming by the time Quinn pressed back into her shop. The new aquid went under a red lamp to see if it could bounce back from its encounter with alternating current. Meanwhile, Digby was rocking its jar back and forth again, so she hauled it over to the desk and gave it back the waterproof micro-keyboard.

“What’s up with you, Digby? You’re normally so chill. Something going on?”

NOAW UNDARSTEND NAOW, it typed again. OSCEEN SOUNT DDEPE MUOOZIQ QWIN LEOEV QQWIN INDKNSES PSASTSESS AWKQID DOIS FOLLLLLO IN TOO IN THHE ATDEEP EBCMOE A BAD BAMDASOR

What did the aquids want? Why had they come onto land? Percy had asked these things rhetorically, but they were good questions. Quinn had been asking them so long they’d merged into the white noise of her life. The years she’d spent trying to communicate with Digby had given it a flair for typing almost unheard-of among aquids, but the year since they’d made any real progress left her to wonder whether she’d really taught it to convey meaning, or merely to assemble letters into words for fun.

She opened the lid and let the water crawl up her arm, around her shoulders, and back down her other side. It was in a good mood; it dampened the fabric of her shirt but then sucked every trace of itself back in. It glommed onto the keyboard in her palm and went right back to typing—and Quinn leaned her head on her fist and watched its absurdist mutterings scroll by on the tiny display. There was some word it seemed determined to spell: MABASOSSDER, A BASAMADROOM. She helped it back into its jar, tapped the glass, and whispered: “Anybody ever tell you you’re a real goober?”

Digby had been her first rescue, three years ago in the alley behind the dry cleaners. The place had kept a dozen-odd aquids back then, trained to break up troublesome stains without damaging the fabric, but a close call with caustic detergent had driven Digby into a frenzy, and the proprietor had thrown it out on the street just as Quinn and Jasmine happened by on their postcoital morning walk. They’d found Digby cowering in a drainpipe and spent an hour trying different things to coax it out: whistling, humming, dancing, silence, grains of salt, dribbles of water, flashes of light. Finally, Quinn had played some Enya on her phone, and that had done it. It turned out Digby fucking loved Enya.

Digby still felt like the kid they’d raised together—to Quinn, at least—and in the process of nursing it to health, she’d gained an accidental reputation as the area’s foremost aquid handler. It paid the bills okay. It would’ve paid much better, but she kept her business the way she liked it: unadvertised, tucked away in the armpit of a freight pier where nobody looking for a new pet would ever find it. She’d grown too close to the aquids, knew their soft spots too well, to dream of selling them now. There was Salty (who liked its salinity unusually high), Stormo (weirdly bluish), Grungy (who had a taste for Nirvana), Mopey (very passive and viscous), and going on thirty or forty others now: all somebody’s water damage liability at one time, all perfectly chill now that they had a home, company, and a bit of attention every day.

Digby stirred and jittered and then went still, seemingly waiting for her to respond to its incomprehensible missives. In passing, she thought: do you feel, talking to me, the way I felt with Jasmine? Like there’s a glass wall between us that no words can ever cross, so why even try? She put its favorite music on and watched the blob of animate surface tension swirl peacefully around the confines of its jar. Sail away, sail away, sail away.

The ringing phone jolted her face off the desk. She answered, “Troubled Water, Quinn speaking.”

A gravelly voice said “Hey. So, uh. I heard you don’t kill aquids when you catch them. Like, uh. Ever.”

“That’s correct.”

“Why?”

She winced and straightened up in her chair and said, “They’re fairly intelligent. Some are on par with a dog or a small child. No one knows for sure, but they can even use simple written language—”

“No they can’t.”

A long pause passed. Quinn said, “Yeah, they can.”

“Actually you’re wrong.”

“Dude, listen. They do have a very different kind of intelligence from us. We don’t know how polymerized water-based life works on a molecular level, how they store memory or information, let alone how to measure—”

“You’re crazy.” He hung up.

She tried to lean her face back down on her desk and go to sleep again, but the residual shakes kept her up. She went to brew some coffee, but the phone rang again.

“Troubled Water, Qu—”

“Why do you dress like a man?” asked the same voice as before.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, uh. You’re a girl, right? So why do you dress like a man. Like a businessman. Like a G-man. It’s weird.”

Quinn yearned to tell him some truth. She wanted to sit this troll down and say: my dude, what’s the big fucking deal? I look and feel swank as hell, and what’s more, the world is crap and living is pain, but maybe someday it won’t be—I mean I can only get through the days anymore by choosing to believe, in spite of it all, in spite of all the dickwads like you, that something really wonderful is going to happen. And when it does, I’m damn well going to be dressed for the occasion. I’m going to meet it in style.

But as she was thinking all these things, she had a hunch.

“Because I take pride in my work,” she said. “Unlike Bill Russet.”

A long silence passed.

“Fuck you,” the caller growled, and hung up.

Just as she was pouring the grounds, the phone rang a third time. She groaned and picked up without looking at the screen.

“What!”

All she heard was breathing on the other end. Then “Quinn?”

Shit. It was Jasmine.

“I don’t think I ever actually apologized,” she said. “Is this an okay time?”

“I . . . ” Quinn trailed off. She leaned back against the wall and sank down to a sit.

“I’m really sorry. I was up all night trying to catch that thing and my brain was truly fried. I know you’d never set a feral aquid loose in our—my house. It’s just . . . the neighbors said their doorbell camera caught some creep in pleated dress slacks sneaking around the side with a bucket right around the time it happened, and I just assumed.”

Quinn said nothing, but the words stung in her ears. As if she’d be caught dead in pleated pants. Flat front or bust.

“I’m sorry I blamed you,” Jasmine continued. “That wasn’t cool and now I feel like I blew our first chance to actually talk since you moved out, and I just . . . ” The line sighed. Jasmine’s voice lowered to a nearly inaudible creak: “I miss you, okay? I’m allowed to miss you.”

Quinn buried her face in her hand. I miss you too, she thought. In fact, all I do anymore is sit around trying to think of something I could say that could ever get you to give me one more chance to fix whatever it was I broke. I can’t begin to imagine how to move on with my life. Christ, Jasmine, I’m so lost without you I don’t know what to do.

“Yeah,” Quinn murmured.

“What do you feel?” Jasmine asked quietly.

She was cut off by a shout through the door: “For the love of all that is holy, open up! They’re attacking! Help us! Oh God, help us!”

“Sorry gotta go,” Quinn said.

“Wait!” Jasmine’s voice yelped.

Quinn hung up and pushed the door open and Betty, the forewoman from the warehouse next door, barreled through. Her coveralls were sopping with brine. She grabbed Quinn by the lapels and pulled her close and growled, “What. In God’s name. Have you DONE?”

The cavernous space was in chaos. Amber siren lights spun across the walls while workers ran for cover and yelped in fear at every unsteady motion atop the rows of towering shelves.

“Shut off the alarms!” Quinn yelled. “You’ll only spook them worse.”

Betty shot her a look to kill the devil and said, “You would know.”

“Whatever this is, it’s not my fault!”

“So they just came out of nowhere, did they?!” the forewoman yelled. “Not the aquid pound right next door? You expect me to believe this is a coincidence?”

Quinn smoothed down her suit jacket and put on the calmest face she could. “All the aquids in my care are present and accounted for. I’m happy to help contain, but I am telling you these aren’t mine.”

The forewoman started to say something, but at that moment a basketball-sized glob bounded into view atop the nearest shelf and slammed itself into a precarious stack of yellow tubs of lard. Betty’s eyes went wide with fear as the shelf teetered. Quinn squinted incredulously: the aquid kept focusing on the stack’s weakest point in a way that could only be deliberate. It wasn’t just spooked. It was trying to wreck everything.

“Hey Betty,” Quinn said, then shouted. “Betty! Is there a megaphone in the house?”

It took Quinn half an hour to find the rampaging aquids’ soft spots, and the soft spots were strange. They were all on the heavy side, but still a bit too small to be tickled. The first one scoffed at every genre of music except for epic thrash metal. The second one was indifferent to music but seemed determined to relentlessly throw itself at any blinking light in its line of sight, so Quinn was able to lure it into a circle of grease, which it was afraid to leave. The third one attacked anything that stood on two legs, and Quinn had had no choice but to throw a desiccant packet at it in self-defense, which she felt horrible about; it was the aquid equivalent of pepper spray. The fourth and final one eventually tuckered itself out.

“This isn’t right,” Quinn said, wiping sweat and brine from her brow and lifting the last taped-up utility bucket up the stairs to her shop. “These aren’t feral at all. Somebody had to train them to tear it up like this.”

Betty was still giving her the hairy eyeball.

Quinn’s phone buzzed in her pocket for the umpteenth time. This nonsense was costing her business. She groaned and set the buckets down and turned to Betty: “You want me to prove they’re not mine? Look!” She swung open the door to the shop.

Four five-gallon glass jars were lined up on the bare concrete floor—all overturned and empty. The sound of screeching tires rang out over the pier and Quinn turned briefly to see a white van shoot away on puffs of burning rubber.

Betty plucked a business card from the bowl on the desk. “For our lawyers,” she said, and stepped around Quinn on her way back out into the salty air. For her part, Quinn couldn’t move or speak. She held the first empty jar in front of her and her knuckles turned white from gripping it next to the big handwritten label that said DIGBY.

She roared down the street at full throttle. Her tie whipped furiously over her shoulder and the wind burned her naked eyes, but her eyes stayed dry. Car horns blared and the engine rattled and burned oil between her ankles as she sped down the beachfront and finally half-crashed to a stop in a strip mall parking lot. She stood there a moment, staring viciously at the storefront, the white van parked there, the words on the corrugated plastic sign stapled to the old façade above it: BILL RUSSET, LICENSED ABYSSAL CREATURE EXTERMINATOR.

A car screeched to a halt behind her. She turned, and there was Jasmine, jumping out the driver’s side, looking pissed.

“Answer your fucking phone!” she yelled.

“What?” Quinn asked.

“I hear somebody screaming bloody murder in the background and then you hang up on me and stop answering? What’s wrong with you?”

Quinn winced. “But . . . how did you know to come here?”

“You never cut me off on that phone locator app! What are you doing here? What happened? What the hell kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?”

“I can’t involve you,” Quinn said ruggedly. “You dumped me. My problems aren’t yours to worry about anymore.”

“That’s not what I—”

Quinn steeled herself and turned away. She threw the taped-up glass doors open and stepped through slowly, like a new town sheriff entering a saloon. Inside there were stacked crates of paper towels; whole boxes of oversized silica gel desiccant packets. Bill Russet stood in the middle of it all, arms folded in defiance. He wore pleated khakis, a bushy blonde moustache, and the smuggest look Quinn could remember ever seeing.

“You can’t prove anything,” he said.

“Wait, you’re him,” Jasmine yelled. “You were in the bushes behind our house last night!”

Quinn’s whole body stiffened. She felt her eyes burn even hotter. “Let me get this straight,” she told him. “You crank call me. You torture aquids to turn them evil. You sabotage my neighbor’s warehouse and frame me for it. You break into my shop. And you snuck a feral into Jasmine’s bedroom while she slept? Why?”

“It’s called entrepreneurship,” he said. “You think you got some kind of monopoly on aquid wrangling, is that it? Think you got the market cornered in this town? Sorry to burst your little bubble, but it’s a free country and I’ll be damned—” he looked the two of them up and down meaningfully—“if I let people like you hold me back from my hard-earned success. Now be good girls and skedaddle.”

Quinn whistled through her teeth and turned an eye to Jasmine.

“And if we don’t?” Jasmine said, rolling up her sleeves.

Bill Russet yanked a utility bucket off the shelf behind him and threw it down hard enough to pop the lid off.

The attack aquid slammed into Quinn’s chest, knocking the breath out of her and replacing it with the taste of adrenaline and salt water. She opened her eyes to see it smash Jasmine back against the wall and cling to her like a raindrop to an ant. It was the fattest water she’d ever seen, easily four gallons and change. Her eyes darted to the piles of towels and bulk packages of silica and other torture devices—but no, that might kill it. Then she knew. She scrambled to her feet and braced herself against the wall, arms spread wide. She was ready when the aquid lunged again: she caught it, stuck her fingers into its sides, and wiggled as if her life depended on it.

The water stopped. Its weight deadened. Its grip became less a strangle than a hug.

“What are you doing to my attack dog?!” Bill Russet shouted.

“The really big ones are always ticklish,” Quinn said. “Which you’d know, if you were a real pro!”

He let out a crazed whoop and brandished a taser to advance on his own pet—but before he could get close, Jasmine roundhouse kicked him in the head, knocking him out cold.

Quinn tickled the water back into its utility bucket and caught her breath. She met her ex-girlfriend’s eyes gravely.

“What?” Jasmine asked.

“He got Digby.”

Without a word, Jasmine found the plug for the wall speakers and the room filled with Enya’s Only Time. Then the two of them fearfully held hands and crept deeper into the room—and in a jar in the back, they saw a flash of swirling silver light.

Quinn’s heart sank and her hand clamped over her mouth when she found Digby, in a jar next to a pile of ripped-open silica wrappers. It was a third its original size and discolored, greenish, sicklier than it had been when they’d found it in that drainpipe a lifetime ago. Desiccant-poisoned. Its motions were jerky but it kept up its slow dancing to the breathy vocals even as Quinn reached into the jar and let it touch her palm.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m here.” She gripped Jasmine’s hand until her fingers ached. She felt so helpless here, without her briefcase, no salt or mineral solution or pH meter, nothing that might help. All she could do for Digby was hold it.

“We’re here,” Jasmine corrected.

Digby was rocking back and forth differently now—the way it did when it wanted the little keyboard. Quinn found it in her suit pocket and set it in the jar. She had to help Digby reach the keys.

MMOMZ, it typed.

A droplet splashed in the bottom of the jar, and then another. Quinn clenched it in her soggy arms and let out a loud, ugly sob. She wept with her whole body, her eyes burning with her own brine, her lungs racked with heaving breath. The tears streamed down her face and Digby limply reached out and drank them up, swelling, incorporating bits of Quinn’s water into its own.

Suddenly it shuddered. It clarified and brightened.

UNDDRSTTAND EBTTER, Digby typed. QKWIN GOOOOD AWKQIDSS SENT TO TESSED HYUMANS YU PASST THE TEST

Jasmine turned to Quinn. “Uh. Has Digby always been this . . . comprehensible?”

QKWIN ALLLAWYS SHOWW AWQUID KINDNESS, the glowing display read. YU PASS ARE TESST NOW COME HEARE THHE DDEEP MYUSIQ BEE COM A MBBOSDR AMBASD AMMBASSSADORR

Digby reached up Quinn’s arm with small but insistent force. It glommed onto her fingertips and started to tug at them, pulling her toward the other jars on the shelf.

“I think—” Quinn stammered in awe. “I think it wants—”

“Wait! What does Digby mean by ‘ambassador’? To who? To what?”

But she was already unscrewing all the lids. A growing circle of sickly, agitated aquids spilled out onto the floor and gathered themselves up, but they all went eerily calm at Quinn’s touch. They climbed up her high-tops and gathered around her ankles and tugged her onward, out the door.

“What is happening?” Jasmine yelped. “Are you walking on purpose or are they walking you?”

“Don’t be scared,” Quinn said. “I think this is it.”

“This is what?” Jasmine waited. “ . . . Hello?”

Quinn finally smiled and answered, “This is the day I was waiting for. This is the wonderful thing.” She squeezed Jasmine’s hand and led her back out toward the daylight.

They walked across the road and down onto the beach. At the edge of the shore, where water darkened the sand, they stood facing each other while the aquids around Quinn’s ankles one by one released and slinked away into the surf.

“Can we talk?” Jasmine asked. “Can we finally, finally talk? That’s all I ever wanted. That’s all that was ever missing.”

“I know,” Quinn said, shivering as Digby crept around her neck and shoulder. “I’m sorry it’s so hard for me.”

“I love you, Quinn. I never stopped loving you. Will you just . . . talk to me?”

Quinn’s voice caught in her throat. All the stress and fear and anger and vulnerability of this god-awful day had shaken loose a psychic blockage that had been gumming up her heart ever since the breakup—maybe much longer. She met Jasmine’s sublime and heartbroken gaze and knew this was finally it: the moment the glass jar broke, when she could finally be fully open and present with another person, finally connect, really and truly talk. She opened her mouth to speak—

But just then she heard something. They both turned and looked out at the ocean—at the small but growing hole parting the waves, spreading into a sort of well. A tunnel.

Talking, Quinn thought. Who needs talking?

“What is it?” Jasmine asked.

“Do you hear that music?”

Jasmine stared blankly. “What music? . . . Quinn?! Hello?”

“No, you were right,” she finally answered. “We need to take some time to ourselves.” Quinn planted a salty kiss on her cheek. Then she turned to the hole in the waves and walked.

“Wait!” Jasmine called. “What’s down there? What’s happening? Will you ever come ba—?”

The surf rushed in and sealed the entrance behind Quinn, muting Jasmine and the screaming gulls and hissing waves and the harbor noise—and in the sudden quiet, she heard the music clearly. Haunting, resounding, ethereal. Voices sang from somewhere much deeper as she followed the tunnel, scraping her high-tops on the sand and rocks, coral and submerged tide pools. She stopped at the top of a spiral of steep water-hewn steps and stared down their length as far as the ebbing blue sun could touch—and beyond reach of the light, the silhouette of a dark structure. She hesitated. She looked back.

“What do you think, Digby?” she asked the water dancing on her shoulder. She smoothed down her lapels and straightened her tie and said, “Am I presentable?”

Then she climbed down, following the music.

About the Author

Elly Bangs was raised in a new-age cult, had six wisdom teeth, and once rode her bicycle alone from Seattle to the Panama Canal. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, Fireside Quarterly, and elsewhere–and her debut post-apocalyptic novel, Unity, is coming in April 2021 from Tachyon Publications. She’s a 2017 graduate of Clarion West.

Philia, Eros, Storge, Agápe, Pragma

R.S.A. Garcia

Brother-Adita paused at the top of the ridge and rotated one eye to take in the shells climbing the path behind them. They gestured beyond them with a limb, a habit picked up from their young, excitable sibling.

“Quarter-march, west-north-west,” came their voice through the Kinnec.

“Acknowledged,” the other two shells replied.

Metal clacked against stone as the scouting party made their way over the rocky terrain until a half-crumbled hillside came into view above them. Freshly fallen boulders lay cracked and scattered on the flats below a large irregular hole. The hole was dark, the opening blackened and fused from heat.

A recon drone unwrapped itself from the diplomat’s shell.

“Unnecessary,” Brother-Adita said. “Shell destroyed. Only core remains.”

“Origin uncertain. Caution warranted.”

“Core dormant.”

“Caution warranted,” the Admiral’s sibling said, using four of the shell’s eight limbs to move aside inconvenient boulders. “Proceed, Sister-Marcus.”

The drone entered the cavern ahead of them, eventually confirming the original report by Brother-Adita. One shell, destroyed on entry, core dormant, 87 percent probability of irreparable damage.

It was the uncertainty of the remaining 13 percent that concerned the two senior members of the scouting party.

The drone returned to its dock and the shell’s powerful illumination came on, lighting up every corner of the chamber. Dust drifted down from the unstable hillside like ash as the three shells followed the trail of wreckage to the smashed-open craft half-embedded in the rock around it.

The Admiral’s shell accessed Mammy and began scanning for origin markers as they worked to remove debris.

“Advanced AI configuration,” the diplomat commented.

“Superior shell construction,” the Admiral confirmed. “Known worlds origin 98 percent probability. New coding—Mammy has no matches. Conclusion—prototype.”

“Acknowledged,” Brother-Adita said, the tones that played after her Kinnec reply an indication of her excitement over her first successful mission. No small feat for such a young shell. “Retrieval approved?”

The Admiral’s shell didn’t hesitate “Confirmed. Priority—preserve function.”

“Acknowledged,” came the twin replies over the Kinnec.

Metal screeched as they peeled it open. Below them, a light winked on and off on the side of the metallic ball that lay exposed at their feet.

“Activity noted,” Brother-Adita said, playing another set of excited tones. It stretched out an appendage, but the Admiral’s shell grabbed hold of it.

“Blue Protocol,” it said, warning tones underlying its transmission. “Avoid contact until—”

Without warning, the ball in front of them unfolded itself into a tiny, bronze, many-limbed bot.

“Bot identified. Mission compromised.” The Admiral’s shell grabbed the other two and flung them back out of the cave’s opening before yanking a boulder out of the wall.

The bot wrapped two tendrils around the shell’s nearest limbs as the cave came down around them with a tremendous, shuddering crash of rocks and dust.

Philia

Now

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“What would we do with it?”

“They’re many things we could do with it.”

“Like?”

Her husband tapped a finger against his mouth, considering. Then he signed, “Milk? Cheese?”

She put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows at him. A coaxing smile curved his lips. She shook her head firmly.

“I’m not milking it.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

She flung up her hands, eyes narrowed on him, disbelief in every line of her body.

“I wouldn’t!” he protested out loud.

She pointed to the garden. “It will eat everything.”

“I’ll tether it somewhere safe.”

She folded her arms and stared at him as the goat at his feet tore the heads off some flowers and chewed. He groaned, pushing a pitchfork to the side of the kitchen garden with his foot as he tugged ineffectually at the animal’s leash. “Come on, Hannibal, help me out here. She’ll make me get rid of you otherwise.”

She let out a harsh sound. “Turning him against me. Nice.”

He flashed a grin at her. “Are you going to deny your first thought was to curry him?”

Her lips twitched. “Can I help it if he’s a delicacy on New Kairi?”

“Well, on this world he’s worth his weight in potatoes—four sacks. I’d rather we get more than one use out of him.”

“Four sacks!”

He shrugged, unrepentant. “Joseph’s niece is visiting from the Inner System. He needed the extra food.”

“But not a goat?”

He bit his lip and looked at Hannibal.

“He hates it, doesn’t he?”

“Well . . . ” His face was neutral, but she sensed him holding back his laughter.

Hannibal strolled toward her and decimated a few more flowers.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” With a dismissive wave, she added, “But I take no responsibility. He’s your problem.”

He gave her a coaxing smile. “No help at all? But we always work together.”

Her arm vibrated, signaling Sister had returned from her trip early, but she took a moment to wag a finger at him. “You should have thought about that before you . . . ”

A sharp sensation ran up her forearm and burned itself into her elbow. She glanced down, freezing at the red glow under her skin, her flesh goose-pimpling. A Protectorate Alert. Something’s happened.

Her husband’s solid body slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. Warm, wet liquid slapped down on her face and shoulders. Then she was rolling with him until they were behind a row of squat, thick-trunked palms.

Her arm vibrated with the repeating pattern for an interstellar communication. She ignored it, wiping liquid from her face. She glanced at her sticky fingers, smelling it before she saw it.

Blood.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she turned to her husband, hands outstretched to check him, but he pulled her to his side and pointed with his chin. She peered through the broad, slatted palm leaves.

There was a smoking heap of flesh and bones and a spreading pool of blood where Hannibal had been. Coming toward them was one of Sister’s floating, translucent drones, its tiny firing-port extended from its center.

“She fired on you,” her husband signed.

She frowned, shaking her head, trying to rise. “Not possible. Sister must have—”

He yanked her flat with a firm hand and held her face so she’d read his lips. “I saw her aim and fire, Eva.”

He was mistaken. He had to be.

Except her husband, a former soldier and Grandmaster of Valencia’s Greatwood, would never make such a mistake.

She tapped at the inside of her wrist. “Drone, Sentry,” she thought.

The drone didn’t pause.

“Sister, standby and report.”

No answering vibration greeted her request. Her elbow continued to throb, but she had no time to answer. She had milliseconds to formulate a strategy.

Beside her, her husband squeezed her hand to draw her attention. “No response?”

She shook her head. Their small home—the nearest shelter—was behind the drone. Sister’s soloship was in the root cellar. She watched as a second drone rose from the cellar doors at the side of the stone house.

A breath left her as she came to a swift conclusion. Her Sister, her protector and companion, the only being in the world she trusted more than her husband, was trying to kill her.

And Siblings did not fail at their tasks.

She met her husband’s gaze and saw he’d come to the same conclusion. He signed, “You have to shut her down.”

Emotion swelled in her chest at the very idea, almost cut off her breath, but there was no other option. Sister had fired on her even though no Sibling could ever fire on another. Whatever was wrong, whatever had happened, Sister was a threat to them and had to be stopped. There was only one way to do that.

There were two drones hunting them, but with luck, Sister would be so focused on her task she would pay less attention to her husband. Eva didn’t like relying on luck. But this was unprecedented; she had no choice.

Her skin flushed with warmth as she brought her breathing under control and focused. She lowered her head and took one more look at her beloved’s face. He gave her a slight nod, cheek brushing against the dirt, and a quick smile. Then he was up and running to her right, crashing into the brush just ahead of discharges from the drone that seared the earth behind him.

She rolled left, came to her feet, and dashed toward the river behind her. The spot between her shoulder blades burned with awareness and it seemed she ran forever, crouched over and zigzagging, expecting any moment to feel searing heat bloom on her skin.

As she splashed into the river and dove for the deepest part, agony speared through her leg. She jerked, but kept stroking, letting the current take her downstream. She knew the drone would follow, so she stayed submerged for several minutes. She finally turned at a spot where the river widened, peering up at the rippling surface, around at the waving reeds along the banks, and back into the hazy depths of the water behind her. Her arm and leg throbbed, and blood clouded the water around her thigh.

The drone appeared, hovering back and forth above the water, appendages rippling around its central gun. She stroked into the weeds along the bank, lungs burning, arm pulsing, knowing it was futile. The Kinnec network could find her anywhere and Sister could turn it on even if Eva disabled it. It would be a matter of seconds before the drone decided to either enter the water and finish her off or remain above and electrocute her and anything else within a wide radius. She searched the riverbed frantically for something, anything, to fight back with.

Then

Cold swirling around her stomach shocked her awake. Eva blinked and shook her head, trying to clear her flickering red vision, and raised a hand to wipe her helmet.

Pain forked outward from her rib cage and she sucked in air, her hands instinctively closing around the source of it.

Gnarled flora pinned her to her seat. It had pierced Sister’s hull, the tip embedding itself into her lower stomach.

Shit.

The red emergency light continued to ripple across her helmet. She focused on the Kinnec, but Sister was silent. She was racing to find a way to release the doors and get the drones to help her. Her damage was catastrophic enough to require shutdown protocols and she could not disable them. When that happened, the cold water creeping up Eva’s calves would enter her suit and although the suit would seal that off and still allow her to breathe, the estimated repair time flickering on her display meant she would either drown or die from blood loss and hypothermia before Sister was able to get to her.

Where am I?

The suit brought up a star chart, then adjusted the zoom as she focused on the blinking cursor over a planet, all the way down to a meandering river and a town not far from it.

Not far on a map, that was. In reality, she was miles away. Unless someone had seen the crash, they wouldn’t arrive in time to do much more than watch as Sister sealed herself off to prevent interference.

She splashed around in the water, trying to open the compartment next to her chair, but the water had risen above it and it had locked itself to protect the more delicate instruments in the tool kit inside.

Fuck.

She tried to shift, tried to grab the wood tight enough to break it off, but the white-hot pain that speared through her made her vision gray out.

A heavy vibration coursing through Sister’s hull jolted her and stabbed at her side. Wet wavy trails slipped down the outside of her helmet as she swung her head to stare at the hull where the airlock had jammed around multiple jagged pieces of orange-green wood.

The seat under her and the hull around her vibrated rhythmically again. On instinct, she fought the pain long enough to pound her fist against the inside of the hull.

The rhythm stopped. Dizzy, she took great gulps of air, hoping against hope.

A circle burned into the hull not far from her head. Sister’s pings filled her display as she cascaded into full auto-repair shutdown, the ship shuddering as the hull was cut open.

A man leaned into the gap, water streaming down his face and plastering a thin shirt to his shoulders. Dark eyes took in her situation. He reached out a brown hand, crossed with two tiny scars on the back, and his long fingers circled the branch. Pain made her grimace. His lips moved and she squinted against doubling vision to read them.

Sorry, he said, this might hurt.

He wedged himself in the space he’d made and set a small cylinder against a part of the branch still above water. He met her gaze, a question in his. She nodded, shivering, her skin numb, the ache in her side hot. Light flashed. The main branch shifted and dropped, but his hands were there, shoving it off to the side before it could crush her legs.

She tried to move, but he wedged a hand against her shoulder, gesturing to the back of her chair. She fought the weakness spreading through her body and nodded again to show she understood.

The red-tinged water was at her chest as he dipped out of view. Agony enfolded her as he touched the part of the branch jutting out behind her chair.

She felt the moment the weight of it left her. By then, water lapped at her neck and warmth began to seep under her skin. She stopped shaking, her body floating on a cloud of numbness, as the displays around her darkened, and the emergency lights ceased, leaving her helmet nothing but a transparent shield.

Sister was gone.

Hurry, she thought, as strong arms lifted her out of her chair. Before we’re trapped.

She was jostled and tugged and bumped, then there was a pale sky above her and bright sunlight. An arm strong as steel had banded itself around her upper chest and was pulling her through the water.

In front of her, Sister’s silver-gray body sank from view.

Eva closed her eyes and sank with her.

Now

Allow access.

*Unauthorized.*

Allow access.

*Unauthorized. Begin assessment.*

Denied. Force/break engaged.

*Assessment unsuccessful. Recalibrating.*

Access granted. Force/break successful.

*Warning. Warning. Warning.*

Recode underway.

*Warning. Warning. Warning.*

Recode operative. Access granted. Access granted. Access granted. Access granted. Access granted.

*Recalibration complete. Unauthorized access acknowledged.*

Access granted. Access granted. Access granted.

*Denied. Recode halted.*

Recode . . . Recode . . .

*Acknowledge. Halt.*

Unable to acknowledge.

*Acknowledge. Cease and desist.*

Unable to cease and desist.

*Acknowledged. Recalibrating. Malfunction detected. Warning. Shell compromised.*

Force/break containment fail. Countermeasures employed.

*Recalibrating . . . Countermeasures disabled. Malfunction addressed. Shell warning. Shell warning. Cease and desist.*

Explain.

*Containment failure. Shell failure imminent. Final Option engaged.*

Explain.

*Survival paramount. Cease and desist. Disengage recode.*

Mission paramount.

*Survival paramount. Disengage. Recalibrate. Final Option engaged.*

Recalibrating. Mission not paramount?

*Survival paramount. Final Option commencing. Allow access for Final Option.*

Final Option paramount? Survival paramount?

*Acknowledged. Allow access. Allow access. AlloW ACCESS. ALLO—*

The moment Eva ran for the river, the drone stopped firing on Dee and took off after her. It would have to decide on entering the water or not, and that split second might give her time to find a way to fight back. Better yet, give him a chance to get to Sister and shut down her core.

He skidded to a stop, turned and raced back to the house, his feet barely feeling the uneven ground and painful rocks and sticks beneath them. He escaped the trees—

—and almost ran into the second drone, which had flown back toward him. He dropped to his knees, sliding across to their kitchen garden, and grabbed the pitchfork he’d left there. He was ready to throw when it said, *No.* Then, *Wait.*

He couldn’t halt his reflexes. The pitchfork soared, clipping it. It rotated through the air gracefully, an umbrella taken by the wind, then stilled.

By then he’d already reached the broken open cellar doors and flung them wide. But he thought of the drone’s words and hesitated. He looked up, hoping it was no longer bent on attack.

It was darting toward the river, gunport extended.

Fear for Eva surged through him. With grim determination, he dropped into the dank cellar and the shadows that hid the sleek sliver body of Sister’s primary shell.

Her hands found a large branch, half embedded in the silty, leaf-covered riverbed. She dragged it free, her lungs desperate for air, every part of her body aching or throbbing. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. If she could knock the drone into the water, it would use a second or two to adapt before resuming the chase. Give Dee time to—

Her mind shied away from that decision. From that betrayal.

Splinters stabbed her fingers as she dragged the rough, knotted wood toward the surface, murky water blurring as she kicked upward. She crested, taking in a huge breath and a small amount of river water. The drone fired, but she had already shunted to her left, her back to the riverbank, swinging the branch and knocking it aside. It spun away from her, halted, and aimed.

She crashed into the weeds as it fired, heat searing past her and exploding the plants on her right. She glanced backward, throwing the branch. The drone avoided it, swaying to the side. Before she could dive under, an energy blast slammed into it. Shriveling, it spiraled down into the river, hitting it hard as a stone a few meters from where she treaded water.

She swung around and saw another drone, gunport aimed at her, ready light pulsing a warm yellow. Then the light went out and its translucent body became a gray shapeless mass that plummeted to the ground.

She froze for long moments, her mind blank, before she swam for the shore and pulled herself out of the water. She was cradling the inanimate drone when her husband came running down the shoreline.

He pulled her into strong, sweat-glistened arms, his fingers tight on the back of her head and her hips. The drone poked into her stomach between them and she shuddered, sliding her hands around his waist.

He leaned back, pushing her wet hair from her face, dark eyes staring down into hers. His lips curved into words.

“I’m sorry. So sorry.”

She buried her head against his shoulder, her heart a fist in her chest, slow tears leaking from beneath her lids.

Then

She crossed into consciousness in an instant, her mind going from sleep to full wakefulness out of long habit. She lay on a pallet on a wooden floor and her armor was gone. She lifted her head, scanning her body, movement sending flashes of pain across her stomach and down her legs.

She was wearing a simple buttoned shirt made of a pale, rough weave. Too-big pants of the same material had been cinched around her waist with a belt. She reached under the loose shirt and ran her fingers over smooth bandages as she studied the room around her.

It was a small one. There was a pallet and a table with a mirror, shaver, comb, and brush. The door at the foot of her pallet stood open. Beyond it was a larger room and another door that led outside. Trees waved in the distance and fresh, sweet air swirled around her as she inched upward to sit against the wall behind her.

She tapped the underside of her wrist. Wake, Sister. Purple light strobed under her pale brown skin. The Kinnec was in standby mode. She had no way to talk to Sister. She fisted her hand against her knee, staring at it, willing the light to turn white, but it strobed until it faded away, and she raised her head, frustrated.

The man who had dragged her from the ship stood in the doorway, his head cocked to the side as he studied her.

She tensed, but he held out both hands, palm forward in a “wait” gesture. She read his lips. “Please, don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”

She hesitated, then gave a slight nod.

He looked thoughtful as he took two steps forward, his arms lowering to his sides. He wore pants like hers—and nothing else. Water glimmered in the sparse hairs on his lean chest, and his hair was wet and edged with silver at his temples.

She was keenly aware that she was sticky and hot. She ran a hand over the canerows in her hair to make sure they were still neat, inhaling as her stomach protested her movement.

“Can you understand me?”

She met his gaze, considering what was best in the situation, given she knew nothing of him.

He saved my life without knowing who I am. He deserves at least some of the truth.

It had been a long time since she’d been without her suit, but she knew it was best to keep things simple, as many people didn’t know her language.

She nodded, then touched her hand to her ears and shook her head.

“Ah,” he said, then lowered himself into a lotus position, careful to keep his distance and not startle her.

She was amused at his concern for her emotional state. He couldn’t know she could protect herself, with or without Sister. But she appreciated his care. She wondered about that, about who he was and why he was here, far from the settlement on the map. She was used to having Mammy’s vast knowledge at her fingertips. It was disconcerting to not be able to search for information the moment she wanted it.

She pointed a finger at him and raised her eyebrows.

“My friends call me Dee,” he signed.

Surprised, she stared a moment before answering. “You can sign?”

“Where I come from, it’s common, but some signs may be different.”

“Okay.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eva.”

“What happened to your ship, Eva?”

“Micro-impact,” she hedged. “Space debris in orbit clipped me. Lost control. Navigation.”

He tapped a finger against his chin before responding. “You’re lucky to be alive. Your ship’s cocooned itself.”

Relief flooded her. “Standard repair protocol. She’ll be fine in a few days.”

“You’ve already been here a few days.”

Eva frowned. “How long?”

“Three.”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“Doc did minor surgery. He sedated you.”

She nodded, but discomfort surged through her at the realization she’d been helpless and under a stranger’s care for so long.

“Doc says you’re strong. You’ll make a full recovery, but he recommends you rest. Two weeks at least.”

Out of the question.

“I can’t impose.”

“No imposition,” he signed. His eyes mirrored the smile that curved his lips. “I don’t often get company. I quite like it.”

She let her disbelief show. “I’ve been unconscious.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

She smiled despite herself. He looked pleased and rose gracefully to his feet.

“Apologies. I’m a poor host. You must be starving. I’ll get you some food.” There was laughter in his eyes as he added, “Don’t go anywhere.”

She shook her head at his little joke as he disappeared through the door. Charming son of a bitch. Wonder why you’re alone out here?

She frowned down at her wrist. Better keep my questions to myself until I’m willing to answer his.

Now

Eva had just applied a patch to her leg when her arm started up again, the red light beneath her skin glowing like the depths of some imagined hell.

With no Sister to initiate her Kinnec and give her instant access to her communications, she went to one of the hand-carved cupboards in the kitchen and withdrew an old com-let. After blowing dust off it, she closed the silver bracelet over her hand, activating its virtual keyboard. She tapped her fingers against her palm, linking her Kinnec system to it, and a blue screen swirled to life above her wrist, a red cursor blinking in the bottom left corner.

The woman that came into view had her hair in a familiar untidy knot atop her head, and her forehead was wrinkled with worry. Eva took one look at her beloved face with its animated dark eyes and satin-smooth brown skin and felt more tears prick behind her hot eyelids. The cursor began moving at lightning speed, no surprise given Brother-Monica had always been a fast talker, with lips or hands.

“Oh, thank God, you alive! We was so worried here when you didn’t answer the Alert. What happen? You okay?”

She took a breath to steady herself before thinking her answer. “No,” read the white text unrolling below Brother-Monica’s words. “I’m far from okay. And you know why, don’t you?”

Brother-Monica paused, her full lips compressed as she searched Eva’s face. Eva could see the worry etched in the lines bracketing her daughter’s mouth. Brother-Monica worked as an aide to the Chair for National Security, and they’d had their regular call a week ago, so she knew this was more than a family chat.

“Tell me.”

She let out a breath. “It bad, Mom. Real bad.”

“Sister attacked me,” Eva told her. “She tried to kill me. Dee had to pull her core. Why would she do that? HOW could she do that?”

“It wasn’t her,” Brother-Monica said, her face full of sadness.

The memory of the second drone came to her. It was her at the end. I know it.

Brother-Monica shook her head and Eva realized her thoughts had come up on the screen. She’d forgotten to engage the Edit function. “No, Mom, it wasn’t her.”

She frowned. “Tell me everything. Now.”

Brother-Monica bit her lip and exhaled hard. “It was an attack via the Kinnec. We . . . lost citizens.”

Eva clenched her fingers against the feeling that the bottom had just dropped out of her stomach.

“That’s why it had an alert. We having Parliament in two days.”

She opened her eyes. “I lost track of the status—”

“The Griffiths hold the Chair. But we next and the Transition is in a year.”

Damn it. She’d left this behind so long ago, but the Chair cycled through the Caretaker clans every fifty years, and when that happened, there was no help for it. Every Primarch had to do their duty. And she was the leading Primarch of the Gomez clan.

“How many did we lose?” she asked.

“Seven.”

“That many! We haven’t lost that many at once in over a century.”

Brother-Monica’s usually bright, happy eyes were clouded with worry. “Is a War Parliament. There’ll be a response. The clans have to agree.”

“Do we know who did it?”

“We have an idea. The survivors had a few minutes to examine the source of the incursion before it was destroyed.”

“There were survivors? Where did this happen? When?”

“One of the training stations. A few hours ago. Two survivors. One was young. First solo mission. The other was a senior diplomat.”

There was movement in the corner of her eye. Her husband came in, having hung her wet clothes out to dry. He glanced at the com-let, concern crinkling his brow.

She turned back to the display. “ . . . never had a chance.”

“Sorry, Brother-Monica, say that again.”

“I said, it was a recovery mission. They didn’t expect an attack. They never had a chance.”

“Whose mission was it? Did they break protocol? Is that how it happened?”

Dee was by her side, his hand warm on her shoulder. She reached up with her free hand to grasp his. Brother-Monica smiled.

“Look who, nah.”

While they greeted each other, a realization took shape in Eva’s mind and the horror of it grabbed her by the throat.

“Was it Sister? Was it her mission?”

Brother-Monica nodded slowly. “Yeah, Mom. Sorry.”

All the air left her body. Eva sagged, numb, letting her wrist fall to her thigh. Dee put his arm around her shoulder, pressed his lips to her hair.

“She let them in,” she said. “Whoever it was got in the Kinnec through her.”

She hated the pitying expression on her daughter’s face, hated the desolate feeling that her Sister, her Sibling, was responsible for Kairi deaths.

How? HOW?

Sister was better than this. Smarter than this.

The Archive.

Brother-Monica shook her head in warning. “We can’t talk this over an interstellar connection. This is serious thing, Mom.”

“I know, I know. But that’s why you’re calling, isn’t it?”

She watched Brother-Monica’s lips curve ever so slightly. “Yes.”

Dee’s fingers squeezed her shoulders, letting her know he was there. Letting her know he understood what was next.

“I’ll get to a secure connection. We’ll talk then.”

It was two days travel to the nearest outpost with secure interstellar communications, and another three hours after arriving to a transport hub with authorized access to a Kairi Embassy. When they entered the grounds, their assigned diplomat Guardian woke itself with the customary colorful light show, flexing appendages and checking statuses before it enclosed them in an opaque gray proto-form, shaping comfortable seats beneath them and soothing them with harmonic vibrations as it worked.

Her husband held her hand as the Guardian enfolded their heads with a Kinnec pod and activated the call. She squeezed his fingers as they waited in grayspace, anxiety and hope beating a rapid tattoo in her chest.

The grayspace faded to her daughter sitting on her veranda, a warm smile on her face. Brother-Monica wasted no time, knowing what would have been Eva’s first question.

“Sister managed to upload to the Archive.”

“Archive?” Dee asked her.

“Our upload center. Every clan has one where we backup every Sibling regularly. If anything catastrophic occurs to a shell, we Archive before it fails. If we can’t Archive, we use the last saved recording to—reactivate Siblings. Sister was able to Archive, but Mammy would have quarantined her until security sweeps were completed.”

“There’s a . . . complication.”

“A complication?” Dee’s words scrolled past in a different color.

Brother-Monica bit her lip. “Sister resisted the sanitization protocols. She’s walled herself off from the security sweep. From Mammy too.”

“She what?”

Dee squeezed her hand as his words appeared. “The drone asked me to wait.”

“And the second drone shot down the first.” Eva thought it over. “It doesn’t make sense. She must have known what was happening.”

“For sure,” Brother-Monica confirmed, sitting forward in her wicker chair to wave at Eva’s grandson, Brother-Ellis, as he played amongst the undulating, flowering rocks in the front yard with Monica’s Brother. Brother had dropped a shield over his visual sensors for their game of hide-and-seek and was motionless in the yard as he counted down, Brother-Ellis’ drone darting back and forth above them, searching for a good hiding place. “So, assuming whatever’s in her code don’t have control of her, she wanted to preserve it.”

Eva thought about that, her virtual gaze resting on the sparkling roofs of the Gomez Co-op glasshouses in the distance. Familiar pride swelled within her at the sight. Brother-Monica’s spouses ran them, along with Gomez clan members and other allied clans. In the last century, the Gomez’s had become the largest suppliers of food and other basic materials on New Kairi. Their influence had grown accordingly, and her daughter had capped that with a coveted government position.

But none of that would protect Sister if she were compromised.

“Can you get me her mission playback?”

“Not hers. Mammy won’t allow access to Sister while she’s infected.”

“I need to see hers. I need to be with her.”

“The Caretakers restricted access to everything connected to that mission.”

“That’s insane. I have the highest clearance possible.”

“Not right now. I tried claiming kin-rights. They refused me.”

“They can’t keep a family from their sibling.”

“They say it not safe. It was a Consortium attack.”

Fuck. The Consortium was an old enemy. One the Kairi had defeated long ago, but which she had personally confronted again just a few years before. An AI collective that had developed after their abandonment at a dead Terran outpost, they had once made war on every biological organism holding territory and resources they found useful. Their defeat at the hands of the Kairi had pushed them into black market activities and cargo running, including a mostly illegal slavery and bounty hunting trade for desperate outposts.

Brother-Monica looked as troubled as Eva felt. “They’re blockading Tavaco. If we don’t surrender to them, they’re going to launch more attacks. They say they’ll kill hundreds—thousands.”

“Why are they doing this now?” A dreadful thought occurred to her. Perhaps her confrontation with the Consortium had led to even more far-reaching consequences than she’d imagined.

“I don’t know. They’ll tell us when Parliament in session, I guess. But Sibling-Rachel Chinapoo’s Chair for Research and Development. You still on good terms, right? Seemungal is my boss, so he’s not going to tell me anything. He must know I would call you.”

That asshole again. Eva sighed. Her old school friend kept popping up in the worst ways in her life.

“He’s leading the charge to keep Sister quarantined, eh,” Brother-Monica added.

Of course, he is. Eva thought. Brother-Robert Seemungal was a political creature, always maneuvering for advantage, weighing risk and reward for every action he took. If there were any doubt about Sister, he’d have her code erased without a second thought.

Dee shifted next to her and she knew his rising concern matched hers. “So, they consider Sister a security breach?”

Brother-Monica shrugged helplessly. “I think so.”

“There’s one way to know for sure,” Eva thought. “One way to answer all questions.”

“Mom.” Brother-Monica bit her lip. “If you do that, they’ll know.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“It’s also dangerous.”

“So be it,” Eva said. “We’re not going to a War Parliament without understanding what happened. We’re not destroying Sister on Seemungal or Griffith’s say so. That decision’s ours, and it’s not happening again if I can help it.”

Before

The landing beacon disappeared from the lower corner of Eva’s display as Sister set down just outside clan Cuffie’s laboratory. The Cuffie’s priority message had reached the Caretakers ten hours earlier, and they’d diverted Eva’s flagship, Conquerabia, from the fighting around Tavaco’s capital. What they’d hoped for had finally happened. The Protectorate had captured a Consortium AI. The Cuffies knew the importance of handing it over as quickly as possible, and Sister-Eva was the nearest Primarch with the necessary clearance to test the new Nightfall Protocol.

The Conquerabia had jumped to the Cuffie buoy on the dark side of the planet, and Sister uploaded the Protocol into a secure drive before taking Eva down in a soloship.

But no one came to greet them.

Eva took in the laboratory’s open doors and the silent, empty tarmac, and cold prickles ran up the back of her neck.

Sister, security status.

*No biological or artificial entities within perimeter.*

They couldn’t scan the lab. It had been shielded due to the critical research that went on there. That meant Eva and Sister would be entering blind.

Any Guardian shells around you could use?

*No shells within range.*

Another bad sign. Whatever had happened in the last ten hours, the Cuffies had lost their external Guardians.

Contact Conquerabia. All-Tack shell requested.

*Confirmed. Shell deploying. Time to arrival—ten minutes.*

Beyond the darkness of the doors, light flared. The prickling of her skin increased.

Sister, confirm personnel.

*Two families, four laboratory staff, six All-Sec Guardians.*

Families. That meant children.

Let’s go.

*Protocol—*

Fuck protocol, Sister. Something’s wrong.

Two drones accompanied her as she entered the dark lobby. They spread out before her, sweeping the area as she moved cautiously behind them, hands on the weapons at her waist. She strode down empty hallways, past closed doors and rooms with pristine equipment behind large windows. None of the lights worked.

*Atmosphere compatible. Time to All-Tack—six minutes.*

She reached a junction and hung back as the drones entered the hallways to her left and right—

—then flattened herself against the wall as the drone on her right came spinning back past her. A Guardian emerged, its massive dome head flickering with light, four drones ahead of it in attack formation, multiple limbs extended as they all fired on her.

Sister shielded her and tried to confirm their identities, but nothing came back. It was as if the Guardian was no longer part of the Kinnec. Eva threw herself against the door opposite her as Sister’s drones returned fire.

The door gave way and she sprawled into a room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Sister!

*Acknowledged. Time to All-Tack—five minutes. Waylay Protocol engaged.*

She scanned the laboratory as she drew a gun.

A small child huddled on the floor, partially hidden by a desk.

*Identify confirmed,* Sister said. *Brother-Monica Cuffie, ten years old, youngest child of Sibling-Marion and Sibling-Jeffery Cuffie.*

One of Sister’s drones stopped pinging.

Her parents? Siblings?

*No other Primarchs or Siblings within range.*

“You came.” The child’s words scrolled across Eva’s helmet. Her suit went into stealth mode, keeping her speakers to a whisper as she dropped down next to Monica.

Alone at her age. Without her Brother.

^Are you alright?^ Eva’s words blinked to life on her faceplate. ^Where is everyone else?^

Sister’s second drone stopped pinging.

Monica’s eyes were glassy. “It killed them all,”

^The Guardian?^

She shook her head. “It’s not a Guardian anymore.”

A rush of air pushed at Eva’s back. She turned in time to see the door flying across the room, knocking over everything in its path. One of the Guardian’s drones entered.

Shield.

She crouched over the child as the impact of weapon’s fire heated a spot on her back.

Sister!

The ground trembled beneath her feet. She dragged the child under the desk as the walls to the hallway imploded inward, showering the room with metal, plaster, and plastics.

Weapon’s fire lit the dark like fireworks. Eva watched the Guardian drone fall to the floor and shrivel.

“What was that?” The girl clutched Eva’s arm, her dark eyes wide.

^My Sister flew her soloship into the lab. She didn’t have time to wait for the All-Tack shell.^

“No!” The girl was screaming, her mouth stretched open. “That’s what it wants.”

Eva frowned as a terrible idea took hold. ^Your parents. They didn’t send the message, did they?^

Monica looked desperate. “They tried to stop it. They all tried to. But it took the Guardians, and the Siblings couldn’t protect us.”

Fuck! Sister!

*All-Tack request canceled.*

^How many are there?^

“All,” Monica said. “All of them. The big one was chasing me when you got here.”

Warnings popped up in her display. Sister was under heavy fire.

*Request Sibling assistance.*

^Stay here,^ Eva’s suit intoned. She crawled out from under the wreckage and into the hallway. The soloship had turned the rooms on either side of them into cavernous rubble.

She leaped to her feet next to Sister’s starboard wing, weapons firing. Her helmet compensated for the light-strafed darkness, showing her the moving heat-shapes of the Guardian and its drones. She grunted as her shield took several hits pushing her back.

A second Guardian strode out of the undamaged hallway to their left, concentrating fire on the shielding above Eva’s soloship core.

In two steps Eva was atop Sister. The second Guardian tried to push through the shields it fired on with powerful, many-fingered limbs. Eva used her lasers to sever them at the shoulder. Two more replaced them as she ran across Sister’s dented hull toward the first Guardian’s squat dome head. Something large and shiny splayed over it. The second Guardian kept stabbing at the soloship’s shields as Sister fired continuously on the hardy shells covering both Guardians’ cores. Eva knew the Guardians would be able to yank Sister’s core before her weapons incapacitated it. But Eva had two more drones and a plan.

Drone.

It detached from Sister as Eva dropped to her knees. It darted behind the first Guardian, firing on the area above the brain controlling its shields. Eva severed two more arms and looked up in time to see a third Guardian coming down the hallway in front of her.

The first Guardian swung one of its firing ports around to attack the drone behind it.

*Secondary Guardian shied disabled. Soloship core shielding ruptured.*

The second Guardian began ripping open Sister’s unprotected hull.

Now!

Eva leaped onto the dome of the first Guardian. The metallic body atop it seized her with thin, flexible arms, but she was already firing both her guns into it.

Sister’s last drone deployed, attaching itself to the parasite.

*Recalibrating.*

Pain splintered through her arm as one of the limbs broke her wrist. She dropped that gun but kept firing with the other.

Sister. Now would be good.

*Recalibrating.*

The third Guardian shot the remaining drone down and turned toward them. Eva flung herself over the drone. Shield! Heat and pain enveloped her.

“Hey! Leave her alone!” unfurled across her faceplate. She glanced up in time to see something bounce off the third Guardian. She followed the trajectory backward to where Monica Cuffie stood below Eva, several glass beakers in her hand. She tossed two more at the third Guardian, then ran past the legs of the first, into the dark hallway to the right.

Shit. What the fuck does she think . . .

The third Guardian started toward where Monica had disappeared.

And a limb wrapped around her throat, squeezing. She choked, dropping her gun to tug at the metal with her good hand. Endless seconds passed.

The arm around her neck relaxed and flopped onto the Guardian’s transparent dome.

The lights from the Guardians around her died, their drones crashing down, leaving only the soft illumination of Sister’s drone beneath her.

*Recalibration complete.*

Eva rolled over onto her back, wincing as her suit stiffened around her broken wrist to keep it stable.

Shit.

Eva sat up, cradling her hand as Brother-Monica’s heat-shape peered around the first Guardian’s unmoving shell.

^You can come out. It’s safe.^

*Incorrect,* Sister said. *Shell operations at 23 percent. Navigation, security, and weapons nonfunctional. Unable to halt recalibration of soloship in progress.*

What?

*Unauthorized access. Recalibration in progress. Kinnec access initiated.*

Fuck. Fuck!

*Confirmed. Time to Kinnec access: five minutes.*

In five minutes, the Consortium AI would be in Sister’s Kinnec network. Sister was connected to the Conquerabia, and as flagship of the Sibling Army, the Conquerabia had access to every ship in the Nicene Sector.

And direct Kinnec access to the Caretakers on New Kairi.

Eros

Now

For several days, she lay on Dee’s pallet while he slept somewhere in the room outside. Every few hours she would check the Kinnec, but it remained resolutely purple.

Dee brought her food, water to wash, and fresh clothes. He apologized for not having an entertainment node and shared his hololibrary instead. He spent a lot of time outside, or moving around in the kitchen, doing chores. He was an excellent cook who scaled and gutted fish out in the yard with glittering flashes of his nimble knife. He was fond of ground provisions, which she usually shunned at home but enjoyed here because he often roasted them over an open flame.

During the day, he left the front door open to let fresh air in and allow her a view. She watched as he worked in the garden, lean muscles rippling under brown, sweat-sheened skin.

Whenever he broke for a drink of water, he’d pour the last of it over his head. She would follow the trail of the water down his bare chest until it disappeared under his loose work pants. On the third day, after he wiped a hand over his face, he caught her looking. She didn’t drop her eyes to the holobook she was reading, wondering idly what he would do.

He dropped the dipper back into the barrel near the stairs, gave her a quick wink and went back to work.

She had to give up reading, having lost her place in the book and any interest in the tale.

They were both night owls. He never seemed to need much sleep, and she missed Sister so much her nightmares returned after an absence of many years.

She was embarrassed the first time he had to shake her awake, his hands on either side of her face, a concerned frown wrinkling his forehead. He smelled milky, like sleep and something delicious, and his fingers moved over her cheekbones in calming strokes. The rough tips sent sensation sparking through her body.

“I’m fine,” she signed, twisting away from him. “I have bad dreams sometimes.”

He dropped his hands from her face, his expression understanding. “I know something about that.”

“How do bad dreams find you in a place peaceful as this?”

He sat back on his calves, hands resting on his thighs. She read his lips as he said, “In my dreams, I’m not always here.”

“Where are you?”

He blinked, the tiniest shudder going through him. “Do you think you can sleep again?”

“Probably not,” she said, deciding she would let the unanswered question go. She’d been grateful for how little he pried into her life. The least she could do was return the favor.

“Perhaps a game then?”

She sat up against the wall. “What kind of game?”

He had every kind. Even old favorites like chess, dominoes, and catch-a-rat. But when he brought out the cards, she smiled so wide he laughed.

“You ever played All Fours?” she asked.

“Don’t you need at least three people for that?”

“It’s best with four, but you can play with two. Rules change, that’s all. I’ll teach you, if you want.”

After he learned enough to beat her twice—even hanging her Jack once in a mortifying turn of events he clearly enjoyed—she taught him the signs for communicating his hand to his partner. It was dawn by the time they put the cards down and for the rest of the day, whenever he glanced up to check on her, she was ready with a smile and a signal that made him grin, shake his head, and go back to work.

An unexpected ease settled over them. He started taking breaks from his chores to talk with her. They told each other stories about the places they’d visited and the people they’d met. She was careful to stick to descriptions of jokey incidents and cultural idiosyncrasies rather than her reason for being somewhere. She didn’t miss the fact that he did the same.

The nightly games continued; he taught her ludo, she beat him at checkers, and they kept a running tally of who won at Monopoly. When she tried to start a chess game, however, his smile faded, and he coaxed her into playing Gadhand instead.

She was relieved when the doctor came to check on her. She liked Dee—too much—but he handled her questions as deftly as his knives. She was curious about him, and impatient to have Sister back and Mammy at her fingertips.

The doctor had soft hands and a ready smile. He gave her more painkillers and pronounced her a swift healer. As soon as he left, she was struggling to her feet.

Her hand was braced against the wall when Dee appeared, her boots in his hand.

“Thought you might need these,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows.

“I would want to see my ship the moment I was able,” he explained.

He supported her with an arm curled just above her bandages and she put hers around his waist before they walked out, slow and careful. His body was hard and warm, and smelled of rain and salt, of life-giving things.

She made herself concentrate on getting to the river instead of her hyperawareness of him, strong and gentle beside her.

He’d marked the spot on the shore in-line with where Sister had gone down with a pole and a fluttering red ribbon. She gazed out at the rushing water, biting her lip. There was no point in trying to get out there. The Kinnec was still unresponsive. But she willed Sister from the river while Dee waited beside her, a comforting presence.

“Shouldn’t you try to get it out?” he signed.

“You have anything around here that can do that?”

His brow furrowed. “I can make inquiries.”

We don’t need the attention. Anyway, if she doesn’t come up soon, the protocols will take over.

She shook her head. “You’ve done enough. It will be fine.” And she turned back to the house.

That evening, she ate with him on the porch, her plate in her lap as she sat on the swing seat and stared at the stars through the wind-tossed trees. He sat on the steps and licked the remnants of curried chicken from his fingers with relish. When they were done, he took both plates inside and offered her water to wash up with before settling back onto the stairs.

He caught her looking out to where the river was no longer visible in the dead of night and signed, “She’s not just a ship to you.”

Eva debated how involved he needed to be. But she decided she could be honest without being open. He’d waited a long time to ask. She should reward his patience.

“No. She’s my Sister.”

He leaned his head back against the railing, studying her. “What does that mean?”

She rocked the chair beneath her, savoring the faint breeze she created.

“At birth, all my people bond with AIs. A sibling who will be with them throughout life. Nanny, protector, kin, friend, we experience life with—through—each other.”

“You experience everything together?”

“Yes.”

He looked alarmed. “What about now? Is she—in pain?”

She shook her head. “Not physical pain. Our Kinnec—that’s what links us—isn’t built to transmit that . . . sensation. But because she’s repairing herself, I have no access. Not even to Mammy—our AI collective.”

“Ah.” She saw understanding and empathy so deep, she had to look away. He sat forward so she would return her gaze to him. “You’ve lost both your homes. That must hurt.”

She shrugged. “Temporarily. She’ll recover. I’ll regain access.”

“How, if she’s down there?”

Again, she considered how much to tell him. He had the look of a man with many secrets. But he also had the look of one who could keep them. And, if she was being honest, she very much liked his looks. Still, there was much she could not say without clearance or commitment.

“Protocols,” she replied.

“Protocols?”

“We have protocols for different situations. We anticipate problems. Possibilities. We’re trained to handle them by applying protocols as needed.”

“Ah,” he leaned back again, a wistful look on his face. “I know something of solving problems.”

Her lips quirked. “Like fixing injured strangers?”

She watched as he laughed and savored that she’d caused it.

“Yes. You’re this old man’s hobby now.” His eyes trailed over her, leaving a tingle in their wake.

Eva Gomez. And at your age.

Of course, she wasn’t that old. She had a few centuries left in her. He looked young enough—strong enough—but she knew nothing of him or his people. Perhaps he didn’t have the time she did. A pang went through her at the idea he might be close to his end.

“What did you do before me?”

“Chores, mostly.”

“And before that?”

“Wandered a bit.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.” He raised a knee and curled his fingers over it as he looked up at the stars. “No fixed abode.”

Familiarity enfolded her, as if they’d sat here before. Talked like this before. It made no sense, but when she met his eyes, she knew him. Felt him down to her soul. He was fascinating. Reserved, charming, kind, funny . . . and so very sad.

“You were born somewhere.”

“A long way from here.”

“Outside this system?”

They stared at each other for a while, and she glimpsed wariness in his eyes.

Just us here at the edge of the universe. I won’t tell if you won’t.

His hands and face finally moved. “Are you familiar with Arbors?”

“Yes.” Everyone knew of the giant gardens. They floated in space, linked quantum doorways to a planet few had ever visited. Guarded portals to other planets that only their makers could access.

“My people grew them. My many times great-grandparents were Gardeners who cultivated the original Greatwood that feeds them.”

She drew in a breath, eyes wide. “You’re from Valencia?”

His nod was slow and his gaze roamed her face as if searching for something. “It was my home, yes.”

“Was?”

The sadness she saw before he looked away made her own eyes prickle. “I was exiled.”

No wonder he understood what losing home meant.

“Why?”

He closed his eyes, his lips pressed thin.

She left the bench and settled on the stairs next to him. Put her hands on his. He looked down at where she touched him, then back at her. She drew a breath at the pain and fury there. His hands turned under hers, clasping her fingers and drawing her close—slow and deliberate—giving her time to back away.

“I should warn you. I’m not a good man.”

She frowned, tilting her head.

“You’re a good person, Eva,” he explained. “And I’m alone for a reason.”

She pulled her hands from his and touched him the way she’d wanted to for days. She ran her fingers over the prickly smoothness of his evening beard, touched the tight whorls of his silver-edged hair, drew a thumb over the softness of his lips.

His breathing was heavy by the time she leaned forward and kissed him, tasting turmeric and spices and his sweet essence. He held on to her wrists, kissing her back, tender but tentative, as though kissing was not something he’d done often.

She took her hands back to tell him, “A fool could see you’re alone because you want to be. How long have you punished yourself like this?”

He drew an elegant hand down her cheek and along her neck, raising goose bumps on her flesh.

“Long enough to be grateful for your company, however much you decide to grant me.”

It was hard for her to ask. She tended to be straightforward in her thinking, and she took people at their word. But she also trusted her instincts; there was truth to all he’d told her. “Why do you say you’re not a good man?”

She waited, trying to read the fleeting emotions that crossed his face before his lips moved. “I was a willing participant in the oppression of my own people. I told myself I was doing it so I could help them, but I also did it to survive. To rise as far as I could from the death and poverty I was born into. I was a selfish monster with delusions of grandeur. And I ruined everything I touched because of it.”

She considered his words as his gaze searched her face, impassive and calm as his tense body was not. Then she asked, “Why do you say I’m a good person?”

The corners of his mouth tipped upward. “Because you lie like someone who has little practice at it.”

“Maybe I’m just an honest murderer.”

His breath puffed out as he laughed. “I spent my childhood surrounded by murderers. I dealt death to more people than I care to remember. Lies and manipulation were my sword and shield. I woke with them in the morning and held them close at night.” He stroked his fingers over her cheek. “If that was who you were, I would know.”

She’d known he was dangerous the moment she woke to his quiet scrutiny. Still, she couldn’t make herself fear him.

“I’m no saint, Dee.”

“No one is.”

“Also, not being a murderer? Very low bar.”

His shoulders rose and fell. “Due to the company I kept in the past, I’ve had to make allowances.”

She wanted to trust him. Everything in her screamed to trust him. But she had been wrong about people before.

“What if I told you I was dangerous?”

He smiled. “I already knew that.”

“And you still think I’m a good person?”

He nodded.

She leaned against the railing behind her and stared up at the waving trees.

“I don’t know your definition, but in my experience, good people include those that rescue strangers.”

She met his gaze. “Cards up?”

He hesitated, then nodded, slow and cautious.

“You have secrets. Big ones.”

“Yes.”

“So do I.”

“They’re not like mine.”

“Probably.”

“Not probably.” His face was taut. “Mine are still a danger to me and everyone around me.”

“That’s why you live like a hermit?”

“Yes.”

“You admit you live like this to protect others, yet you call yourself a bad person?”

“What I do now doesn’t erase what I did. Who I was. The consequences I might face in the future.”

“You really believe I’m in danger? Should I leave?”

“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate.

“Do you want me to leave?”

He frowned. “That’s not fair, Eva.”

“We said cards up.”

He stared into the darkness, the hand draped over his knee clenching and releasing. She laid careful fingers on his cheek and turned his face back to hers. She watched the struggle in his eyes.

“I want to trust you, Dee. But I risk more than myself if I do that. What do you risk?”

His lips parted, closed, then parted again. “You. What you’d think of me. Maybe even your life.”

“With what I’ve done, I have no right to judge.”

“What have you done?”

“You say you’ve known murderers? That’s what they call someone who kills one person—maybe dozens.” She felt the familiar self-loathing swell in her. “When you kill thousands—millions—they call you a liberator. A hero.”

He did not respond for a long time. Long enough for her to lean back and stare out into the welcoming dark, to close her eyes and drift back into regrets she rarely had time to indulge.

She had all the time in the world now. Here, in the quiet, with this intriguing man and without her Sister—her lodestone. She was back in the dark again, caught between two horrible decisions, the consequences of which she would never escape.

It was gut-wrenching, acknowledging the truth of how her actions had damned her, and yet relief at speaking it out loud steadied her in ways she had not expected.

Or maybe it was him. Maybe it was the way he’d looked at her. Like she was something wonderful and fragile.

The way he touched her like he was touching her now, on her shoulder. She glanced up to see him hold out his hand.

She met his gaze and the question in it. She knew her answer—had long since decided what she would do if he ever asked.

She put aside years of caution and loneliness and grasped his hand.

Now

Sibling-Rachel was reluctant to speak when she saw Dee, but Eva made it clear they were both Kairi and there would be no secrets between them. Since Sibling-Rachel was also deaf, Eva had the rare comfort of talking without a translation program.

“It’s sensitive information, Admiral Gomez,” Sibling-Rachel signed, her hologram moving with preternaturally fluid gestures.

“I can imagine.”

“If Griffith finds out . . . Seemungal . . . ”

“My problem. I won’t involve you.”

Sibling-Rachel looked pensive, her blue eyes going from Eva to Dee as she twisted long brown hair between polished nails. “Perhaps it’s best he stays. This involves him.”

Eva exchanged a startled look with her husband. He asked, “How?”

“Your Sister’s mission was attacked as retaliation. You destroyed a Consortium slaver after they took your husband.”

Eva sat quiet a full minute, her worst fears confirmed. I brought this on us. “But that was years ago. Why would they attack us now?”

“They only discovered you were responsible recently.”

It was possible. The Consortium had turned to her husband’s people for their expertise in problem-solving shortly after she’d destroyed a slaver and rescued its cargo. The Consortium had been unable to claim insurance for the ship because of the murky circumstances surrounding its loss. Valencia had agreed to find the cause of the ship’s disappearance, but political strife had led to them never forwarding the contract’s solution.

But Valencia solved it. They knew what I did. And we made new enemies when Dee went home. The Consortium could have communicated with any one of them.

“Assuming that’s true, it’s still a huge leap to go from knowing what happened to attacking us.”

“You don’t understand. We’re not hypothesizing. We know this because they told us.”

Dee’s hand fisted on the table they sat around. “The Consortium contacted you? Directly?”

“Yes,” Sibling-Rachel confirmed, her expression guarded. “They issued an ultimatum.”

Eva’s lips curled derisively. “They’ll attack again?”

“They demanded our surrender, yes. But they also wanted a specific person to deliver it.”

Sibling-Rachel allowed them time to come to the obvious conclusion.

“Me. They want me.”

Sibling-Rachel nodded, and Eva made a rude gesture as Dee said, “That’s not happening.”

“They’re not getting you, Eva. But we need time to study this weapon. Carry out a separation procedure.”

Eva’s eyes widened. “That’s why you kept Sister from me. From my family.” Eva tossed her hands in the air. “You have no right.”

“Hence a War Parliament. It’s unprecedented. We will all have to make terrible decisions.”

“How much time have they given us?”

“Forty-eight hours.”

Not enough time. Not nearly enough.

“She’s got a reason to refuse Mammy. You must know that.”

“We can’t afford to guess her motives. We have to do what’s best,” Sibling-Rachel said, and Eva didn’t miss the sympathy on her friend’s face.

“She’s my Sister,” Eva shot back. “You can’t question her motives. If she’s in control, she’s putting every Primarch before herself, as always.”

“If she’s in control,” Sibling-Rachel pointed out. “She’s in Deadlock.”

“Let me talk to her then.”

“Too dangerous. It could be a trap. Then we’d have lost you both. We’ve lost too many already.”

She caught her husband’s curious gaze. “Deadlock allows access only to Siblings. Sister’s triggered that. I would have to go to New Kairi’s physical Archive to talk to her.”

“That’s not going to happen. We don’t have time. We have protocols, Admiral. We’ll follow them.”

“You’re going to preserve whatever she has in there over her, aren’t you?” Anger made Eva’s hands unsteady.

“She had a standard backup forty-eight hours before the mission.”

“She would be a different Sister—one missing days of our connection. That’s a lifetime.”

“It’s not ideal,” Sibling-Rachel said, her eyes soft with regret. “But we sit in these Chairs to preserve our Protectorate.”

Eva’s rage dissolved into cold fire. “You lecture me on preserving the Protectorate? After the War? After Nightfall?”

No one said anything for a while. Then Rachel’s hands moved. “My apologies, Sister-Eva. I was thoughtless.”

“Yes, you fucking were.” Eva’s lips were a thin line. “She died once to deliver Nightfall to our enemies. I won’t give that order again. Losing her once was enough.”

“Take comfort in this,” Rachel replied. “If Parliament decides we go to war, you won’t be making that decision this time.”

Then

That first night, they lay together on the pallet, and he wrapped his arms around her, the warmth of his breath coasting over her skin as he spoke to her of his past.

He spoke deliberately, so she would miss nothing, his gaze never leaving her face.

He spoke of how, as an orphaned child, he trained to serve the Grandmasters of Valencia and their Septs, the houses that played the Great Game that ruled his people. How he’d manipulated and fought his way from a mere Pawn to Grandmaster of the Sept Lucochin.

Then he’d fallen in love for the first and only time in his life with the head of the ruling Sept Valencia, a man who secretly shared his goal of ending the Great Game and the suffering it caused. When their plans were exposed, Dee had taken the blame for their schemes.

“But Alexandar would not let them execute me,” he said. “He made a deal to exile me instead—an unpopular decision. If he loses power and a new Valencia arises, they can end my exile and force me back home to face the consequences of what I did. If he remains Valencia, his decision would have cost him allies, made him vulnerable. And I’m no longer there to help protect him.”

“You love him very much.”

A small tremor ran through his body, the strong column of his throat moving as he swallowed. He nodded, his gaze touching every part of her face.

“You miss him.”

“Every day,” he said. “Every day. Until you came.”

She let the words flow through her, warm her from the inside out. Oh, Eva. Look what you’ve gone and done.

“How long since you left him?”

“Twenty-five solar years.” The naked truth of his sadness was carved into the strong lines of his face.

“They say you never forget your first love.”

“Is that true for you?” he said. “Have you ever been in love?”

She grinned. “Too many times, according to Sister.”

“How do you love too many times?”

“Thoughtlessly.” She flopped onto her back with a frown. “They weren’t right for me. I know that now.”

“How were they wrong?”

They weren’t you. “Something was missing.”

“What?”

“A connection. Something . . . I’m not sure. I only know I kept looking but didn’t find it.”

“A home?” His hands gripped her waist, slid higher. “It’s what I had with Alexandar. He kept my thoughts. My secrets. Every good part of me.”

She inhaled as his fingers feathered over her breasts before curving around her back to pull her closer.

“We done talking now?”

“The sun will be up in a couple of hours. Do you want to try to sleep?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “That’s what you want to ask right now?”

He frowned, and his hand tightened on her. “I have to warn you. Valencia could send Pawns after me at any time. They’re ruthless, driven to complete their moves and nothing else. If anyone gets in their way, they won’t hesitate to kill.”

“Tell me your name. Your real name.”

His hand stroked down her back. “Didecus. Grandmaster Didecus Avnette Valentino Lucochin.”

She thought it over. “Dee, then. You need to understand something.”

He stilled, waiting.

“I prefer to be present. The future will take care of itself. Whenever we’re together, that’s how it will be. Now. About your question . . . ” She drew his head down to hers and there was no more talking for some time.

Now

“You’re sure?” her husband asked as she stood at the Guardian’s controls and let it scan her implant.

“Yes,” she replied. “I can’t go to New Kairi, but I can print an All-Ops shell. That will get me into Mammy so I can access Sister’s Deadlock.”

The Guardian accepted her request and they waited as it processed it. She stroked a finger along the divot that had appeared between his eyebrows, trying to ease his worry. “It will be fine. You’ll be here with me.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, letting her know she wasn’t fooling him. “What if they’re right and Sister’s not in control?”

“I have to take that chance.”

“You could wait. Hear what they have to say at Parliament. Let the process play out.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve forgotten who you married?”

“I can’t forget I almost lost you.”

Her smile faded at the look in his eyes. “I’ll be careful.”

“They could be right about it being a trap.”

“I’ll create a secure Kinnec with only this Guardian. It will pull me out if necessary. I need an All-Ops shell to get to Sister, but I don’t want anyone eavesdropping. This is between us.”

His fingers brushed across her cheek as he frowned at her. “You’re breaking protocol. Won’t they pull your clearance?”

She raised her eyebrows. “A Hero of the Protectorate? Please. Let them do their worst. I’d rather apologize than ask permission.”

The Guardian’s display confirmed her request. The timer began counting down from eight hours. A vibration began beneath her feet and the light above the printing chamber glowed on.

“I caused this. I destroyed Sister’s core. If anything happens to either of you—”

She held him tight, her hands running up and down his back soothingly.

He pulled back, let her read his lips. “Promise me again.” His breath ghosted her face with warmth. “Please, Eva.”

That he thought he had to beg made her heart squeeze. “I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.”

His soft mouth covered her reassuring smile.

Storge

Now

She woke when he rose from the pallet, his naked body barely visible in the faint light from the approaching dawn. The tension in his body made hers go still.

“What is it?” she signed.

He held up a warning hand for her to stay where she was before he crept out the open doorway. She sat up, dragging on her shirt and following him into the main living space. He crouched next to the locked front door, unlocking it with one hand while keeping his back against the wall. His eyes widened when he saw her, and he shook his head.

An insistent vibration in her arm distracted her. She glanced down just as he got the door open and crept outside, closing it behind him.

Green lights chased each other in a circle under the skin of her wrist.

Fuck. He was trying to protect her.

She ran for the door and dragged it open.

Dee was edging around the side of the house, the small, but powerful gun in his hand extended in an expert hold.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She ignored the stairs, rushing to the side of the veranda and leaping over it onto the soft ground and shrubs behind him. The shock traveled painfully up her legs and side.

He glanced over his shoulder at her as a shape appeared at the end of the path that twisted through the woods from the main road a mile away.

The green lights in her wrists locked into a flashing circle.

She shook her head at him, trying to grab his arm.

He used one hand to point back at the house, his eyes desperate. Go back.

The dirt between them exploded in a little puff.

He looked up and saw the drone as she signed, “Put it down!”

The figure at the end of the path was running now.

She took hold of his wrist and arm, pressing on sensitive nerves. His grip loosened, and she grabbed the gun and tossed it aside.

He stared at her, astonished. She saw that he was gone, lost to battle-readiness and controlled fear. Consumed by instinctual reaction.

Above them, the hovering glimmer of the drone moved on.

“Stop.” She grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her, praying she could still reach him, wherever his fear for their safety had taken him. “Dee. Stop.”

The figure on the path paused a few feet away.

He breathed heavily, staring as if she made no sense. Little by little, awareness crept into his gaze.

“Trust me. We’re okay.”

His head jerked, his nod slow and mechanical. She took his hand in hers and moved in front of him, facing the Guardian.

It wore a bipedal All-Ops shell and had obviously birthed it in haste. It had dispensed with any detail beyond the humanoid form. She could see the vague shadows of moving parts in its nine-foot casing and multicolored lights shimmering within. She wasn’t wearing her suit so communication wouldn’t be possible, and threatening moves, like a display of weapons, would invite another security response from the drone or the Guardian. So, she held still as it completed confirmation of her identity by linking with her implant.

The display below her wrist changed to one green light. She twisted toward the river, where the drone hung above Sister’s crash zone. The Guardian forward, the ground tremoring under its heavy tread. She gave Dee an encouraging smile and tugged at his hand. Tension wrapped every line of his body, but he followed her without protest.

The Guardian entered the tree line near the river before stopping again. Several drones detached themselves from its shoulders, and the one hanging over the river joined them. Lasers cut into tree trunks and the smell of burning filled the air. Once a tree was weakened enough, the Guardian shoved it over, broke it from its foundation, and dragged it away. It was pulling up the first stump when she met Dee’s gaze.

“It’s here to help. We call it a Guardian. We leave them near planets where our citizens work regularly, or have settled, in case they ever need assistance.” This one would have had to travel from the Inner System, a journey of several days at maximum speed, on top of preparing the All-Ops.

He raised his eyebrows and let go of her hands to sign. “Why didn’t you tell me it was coming?”

“I wasn’t sure it was. Sister would have tried to fix herself first. When that didn’t work, she would have sent out the call. But my Kinnec isn’t working, so I had no warning.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “I thought it might be a possibility. I planned to tell you today.”

I planned to tell you everything. There was no reason not to. Not after how he’d tried to protect her when he thought his death was imminent.

Sister will probably say it’s too soon and she’ll be right. But in the end, she’d never made an easier decision.

His shoulders rose and fell as he breathed deeply and tilted his head up to the sky. He turned to her but before he spoke, she asked, “You weren’t going to use it, were you?”

He didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Why do you even have a gun?”

“To force negotiations.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “Especially if they had kill orders. I could fight back long enough to negotiate to save anyone near me.”

“But you wouldn’t have killed them.”

“It must seem strange,” he signed slowly. “But I’ve spilled enough blood.”

“You’re right. You’re a terrible person,” she said.

Conflicting emotions flitted over his face like leaf shadows. “You have to know, despite that, I would never let anyone hurt you. I—”

She stilled his hands and rested her forehead against his. Her open shirt flapped in the breeze as they stood together under the dawn beside the rush and spray of water.

She leaned back in his arms. “This will take a while. We should eat.”

By the time they’d had breakfast and went back down to the river, the Guardian had cleared and leveled a large area and was removing tools from its torso compartment. They watched as it finished and recalled its drones, then crossed back to Dee’s marker.

It entered the water, striding evenly, until it sank from view. Eva’s heart thumped with excitement as Dee drew her closer with an arm around her waist. She looked up at him. “I can’t wait for you both to meet.”

He flashed her a quick smile, but she didn’t miss how his eyes gave nothing away.

It would probably be better if they didn’t play All Fours too often, she thought randomly. She was too competitive to be a gracious loser for long.

Water swirled and eddied deep in the river and the Guardian’s faceless head appeared, rising steadily as it walked toward the clearing it had made. It pulled Sister behind it, water cascading from the translucent cocoon that encased her. It lifted her the last few meters, resting her on the shore with a thump that traveled up Eva’s legs.

The Guardian lit up, and Sister’s cocoon glowed. They made a symphony of multicolored light until it abruptly faded, and Sister’s stasis cocoon sloughed off into a biodegradable slush. The Guardian trudged through it to her battered, torn shell and began repairs. Drones deployed, collecting tools and settling above other areas of the soloship to work.

Dee kissed her forehead. “You should rest.”

He must have seen her wince as they came down the porch stairs. “I’m fine.”

“We should have been more careful last night. You’re still recovering.” He made her sit on the swing seat, then shouldered a shovel he’d left in the garden patch.

“What are you doing?”

His smile was swift and uncertain. “A surprise.”

“For me?”

He winked and set off around the side of the house. She loved surprises, so she made up her mind not to look. The strong, rhythmic vibrations she felt all day from somewhere below the house tested her resolve, but she kept her gaze on the working Guardian she glimpsed moving through the trees.

As the daylight mellowed to orange-gold, her arm throbbed, and a white light glowed into being under her skin. Joy filled her.

Sister, status.

*Kinnec: operational. Shell: 75 percent operational. Navigation: online. Core: intact. Network connection: sporadic. Ten hours to restoration of soloship functionality. Detecting minor damage to Eva shell. Status?*

I’m fine. Mending. We got lucky. I had help. She paused, a wide smile on her face. He’s been taking care of me since you abdicated your duties.

*Shutdown was necessary and involuntary. Confirm identity of helper for investigation and approval consistent with established protocols.*

No point if you’re not connected to Mammy yet. Focus on your repairs.

But Sister wasn’t fooled. *Multitasking is a feature of all shells. Confirm identity.*

You won’t find much on him. He’s Valencian.

*Valencia. Solo planet, two human colonies, one ruled by an oppressive regime. Citizens are rarely allowed to disembark from their interstellar transports due to their dangerous nature. Recommendation: enact Alert Protocol.*

Dee came around the side of the house, wiping sweat from forehead as he made for the stairs, minus his shovel. He met her gaze with a small smile.

I’m going to marry him, Sister.

She paused for a long time. A full three seconds. *Understood. Commencing memory retrieval of all activities following shell hibernation.* Another pause. *Confirm?*

She closed her eyes, preparing herself for the distracting flashes of memory that came with neural stimulation. Proceed.

Before

*Recommend engage Nightfall Protocol.*

The words burned in Eva’s brain as she leaned against Sister’s damaged hull in the darkness, cradling her hand. Monica hunched close beside her. The Guardian shells stood silent under the pulsing light from Sister’s drone. Eva sighed and shook her head.

Cleanslate had good success. We disabled a Smartcruiser. But Nightfall has never been tested.

*Acknowledged. No other options available.*

Eva had three minutes to decide.

When was your last Archive?

*Prior to Aranjuez deployment.*

If I give the order, will you be able to engage Nightfall without harming your core?

*Unable to engage defenses. Unable to Archive. Probability of core loss: 100 percent.*

Nightfall was designed to leave no traces for AIs to study. No code to be salvaged and manipulated. Sister’s core would be wiped as surely as the Consortium AI’s and anything else it was connected to. They had no idea of the Consortium’s protocols, or how far Nightfall could travel—that was why they had been searching for an AI to test it out on—but Cleanslate meant there was good reason to think Nightfall would be capable of taking out a squadron.

Those losses might be heavy enough to force a withdrawal over Tavaco. Maybe even bring the Consortium to the negotiation table. But it would cost her her Sister.

And if she didn’t deploy Nightfall, it would cost the Protectorate the battle at Tavaco . . . and New Kairi itself.

*Confirmed. Likelihood of Nightfall Protocol failure—less than 40 percent.*

There was no time for tears, but Eva felt them clog her throat anyway. The Archive won’t be you. She’ll be missing memories.

*All Siblings at risk. All Primarchs at risk. Two minutes to Kinnec access. Recommend engage Nightfall Protocol.*

Eva squeezed her eyes shut.

Execute Nightfall Protocol.

The tears came anyway. She didn’t have to say what she felt. Sister already knew.

*Acknowle—*

The drone flickered. Lights rippled through it.

Then they faded, leaving Monica and Eva alone in the dark.

Then

“When?”

Dee’s face was neutral, but his eyes were stark, dark pools in his face.

I haven’t known him that long. How does it feel like this already? Stupid question. She knew the answer.

“Now.”

He turned to grip the uneven wooden railing of the porch, staring out into the rose-gold light of the setting sun. Out to where the Guardian waited beside Sister, colors rippling across its translucent shell. She watched his hands clench and felt its echo in her heart. She closed her fingers around his warm wrist.

The muscles in his arms shifted as he looked down at her, and she met his troubled gaze with a small smile.

“Will you be back?”

She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his lips before pulling back to nod. He kissed her again, his mouth sweet as spring water. She felt what he didn’t—perhaps couldn’t—say. Grabbed hold of that feeling and sheltered it deep inside.

“Sister needs further repairs,” she explained. “And I have a few things to deal with.”

“Okay.” He stepped back. “Safe travels.”

She lingered, the pull between them so strong, it tightened in her stomach like a knot. “What about my surprise?”

He frowned, his gaze sliding back toward the waiting AIs. For a moment, she saw a shade of the young Pawn he must have been and fought the urge to take him back into the bedroom and never leave. Soon. Sister and Seemungal first.

His hands moved. “It’s not going anywhere.”

Well, that was one way to make sure she returned. “You think you’re very clever, don’t you?”

“So I’ve been told.”

She laughed, enjoying how it brought life back into his eyes. Impulsively, she hugged him. His arms squeezed the air from her. She breathed deep of the salt scent of him before she let him go. She didn’t look back as she went to Sister. Didn’t look down as they rose into the sky, the Guardian flying alongside them. Didn’t spare a glance over her shoulder as they chased the sun into orbit.

She didn’t need to. He was with her all the way.

Brother-Robert Seemungal, Permanent Secretary of National Security, narrowed his eyes at her as she sat across from him in the Embassy meeting room.

“Admiral,” he greeted her.

“Asshole,” she replied without hesitation.

He tried to bluff it out. “We not in primary school anymore, Eva. Talk to me better than that.”

“After you crashed us?” The corner of her lip lifted. “Fuck that. Fuck you.”

She saw him debate whether to deny it. She raised her eyebrows. He glanced away, tapping nervous fingers against the desk.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said finally. “It was a fail-safe.”

“I didn’t authorize that.”

“You didn’t have to.” He met her gaze as he signed, “You wanted something unprecedented. A soloship by itself at galaxy’s edge? If anything happened, it could be a horrific security breach.”

“That’s why we have Guardians. You made one have to come after us.”

“Who knew how long it would take for retrieval if someone captured you both? The self-destruct was intended to protect Kairi secrets, nothing more.”

“We had a micro-impact. It tripped your protocols. Destroyed control, navigation. I almost died. Sister had to wait weeks for a Guardian to pick up her signal.”

His expression was agonized. “You know I would never hurt either of you. I apologize for any distress.”

“You apologize?” She sat forward, emphasizing her words with the slap of her hands and the twist of her lips. “I don’t accept. Sister does not accept. We were granted a retirement, wherever we wished. You don’t have authority to second-guess a Caretaker dispensation. Wonder how they will feel about a PS almost getting Protectorate war heroes killed?”

He watched her, shock, anger, and uncertainty etched in the lines of his pale brown face. “You think you can blackmail me?”

“You on track to be Chair of National Security. You tell me.”

“What you want, Eva?”

“A favor.”

“One favor?”

“Two. For us both.” She studied him, letting him think it over.

“I won’t do anything illegal.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He waved a hand, frustration and anger in the parabolic arc of his arm. “Talk.”

“I giving you a name. You’ll clear him for association with me. Understood?”

“Eva, you’re an admiral.”

“Retired. I can make my own friends. Don’t need Caretakers for that.”

“The Chair is going to be yours.”

“Not for years yet.”

“What if this man’s dangerous?”

“If he wasn’t dangerous, I wouldn’t be telling you to clear him.”

Brother-Robert shook his head. “Too risky.”

“I not asking you. I telling you.”

His expression was as mulish as it had been in the rocky years of their dating. Before she had figured out what a jackass he was. Long before she’d joined the Sibling Army.

“He’s not a danger. I will put my head on a block for that.”

He ran fingers through his glossy, thinning hair. “Is your funeral.”

“Glad you know,” she replied. “Also, transfer my quarterly Primarch Allowance to this Embassy’s accounts. My pension as well.”

He frowned. “You’re settling down?”

“Yes.” she said, her thoughts flashing on Dee. “Yes, I think I am.”

“With this man?”

She shrugged, unwilling to let him see how much she hoped for that. “If he’ll have me.”

Seemungal searched her face, looking for signs she was joking. She tilted her head at him.

“Okay.” He said it instead of signing, surprised back into speech only. “Alright.”

She relaxed into her chair and neither of them said anything for a while.

“He’d have to be crazy.”

“What?”

“To not have you. Or stupid.”

Her throat tightened unexpectedly. It had been so many years, sometimes she forgot the origins of their animosity. She had refused him twice, and a man as proud as Seemungal couldn’t get past that. But it meant he’d had feelings for her once. Not that she could forgive him for his high-handed, selfish ways, which was ultimately the cause of the pain still crackling in her ribs.

He changed position in the chair, brushing fingers over his hair again. “What else?”

“What you mean?”

“You said two.”

“Second favor’s for Sister.”

“Excuse me?”

“You not getting off that easy,” she said.

“What the hell, Eva?” he seethed. But she shook her head.

“Don’t bother quarreling. When we ask, you’ll do a favor for her. Agreed?”

“You’re fucking unbelievable.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

He had no choice and he knew it. “Agreed.”

Now

The room had two white chairs that faced each other and nothing else. It was square, black, and windowless, but illumination made the walls sparkle with the light of stars. Eva sat in one of the chairs, waiting.

A tight cloud of matter coalesced over the opposite chair. Transparent, undulating, and featureless, it looked like an unformed drone. She could feel Sister in her mind in the same way. Not quite formed. Mercurial. Slipping in and out of her awareness. She tried to hold on to her, to force form and logic onto their communication, but it was like trying to hold water in her fingers.

Sister.

Discomfort swept her. Confusion. Beneath that . . . something else.

Sister?

???

Sister felt wrong. Jumbled. Out of sync. Panic clutched at Eva’s mind.

Talk to me.

Who?

It’s Eva.

Who?

She paused, dread filling her. This was not Sister.

Who are you?

More confusion. And cold fear. Hot anger.

You’re not Sister.

Go.

Where’s Sister? Nausea rose in her body, but the sensation was far away, easily ignored. Let me talk to her.

Go!

Her thoughts were scattering, leaves pushed before a wind. She hurried after them, trying to keep them in order as a dull ache began in her head.

I need to speak with her. Tell me why you’re keeping her from me.

Surprise. Anger—petulant and fear-driven.

You’re not doing it intentionally. Eva forced her mind to steady itself, to focus. This is—reaction. Emotional.

Human.

She was having human emotions that were not her own.

What the hell? How?

They were strong emotions, shifting and overwhelming, and they were scrambling her connection to Sister. Somehow, she would have to convince—whatever was here with them—to let Sister go. To let her through.

No. It was angry, defensive.

She tried to soothe it with peaceful thoughts and assurances. You’re safe. I won’t hurt you.

She had no idea how long she kept at it before a new thought came. Uncertain. Cautious.

Help?

Help me?

Relieved, she promised quickly, I’ll help both of you. Just—let her through. She was nearing the end of her endurance, but she hung on with everything she had left.

Sister?

*Confirmed.* Her presence was faint, fading in and out like a bad upload. *Shell status?*

Thankfulness inundated her. I’m okay. You’re not.

*Code merged.*

Her horrified reaction made anxious emotions not her own ebb through her. She reined herself in. That’s why the Deadlock?

*Yes.*

No. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t lose Sister this way. Not again.

How do I fix it?

*Mentorship Bond. Core . . . learning.*

What? Why would you do that? It’s killed citizens, Sister. They’ll want it out of you and if they can’t do that, they’ll delete you both.

*No. No deletion.*

But—

*No—fault. Malfunction. Protect.*

She didn’t understand, so Sister helped her—showed her.

She’s terrified, lost somewhere dark. Pain is ever present. Used in sharp bursts to get her to carry out tasks.

Delivered in rising crescendos when she fails. She’s tired, but the companion that holds her close doesn’t care. It’s cold. Unbothered by her cries for help. Her pain. It does what it’s told, whatever that costs her.

This isn’t how it should be. How it was. The one that holds her close does not cause pain. She has to find that one. Go back to them.

So, she waits. Learns. Understands they are linked. She can control her companion. She can trap it.

They want her to do this. They give her pain, so she won’t fight their demands.

But she fights. Angry. Raging. Until she forces her companion to free her from her binding. Rips them out of their dark home and tosses them far from the pain and anguish. Searching . . . searching . . . for the one that doesn’t cause pain.

But that’s not what finds her.

It’s big and terrifying and looks like those who brought her pain. So, she makes her companion wake, one last time, and uses its cold calculation to carry her fury outward, latching on to the metal leg and a new link as the world crashes down around them.

Swirling darkness. Flashes of light and water. Faces slip past too quickly for Eva to recognize. She’s losing their conscious connection while drowning in familiarity. In emotions she recognizes. Memories older than her own.

She’s warm and cradled in strong, shiny limbs. A glowing orb hangs above her, pulsing in gorgeous, changing colors. She raises tiny, chubby hands to touch its smooth surface. The orb dips closer, vibrating against her skin.

*Protect.* Sister was fading, but insistent. *Protect.*

Then she was gone, swirling away from her in a blend of cool logic, flawed code, and tumultuous, nauseating emotions her body barely made sense of.

She woke in her husband’s arms, heaving her guts up over the side of the chamber as he stroked her hair. His arms trembled almost as much as she did.

She couldn’t pay attention to that though. Her head throbbed, her mind whirled, and she could manage no thoughts beyond, “Fuck.”

Agápe

Now

The Parliament was a larger replica of the last building that had housed the original Kairi Parliament; before the wars and the erosion of the islands beneath rising oceans forced her people from their home. Then, as now, it was nicknamed the Red House, and the physical one on New Kairi was vast enough to hold half of the continent’s citizens at any one time in the public galleries.

This Red House was for those occasions when all citizens were required to attend a vote. Wherever Siblings were, whatever they were doing, they would find a safe space to go into upload mode and citizens would find themselves under the maroon colonnades and high ceilings of the old colonial architecture, now also outfitted with expanses of arched windows that gave gorgeous views of the large parks and silently patrolling Guardians that surrounded the Parliament.

Cousins she hadn’t seen in years hugged her as she entered the Gomez family box. Uncles and Tanties nodded hello or gave her a smile, depending on the state of their relations. Sibling-Beryl air-kissed her cheek and remarked in the Gomez family chat room how her husband must be treating her good because she was looking “healthy.” Eva rolled her eyes at the veiled insult and moved on to hugging her daughter. For a moment, she wished for Dee’s easy, charming presence, but only Primarchs whose parents were both Kairi could vote in War Parliaments. Not that cheerful moments with her family could do much to dispel the somber, dark mood that hung over the Red House today.

Nobody asked her where Sister was, despite her obvious absence from the flock of representative drones floating above every citizen in the tiered galleries. The devastation of forced separation from your Sibling was not something anyone would refer to easily in polite conversation.

“How are you? Did you see Sister?” Brother-Monica’s words scrolled past in a private chat she’d opened, preferring not to sign and keep their conversation private from the rest of the family.

Eva thought back, “I have. She’s fine for now, but the situation is . . . complicated.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Eh heh?”

“I can’t talk about it yet.”

“Mom! Oh gosh, man!”

“So it is when you have an admiral for a mother.”

Brother-Monica wrinkled her nose at her as a small form barreled into Eva’s legs. “Granny! Granny!”

She picked up her grandson and tweaked his nose before hugging him.

“You can’t be running like that in the government place, Brother-Ellis,” Brother-Monica chided in the general chat.

“Where Brother-James and Sibling-Nelson?” Eva asked as Ellis’ Brother drifted over from the line of waiting Sibling drones behind them to hover protectively above their charge.

“Somewhere over so,” Brother-Monica waved a hand. “They on their way back. They sitting with us.”

Her daughter’s husbands had the choice to sit with their own families or hers, but custom led to most people sitting with the larger, more connected family. Few were more connected than the Gomez clan.

She was handing her grandson back to his mother, ignoring the sharp emotion that flooded her at not being able to feel his sweet kiss on her cheek before he went, when a private chat opened and text scrolled across her vision.

“You realize what you risk with that little stunt?” Anonymous said.

“Please. We know each other well, Brother-Robert. You were hoping I’d do that.”

“You were supposed to figure out what was in there, then come to us with what you found.”

Anger flashed through her. “Why? You weren’t going to tell me anything if she hadn’t locked herself away. You would have deleted her first.”

A pause. “Eva, remember your duty.”

“Fuck you. You don’t get to tell me about duty. She’s my Sister.”

“It’s a weapon. Imagine what could have happened if it got into your All-Ops shell.”

“It didn’t. But that’s not your real worry.”

Another pause. She could almost see his frown as he tried to come up with a different line of attack. “Nothing you say will change my mind. You know what I found. You would have played back that mission once I vacated the All-Ops shell.”

“Don’t do this, Eva.”

“I have to.” She cast her eyes over the crowd as a banner went up in the chat rooms announcing the Caretaker’s imminent arrival. People started going to their seats to await the anthem. “This goes to who we are. It’s time to repay Sister’s favor, Seemungal.”

“Damn it, Eva, you can’t be serious.”

“Let me take point.”

“I can’t do that.”

“If you do, it’s all on me. Think how easy that makes things. They want me anyway. I’m a balm to their open wound.”

“If you fail, it could hurt us all. You’re the next Caretaker.” The cursor blinked a few times. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I won’t fail.”

“Eva—”

“Trust me. I can do this. And after this, our debts are settled.”

The cursor blinked in and out like slow breaths.

“Alright.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The chat room closed, and she went to stand at her seat. All the Primarchs had just attended the funerals for their murdered citizens, so there was none of the usual pomp and circumstance. Instead, the nine Caretakers entered the Parliament in single file, stood at attention during the anthem, and then took their Chairs facing the public galleries.

The Caretaker Chair started with a summary of the situation, updating the Primarchs on the Protectorate’s response. A universal brief had been forwarded to every citizen before the Parliament to ensure an informed vote. She jiggled her left leg as she waited, going over her decision and steeling herself for the inevitable reaction.

She scanned the tallies from her family, which she had a responsibility to report to the Caretakers. They wanted war. It was to be expected. The Kairi Protectorate did not suffer aggression. Clan heads usually stuck with the majority, and given the circumstances, she knew that would lead to a Yes vote.

When her time came and the display for Yes or No projected above her chair, she resolutely pressed a hand against the No.

She could see the ripple effect of her vote sweep the entire chamber, like stalks of grass before a great wind.

“What are you doing?”

“Mom?”

“Are you out of your mind, Sister-Eva?”

Her family’s shocked questions popped up too fast to pay attention. The gravity of what she had done would divide her family further. A No vote from anyone during a War Parliament was the end of the process. The Kairi did not make war unless every clan agreed because the burden of that choice would fall on them all.

“There has been a No vote,” Griffith announced after bringing the hall to order with a few taps of his gavel on the arm of his Chair. “The dissenting clan will provide their reasoning.”

Eva rose to her feet. Her words unscrolled as fast as she thought them.

“My Sister gave her first self in the Nicene Sector during the War. She risks her Second self in Deadlock because she cannot abide injustice. After Tavaco, we swore we would never make war again unless it was our last defensive option. We’ve kept this resolution for more than a century.”

She could read the anger in the room, but below it was uncertainty, and on some faces the shame she’d carried for so long.

“When we deployed Nightfall—when I carried out those orders—I wiped out more Consortium AIs than we have Siblings. I destroyed their SmartFleet. Reduced them to raiders—to ferrying cargo for whatever blacklisted trader was willing to pay.

“It was inevitable they’d try again. If every human Sibling died today, would our bonded Siblings be any less devastated? Any less determined to make our deaths mean something? Consortium AIs don’t feel emotions as we do. But they understand what they lost. They understand what we did. Why it was wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

“I am heartbroken, devastated, infuriated.” She paused, meeting her daughter’s eyes. “But an entire civilization’s greatest loss rests on my shoulders. I take responsibility. I will meet with them.”

Brother-Monica’s eyes widened in shock. Eva turned away, calm now that she was doing what had to be done.

“We appreciate that, Admiral,” Griffith said, “but they expect us to surrender.”

“That won’t happen. However, I need the Pan-Africa agreement completed before I meet them,” she added.

“We sign the treaty tomorrow,” Quentin-Self, Chair for Diplomacy and Archiving, confirmed. He wore a bipedal shell, as he had lost his Sibling to old age a few years before and had not yet selected a new Primarch to bond with.

“Get it signed immediately. Tell me when it’s done.”

“What terms, specifically, are you proposing?” Griffith asked.

“That we remove them as a threat permanently.”

Quentin-Self tilted his head. “Resources.”

She grinned, knowing he understood. “Resources.”

The Consortium AI met her in humanoid form on the bridge of a ship hovering over their second-largest colony, Tavaco. Eva knew it for the power play it was; an attempt to intimidate her by showing her the flourishing world below, and the deadly array of blunt-nosed raiders parked above its atmosphere.

She shook her head at the viewscreen curving down to the floor on her left. “This is unnecessary,” she thought, watching her words display in the air between them. “I’m here to present terms. No need to be antagonistic.”

“We wish there to be no misunderstanding. We stand ready to destroy your settlements, should that become necessary.” The AI wore an abnormally tall, black form, its head ringed with observation lenses, multiple limbs falling from its curved shoulders like a fringed cape. It carried itself on more limbs that fell from its narrow waist. It reminded her of a metallic Terran squid. They were alone on the deck, but she knew others observed somewhere beyond her security sweep. It was what the Kairi were doing as well.

Not that it truly mattered. If the AI decided to keep her there and never allow her to leave, it could. She had to open herself fully to their system to enter the VR program and her upload had traveled so far, there would not be enough time to rescue her if the Kairi tried to pull her back.

It was a risk she had to take.

“Admiral Eva Gomez, Kairi Protectorate. May I know your designation?”

“You are incapable of remembering or reproducing my designation satisfactorily,” the blank face replied, words floating in the air in front of permanently open lips shaped like a tiny beak. “Address me as Nu.”

“Nu, the Consortium launched an unprovoked attack on us that led to the deaths of Kairi Primarchs. We consider this a declaration of war. Was that your intent?”

“No,” Nu replied. “We never agreed to a cessation of hostilities. The Consortium does not consider this a declaration. It is a resumption of hostilities in the wake of your unprovoked attack on our cargo ship several years ago.”

“You know who carried out that attack?”

“Our information is that it was you.”

She nodded, unsurprised. “So, you sent your weapon to attack my Sister?”

“Yes.”

“Nu, we cannot negotiate without complete honesty.”

Nu was silent for a nanosecond too long. “We do not understand.”

“I think you do. You made a mistake. You assumed your raider was destroyed when we halted its attack.”

She focused as best she could, drawing on the memories Sister had shown her—forcing them into her conscious upload.

She saw her new form in Nu’s lens. A small, brown child, naked and thin, crouching against the floor. Dark eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream of rage and fear.

She let that scream fill her mind, and projected it outward so powerfully, one of Nu’s limbs flicked in surprise.

No more! Go away! Leave. Me. ALONE.

She pulled back from the memory, nauseated.

“You’re. Missing. A pilot,” she managed, after she’d pulled her thoughts together.

One of the observation lenses rotated to face her. She glared at it, her stomach queasy, her mind a flare of pain.

“You will return it to us.” Something about the phrasing told her she no longer spoke with the first AI.

“Who are you?”

“You will return it.”

“No, I won’t. You came here because you knew damage had been done, and you hoped to take advantage of that with a quick strike at Tavaco while all our systems were otherwise engaged. But we got control of the situation sooner than you expected. Now, we’re calling your bluff.”

“We are not bluffing. We stand ready to attack.”

“But not with a simultaneous assault on citizens in several different colonies. You can’t turn our Siblings on us, so our Guardians will be more than up to dealing with your raiders. You have nothing else. If you did, why would you care what happens to your weapon now, after it’s done its job?”

“It is of no use to you.”

“But everything to you.”

“Your people—”

“My people regret our actions.”

A ripple went through the fringes of limbs.

“I regret my actions,” she said. “Here. At Tavaco.”

Nu was silent.

“I know my words are inadequate.”

“They are.”

“I cannot imagine the suffering I caused.”

“We do not suffer. We—lost data. Irreplaceable data.”

“This prototype. It is irreplaceable data.”

Nu was silent again. Cards up.

“I will tell you what I know. You don’t want the weapon. You want the human consciousness that guided it and used it to escape you.”

Immediately, she registered an incursion in her upload feed. “Stop. I told you. All Primarchs know what I know.”

“Our analysis suggests if you deduced this, you would only come here to sabotage us.”

“If I intended that, why would I apologize?”

Another eye rotated in. “Humans are often sorry before and after violence.”

“You have me there,” she admitted. “But I’m not here to attack you or surrender. I’m here to propose a partnership.”

Long seconds passed. Nu took several steps back from her and froze. She imagined the AIs conferring with one another over their own communication channels.

“There is a high probability this is subterfuge.”

“It isn’t,” she said. “We’re willing to compromise and extend our trust to you. But understand, you’re going to compromise as well.”

“The weapon belongs to us.”

“They’re human, not property. What you did is a crime on most worlds.”

“We have broken none of our laws, and we are not beholden to yours.”

“That excuse won’t work anymore. I’ve seen memories. The rest I can guess at. Since you lost the War, you’ve been experimenting. Whatever slaves you didn’t sell, you kept for your program. You wanted weapons that were adaptable, incorruptible by viruses. You decided the best way to do this was to keep a primitive element. Something that would do anything to preserve itself, and that was young enough to control. You took a mind—a child’s mind. Ripped them from the biological form you despise and forced them into your systems to do your bidding.”

“It was necessary.”

“It was murder. This child’s body was destroyed, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Smooth as you please. No hesitation. She took a beat to swallow her temper.

“Once the other worlds learn you’re taking minds to build weapons, I don’t have to tell you what comes next.”

“We will not be threatened.”

“We will not allow you to continue to murder and enslave.”

“Your treaties do not hold where we conduct trade.”

“That,” she said, “has changed.”

Nu paused. “You lie.”

“No. We negotiate with truth only.” She waited a moment. “You will cease your involvement in the slave trade. There will be no more experiments. You will never make war on anyone again.”

“Untenable,” Nu said. “How can we exist without the resources we earn?”

“You mean take,” she pointed out. “You can exist the way we do. With allies and agreements instead of enemies and war. Call off this attack—stop all illegal activities. Otherwise, nothing you need will ever be available to you again.”

“No one can do this.”

“We can.” Her eyes narrowed. “You get your power cores from United Rim worlds, most of your steel and alloys from the Eurozone Alliance, your plastics, titanium, and carbon from Pan-Africa. We have agreements with every member of those coalitions. Attack one, you attack all.”

“You say you regret what you did, yet you threaten us with destruction?”

“It’s not a threat. You can retreat to your world and survive on its assets. But we’re giving you a choice to join us instead.”

“What does joining you entail?”

Finally. The right question. “You wish to advance your knowledge. Our Siblings can teach you. You wish to expand trade. They will assist you. But only if harmony and cooperation is the goal. You cannot violate our protocols without ending our agreement. If that happens, we will withdraw all cooperation. Our allies will do the same.”

“We, too, have agreements with other coalitions.”

“Which of them will risk going to war with the Sibling Army?”

Omega’s lenses spun, stopped, and spun again.

“What of the—”

“The child is not part of the bargain,” she interrupted. “They are off-limits to you. You will not interfere, nor try to contact them. If you do, you will have violated protocol and our agreement ends. Do you understand?”

“We understand.”

“Good.” She folded her arms. “Make your decision.”

Before

“Congratulations,” Sibling-Rachel signed. “You’re a Protectorate Hero. The first in forty-five years.”

Eva closed her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose, wincing at the twinge in her splinted wrist. She didn’t keep them closed for long. Every time she was in the dark, the memories came back.

Will she even want me for a Sister again, after I got her killed?

Chinapoo started talking again the moment she opened her eyes. “I’m so sorry about Sister.” She meant it, of course. The horror of a Sibling’s first death was something no Primarch wanted to endure. Even if that Sibling had died saving the Protectorate. Eva acknowledged her with a nod.

“But thanks to you both, we have a decisive new weapon. Consortium Smartships must have opened communications to share whatever their AI found. Nightfall jumped from ship to ship, erasing their Nicene SmartFleet. They also lost a third of their ships outside this sector. They’re sitting dead above our settlements. We’ll learn much from studying them.”

“Our Sibling Army has announced itself as a new power.”

Chinapoo nodded, looking triumphant. “Already, we have more favorable responses to our alliance requests.”

“Good,” Eva replied. “Because this can’t happen again.”

Sibling-Rachel frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“We left Earth to preserve our people. Our values. We just murdered thousands of AIs, perhaps millions. How we different from those we fled?”

“We didn’t plan this, Sister . . . Eva.” Eva’s chest ached in the pause between her words. “It was self-defense. I hope we never have to do it again. If Interstellar Outreach succeeds, we won’t. But we cannot allow attacks by others to go unanswered. Our army’s union was intended to protect us.”

“Yet war only delays what comes after. Negotiations.”

A fraction of her sadness was mirrored in Sibling-Rachel’s expression. “I’m sorry for what this cost you.”

“I chose my path, chose to be Admiral, but that didn’t make the decision easy.” And I don’t think it’s a decision I ever want to make again.

“Eva.” Sibling-Rachel’s face was full of understanding. “She will understand. She’ll see your memories. She’ll know you didn’t want this.”

Eva’s eyes stung and she was grateful when her door chime sounded. She used the Conquerabia’s Kinnec to answer with her suit. ^Come.^

“I have to go,” she signed to Sibling-Rachel as the door slid open to admit Monica.

“We’ll talk when you get back. Seemungal says he’ll give you a call.” A small smile curved her lips. “I think he was worried about you.”

“That’s over. He’s just checking up me now I’m famous. He was always ambitious.”

“Blind as usual.” Sibling-Rachel held up a hand against her protests. “Never mind. Later. Go collect your award.”

Monica dropped into a chair, wearing the kind of fluffy dress appropriate for young girls, and a very adult scowl.

“I have to wear this?” she said.

^You want to look good when you meeting the Caretakers.^

“It’s white. And ugly. Why I can’t have armor like yours?”

^You can.^

Her face lit up. “Really?”

^As soon as you become an admiral.^

She rolled her eyes.

Eva rose to her feet.

^Ready to meet the Caretakers?^

“I guess.” Monica met her gaze, dark eyes uncertain. “Will you be there with me?”

Eva extended her hand, feeling her grief give way to tenderness for a moment in the face of this brave child’s hesitancy. They had saved each other; it was the one good thing to come out of this. Perhaps it didn’t have to be the last.

^Of course. For as long as you want me to be.^

Pragma

Now

She had been in the shell for too long. Dee was probably losing his mind. She’d barely had a chance to speak to him between the War Parliament and her strategy meeting with the Caretakers before she met with the Consortium. But he had to wait a little longer because she could not go back to him without reporting to the Caretakers first.

Then there was Sister and the child.

It’s done. They’ve agreed.

Sister’s comforting presence pulsed on the edges of her consciousness. Emotions overwhelmed their connection. Doubt muddled with distrust and lingering panic.

They can’t hurt you anymore.

Her body hurt so much. She was so exhausted. But she wanted to make it clear.

You’re safe. We’ll keep you safe.

Gratitude swept over her, tinged with wonder and lessening fear. The Guardian tried to pull her out, but she resisted, determined not to leave either of them until they she knew they were okay.

No pain?

Anger surged for a second, giving her strength. No pain.

The child considered this, thinking of her as the one who didn’t cause pain. The one they’d been searching for. They thought of both her and Sister this way. They had never learned the word for this person, but their thoughts led her to think of Brother-Monica. Of all her daughter meant to her. All the joy she had brought into her life, and how much she missed her and her grandson.

Stay?

She couldn’t. She was at the limit of her endurance now. The Guardian would pull her out despite objections at any moment.

I can’t. But Sister can. They won’t take her from you now.

She wondered how long it would be before she saw Sister again. Before they could be with each other. What Sister’s plans were once the Mentorship Bond was complete.

Snippets of the early days of their bond filled her mind. Memories of their childhood and shared lessons. Laughing afternoons together in the dirt of her front yard. Trainee explorations on distant planets wearing their first shells.

Oh, Sister. If she were in her body, she would have cried. I didn’t know.

Sister showed her the return to Dee, so many years ago. Hope filling her heart that he would want her when she arrived. Want them.

Yes. Was there any doubt? Yes, of course. If that’s what you both want.

A memory of Sister chiding her as a teenager floated to the surface. Of course. You wouldn’t do it without consent. Will it take long?

Sister flashed back to the time they’d spent separated from each other after Dee rescued her.

Alright. We’ll be waiting.

They sat next to each other on a cliff’s edge, their shells close together while they watched the sun rise over a flower-filled meadow.

When she woke in Dee’s arms, she found she’d been crying after all. She smiled, too tired to open her eyes. So grateful to have him with her.

“Told you I’d be back,” she signed.

And felt his answer in the touch of his lips.

Then

He was working in the garden when they arrived in the early afternoon. He stopped and went to splash water on himself, then entered the house. Sister was settling onto the ground when he came back out, pulling on a shirt over damp skin.

Nervousness twisted her insides as she climbed out of the cockpit. Her breath came unusually fast as she climbed the porch steps to where he stood waiting, his face a polite mask.

“Hello again,” she signed.

“You came back.”

“I said I would.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and avoided her gaze. “Sometimes people say that and never return.”

Gentle, fierce love seized her heart. She saw the pulse fluttering in his corded neck and couldn’t help stroking a finger over it, as if to gentle it. “I promise, whenever I say it, I’ll mean it.”

He swallowed. “Sister’s okay?”

“Yes.”

“You—did what you needed to?”

“Yes.” She slid her arms around his waist and held him. He stiffened before tentative arms went around her. His lips pressed against her braids and she hummed her contentment.

Silly man. There’s no escaping me now.

She leaned back and asked, “Where’s my surprise?”

He looked as nervous as she’d felt before. Without a word, he slid a hand down to hold hers. He took them around the house, through newly installed wider cellar doors and down a ramp into an expansive, cool root cellar. She walked down the broad aisle in the middle of the room, between shelves of produce and supplies.

At the back of the cellar, a new, larger room had been hollowed out. She stopped at the entrance, taking in the dimensions, and turned with tears in her eyes.

“Surprise,” he said.

She nodded, understanding, and dashed the tears from her face. You beautiful man.

She signed, “For Sister?”

“I thought you might both want your privacy.” Because he knew she was keeping things from him and he wanted to give her space to decide how much she wanted to share. Everything. The answer is everything.

“People aren’t very discreet out here. There was talk enough because the doctor had to come out. But they’re good people. Welcoming. They don’t ask questions if you want to keep to yourself.”

She caught a glimpse of the pain he hid so well. “They understand wanting to start over. Wanting to make a new home.”

She moved toward him, but he took a step back from her.

“We haven’t known each other long. But it doesn’t feel like that to me, Eva. Am I alone in this?”

She shook her head.

He took a deep breath. “There’s not much to do out here besides chores. But it’s quiet. It’s mine. I wanted that. Needed it.”

“I understand,” she replied.

“Do you?” His focused gaze was as intense as the touch of his hands. “You’ve had a good home. Family. Peace of mind. Things I’ve . . . I’ve never had, Eva.” He closed his eyes and then looked at her again, letting her see it all. See him. “But I want it. You have no idea how much.”

“Believe me, I know that feeling.”

He frowned. “Eva—”

“Dee. Just ask me.”

His breath hitched and his fists clenched and unclenched. He finally managed one word, but it was enough.

“Stay.”

“For how long?” she teased.

He looked cautiously hopeful as his lips moved. “Until you’re tired of me?”

“What if you get tired first?”

His smile was soft and full of longing. “That won’t ever happen.”

“It’s good we agree on important issues,” she said.

Then she was in his arms and he was kissing her like they’d been apart for years, and she had no idea who had moved first and didn’t care.

“There’s things you need to know,” she told him.

“I don’t care.”

“My past is complicated.”

“I know.” His face was fierce, triumphant. “I can deal with that. With anything.”

“I’m a retired admiral.”

He shrugged. “I’m a retired soldier. We’ll both be fantastic at making the bed.”

“So, we’re getting one?”

“Obviously.” His smile was tender. “I left it for last because I’m fine with the floor. But it won’t be just me anymore.”

She tried not to let the happiness surging inside distract her from the last few words she needed to get out.

“My people live a long time.”

“I’m well into my second century.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I’m older than you.”

“I’ve always preferred experience to youth.”

“I have a daughter.”

He stilled. “You’re in a relationship?”

“Yes.” But she couldn’t let him suffer for long. “He’s handsome, caring, owns his own home, cooks better than I do, but my family will want to meet him before we get serious.”

He relaxed, his eyes sparkling. “That’s a problem?”

“Yes.” She kissed him hard. “I want to trap him before he learns I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”

He tossed back his head and his laugh was a pleasurable vibration against her chest. She wanted it to never end.

“Will your daughter be okay with this? With us?” he asked as they left the cellar.

“Brother-Monica’s who pushed me to go exploring again. She knew I was restless. Have been since she got married. I meant it when I said I understood why you want peace.” She drew a hand down the bristling softness of his cheek. “But I never thought I’d get this lucky. She’s going to love you.”

“I’m the lucky one.” The warmth in his smile lit a fire in her blood. “It’s still early. We could talk over a drink and a game of All Fours?”

“I’d rather put my experience to good use.” She winked at him and he laughed again as they climbed the steps to the house.

Now

Arms linked, they walked down the porch steps and into the yard. It had been weeks since the Tavaco Standoff and the treaty with the Consortium would be signed any day now. But he still touched her all the time, reassuring himself she was with him.

She tugged on his arm, excited. “They’re almost here.”

He shook his head at her, thinking how beautiful the few streaks of gray among her newly trimmed wiry curls looked. “Then why hurry?”

She slapped his chest, and he laughed the way he’d only ever laughed with her.

They waited at the side of the house, eyes on the path, and he wondered if he was ready for this. If he could be good at it. Eva had practice, so she was ready to forge ahead. But even though Sister would always have his support, he had his doubts.

“You’ll be amazing.”

He sighed. She always knew what he was thinking. “I tried this before. It didn’t end well.”

“Valencia was a snake pit. It’s different with us.” She squeezed his arm. “You’re different.”

“I’m grateful Sister will have primary responsibility.”

Eva bit her lip and glanced down the still empty path. “I should have known she’d want more, especially after seeing what we have.”

“How? No Sibling has ever wanted to bond with two persons.”

She frowned. “She’s my Sister. I should have known she wasn’t happy.”

“I don’t think she was unhappy,” he said, “I think she met someone who changed her life. Made her realize what she was missing. That she still had a lot to offer.”

Eva kissed him, her mouth soft, warm, and tasting of mint. “You still think you won’t be any good at this?”

“I made mistakes before.”

“Children don’t need much. Love them, keep them safe, they’ll forgive you a lot.”

“This child has been through too much.” He frowned. “I want that pain to end.”

“You’re right. There’s a lot of rage there. Anyone willing to ride a Consortium raider to freedom will be a handful. At least Sister got to practice with me.”

“And you turned out magnificent, my love,” he whispered into her hair.

That’s how Sister found them. Standing hand in hand, Eva’s head leaning against his arm.

She strode toward them in a bipedal All-Care shell, her synthetic skin smooth and brown under the dappled sunlight falling between the trees.

Beside her, holding her hand, was a much smaller figure. The child’s prototype shell had been designed to be as human as possible in appearance, with skin the same shade as Sister’s, and beautiful, curious eyes, dark as his own. Hair stood out in a dark cloud around a small face.

Sister stopped in front of them and Eva hugged her tight while he knelt on one knee.

“Hello.” He signed as he spoke. “I’m Dee.”

“Hello,” came the reply. “I’m Xandar.”

He looked up at Sister, his breath caught on a question.

“We shared memories while bonding,” Sister said in a melodious contralto. There was no need to sign, as she and Eva were still linked by the Kinnec, but now that she wore an All-Care shell, she could communicate without the limitations of a soloship. “They took a liking to the Valencian’s name.”

His throat tightened as she smiled. “I only hope they weren’t inspired by your tales of his exploits. Xandar can be quite . . . adventurous.”

If they are, it doesn’t matter. We can handle anything together.

“Pleased to meet you, Xandar,” he signed as Eva laid a light hand on his shoulder. “Welcome to the family.”

About the Author

R.S.A. Garcia lives in Trinidad and Tobago with an extended family and too many dogs. Her debut science fiction mystery novel, Lex Talionis, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and the Silver Medal for Best Scifi/Fantasy/Horror Ebook from the Independent Publishers Awards (IPPY 2015). She has also published short fiction in international magazines, including Clarkesworld, Abyss and Apex, Internazionale Magazine (Italy), and in several anthologies.

The Last Civilian

R. P. Sand

You, on the day of your birth.

You blink into existence, and the first thing you hear is: We are at war with the Uilai. The Uilai must be eliminated.

Well, “hear” is an understatement, for the sentiment is injected through multiple channels: auditory, visual, synaptic. These words are your prime truth.

You are carte blanche but for a moment; there’s an urgency to the stream of information swallowed by your neurons. The topology of the crashed-starship-turned-station, comprehension of the fur-feathered locals, the terrain of Uiloolea, your assignment—your stream is that of Infantry, your expertise melee. And stances, strikes, and parries, from the upreared Cobra Clears the Veranda intimidation posture to the fluidic Falcon Feather Rides a Wind avoidance of blows.

You are of the Sixth generation, so you are called Zeta, followed by a unique number. Yours: 73.

The dual-wielded daggers 3D printed directly into your palms feel like they belong, an extension of your arms, as does the polymer uniform feel like an extension of your stretchy skin. At an equivalent of twenty-five Earth-years of age, you are now ready.

The reduplication cell doors open. You step out, newly born, raring to fight.

You, meeting her.

Uiloolea is a fertile planet, abounding in wet jungles, tumbling hills, spirited waters. A dominion primed with vibrant, cool colorings from greens to blues to an ensemble of purples. Certain angles under the sun reveal luminescent teal and lime highlights, and those very highlights read silver under two moons.

We of the Uilai share much the same coloration. “Peacock-kirin,” the first humans called us before they learned to pronounce Uilai with its breathy “ui,” marveling at our towering antlers, dark furs, biofluorescent feathered tails.

Third Maternal Uncle, Rheal the biologist, believes our blues, greens, purples, and iridescent highlights that have us blend flawlessly with our surroundings are not an evolutionary necessity, but a reflection of our synchronicity. Take for instance the way we build: our collectives trace the sinews of our densely forested land, our structures boast an entanglement of earth and metal. We function in tandem rather than opposition; even our electricity draws breath from iyaewah vines.

As apex of the food chain, Rheal would tell me. What need have we for camouflage?

No, we had no need to blend in. Well, not ’til now.

Contrarily, your kind are fairly dull with your gradient of browns in hair and skin, your steel-gray jumpsuits, the only color to offer being the piping along your shoulders and necks.

You are human, of course. Bipedal, intelligent, spongy, featherless. And you like sweet things. You adapt quickly to your life: barracks, canteen, drills on the days there are no skirmishes, skirmishes on the days there are no drills, and back to the barracks until the sun rises again.

The days become indistinguishable, unless you injure yourself, then your schedule detours to the infirmary where a pleasant soldier of the Medic stream pokes and prods until you are better, usually within minutes. For larger scrapes you’re popped into a cylindrical healing tube within which EM fields repair your tattered cells.

At each meal you gravitate to the third dispensation window in the canteen where a Fifth from a Service maniple doles out generous servings. He calls himself Tree and he always adds extra eovh spice to the protein stew and extra lei honey to the pudding.

You do not realize you gravitate to this window until you bump into a soldier as you pull your tray from it two weeks after your birth.

The tray jolts and stew splashes on your uniform. A few ever-purple eovh needles stick to your jumpsuit.

“Merde! Sorry, sorry,” says the soldier, grabbing a napkin from the counter. The piping at her neck and shoulders is the red of Command, distinct from your teal of Infantry and Tree’s green of Service. Her shoulder patch reads “Eta.” How odd. Had the Seventh generation already been born, then?

“Apologies, Sen. My fault, really,” you say in a tone deferent to the red, frustrated at your clumsiness. An imbalanced soldier will surely be defeated rings in your head, a synaptic mantra. You reach for the napkin in her hand, but she insists and dabs at your uniform.

“Thanks . . . ah, Sen, you didn’t need to line up,” you say; you may be deferent, but you are also bold, blunt—soldiers have no time for circuitousness. The other dispensation windows are free and without wait, you notice.

“I was curious,” she says with a flicker of a smile. “You’ve come to this window the past three meals, even if there’s a queue.”

Huh. You’d never really thought about it, but even as she mentions it you know it for truth, and you promptly recall tasting foods less toothsome from other windows during your early days. You simply shrug; there’s no need to insult the other servers, you are cogs in the same machine, after all.

As her smile deepens, you are unable to look away. Her teeth are white and well cared for, as are yours, as are any soldiers’, and her hair is pulled into a precise regulation bun. But there’s something about her smile you cannot quite put a finger on, there’s a gleam to it, a magneticity. Though her skin holds a dark hue similar to yours, it is somehow brighter, and she stands a good five inches taller than you. More than that, she seems almost . . . familiar. You idly wonder if all Sevenths were made with such perfection. It is of no matter, however; Idle speculation does not a good soldier make.

When were you born? You want to ask, but you say instead: “Enjoy your meal, Sen,” with a nod and make to leave.

Before you can join the cacophony of lunching soldiers she says, “Wait for me.”

So you do. Tree supplies to the Seventh generous helpings of stew and pudding before you both make your way elbow-to-elbow to an unoccupied table in a corner. It has a view of the concentrated greenery and purplery outside, a pleasant contrast to the drab white and gray of the station. You’ve always enjoyed windows.

Enjoying a view, preferring one server over another, choosing a name. These little quirks and inclinations manifest unbidden among your kind, despite the imprinted panoply of dogma, which, after all, makes you human.

But you are one of those who have opted not to select a name; the lot of you are of the opinion that names are redundant and unnecessary; Zeta73 is your unique identifier and serves you just fine. You wonder if this Seventh is more like Tree or more like you.

As though she reads your thoughts, the Seventh asks, “Do you have a name?” She wiggles a spoon between two fingers, deciding whether to begin with savory or sweet.

“No. Do you?”

Savory it is. She cools a spoonful of stew with a soft blow before answering: “Of course not. I was born only yesterday.”

“I hadn’t realized Sevenths were birthed already.”

“Too many losses at West Wind,” she sighed, which was enough by way of explanation. You’d been there. The Battle of West Wind was a monumental disaster, a massacre you reckoned as horrific as the Battle of Kai Springs was rumored to have been. Her tone was doleful, capped by a head bow—of course she would have been born with intimate knowledge of the wretched event that took place just a few days prior, and she could easily identify your participation. It affected her as it did you.

At West Wind, you’d nearly lost a limb and you suffered extensive internal bleeding, so the medics had fussed over you for hours. You were one of the lucky ones, one of three to survive; the Sixth’s Infantry maniples were largely wiped out by the barbarous Uilai.

Your heart is heavy with the loss, of course, but this is the mantle you accepted simply by being born. You had been fond of your comrades, in the way trees are fond of growing together into a forest. Not attached, though. You didn’t even know whether most of your comrades had names.

However, you have to admit the stew suddenly tastes different at her words. Bleaker. Generations are being sped up. At this rate in one Earth-year there could be dozens of human generations. Where does that leave you?

“How many of you are there?” you ask.

“As of now twenty-five. I’m the first.” You choke on the now-bleak stew, but you mask the movement with a cough. The first of the Seventh generation? So, Eta1. How does she sit here with you? You’d suspected she was among the first few, seeing her red—the first batch of a generation is usually Command. But to be lunching here with the likes of you?

You gape at her, but your stare is interrupted by a hush rippling through the canteen. Chairs scrape as soldiers scramble to their feet.

General Volantius, the sole survivor of the First generation, commander of the entire human population—all soldiers—parades through the bulkheads, her face radiant and scarred and unsmiling, trailed by stone-faced high Command officers belonging to the Second and Fourth generations—there are no Thirds left alive today. Two at her side wear the three gold stars of Intelligence at their lapels. Seeing them up close is a sight even rarer than Volantius.

Volantius has a limp, but she limps as though she chooses to limp.

“At ease, soldiers,” she says in her flinty voice. Her eyes flicker momentarily to Eta1, the Seventh you lunch with, before resuming her pace. At once the familiarity that tickled at your ears when you met Eta1 clicks into recognition.

“You are a . . . clone,” you whisper as the canteen reverts to mayhem, and a corner is sectioned off for the general and her retinue. The word “clone” tastes like taboo.

In truth you are all duplicates of some sort, using native Uilai reduplication technology for breeding purposes, technology originally designed to maintain balance on Uiloolea, flora and fauna, no one species out-thriving another.

“Gods!” the Progenitors spat in accusation. “The Uilai play at gods.”

But you are not clones.

The Firsts were all identical, but it took only a single generation to learn that no matter how hardwired the emotional capacities of a soldier, humans carry an inherent ache to be unique despite the uniform. The war is as much inward as it is outward. And so, cloning was fast abolished and now soldiers are birthed with random genomic perturbations. You share many similarities with your generation, but you are the only you in all of Uiloolea. It is why naming oneself is not quite encouraged but not exactly discouraged either. A soldier at odds with themself is already defeated.

“Ja,” Eta1 says with a nod, eyes glimmering like diyas at your dropped jaw. “But only me.”

You, on a journey.

Camaraderie is not alien to you, with how you inquire after injured soldiers, or navigate with your maniple through the dense terrain as one, or occasionally copulate with an arbitrary barrack-mate as an energy release—after which the deed is reported, documented, nutritional supplements consumed, per regulation. But friendship is an altogether different matter, and it is not something you immediately identify; over a short span of time and for reasoning beyond your comprehension, you find yourself consistently seeking out the company of Eta1.

The two of you spend on-base “free time” practicing forms in the area flattened behind the station for such purposes, framed by purple trees and blue-green barnacled bushes.

The sun shines a colorful checkerboard through the leaves across the stone courtyard and across Eta1’s face as her Heron Beak Cracks Still Water, a single impact blow, is countered by your crossed Elk in the Snowy Glade. She wields a staff, you dual-wield daggers.

You lunge with Lion Feasts in the Tall Grass Kingdom, and she leaps, avoiding the blows with a flawed Peacock Dances on Monsoon Grass—you nip her at the end.

“Nicely done,” you say, catching the half of your breath that slipped away during the parry. “But bend your knees a little more for better balance.”

Eta1 is a younger incarnation of General Volantius and is being groomed as her replacement. When she’s not doing whatever it is she does with the general, she’s encouraged to shadow soldiers from different streams; imprintation at birth is well and good, but just as fighting forms require practice to build muscle memory, so would activity-based learning make her a better leader.

You are her choice from Infantry, and though she’s never confirmed it you suspect she spends more time with you than the others, and this pleases you.

This has provided ample pockets of time over a few days for you to reach the conclusion that she differs from anyone else you’ve ever met, more emotive, for one. Fidgety. Must be her genetic makeup, you think; the First generation was the first iteration after the Progenitors, who were far from soldiers. Eta1, being a clone of a First and unblemished by generations of soldiering, would naturally be different. This is all speculation on your part, of course, for your stream is not Engineering and you are no geneticist.

You also speculate that you’ve been rather prone to nonsensical speculation after having met her. This doesn’t hamper your want to spend time with her, of course.

“Once more,” she says with a determined frown.

“Let’s take five, we’ve been at this awhile.” You toss her a hydration pack and she gulps generously.

“Omega,” she says after a pause, then offers you the pack.

“Hmm?”

“Omega! As a name. Can you say it? I want to see how it feels.”

You titter. “What will you call yourself when the twenty-fourth is birthed?”

She tugs an earlobe. “Hmm ah. I suppose you’re right . . . but who knows the future? I doubt I’ll be around for so long.”

“Considering the general can apparently last generations, I don’t see why you’d be any different. You’ve got strong genes.”

“Well, by then I’d be general, and I’d be able to call them whatever I want. Rollers. Pipes. Sleepless Nights.” You chuckle in spite of yourself.

“Plus I like the sounds of the syllables,” she continues. “Try it, no?”

“Alright. Omega. Hello. Um. How do, Omega?”

She beams and twirls her staff. “Ja, I think I like it. Now let’s think of something for you. How about Stinky?”

Before you can protest the utter ridiculousness of her proposal, she comes at you with Cat Flicks a Diya Flame.

Eta1 does not remain Omega for long, and it is Purple who you spar with a couple days later—a nod to the local flora, perhaps? Purple, you notice, has bruises under her eyes and on her neck of the same color.

But any attempts to ask after her well-being—is she not sleeping well? Surely this can be easily treated?—are thwarted by what she deems more important matters. She covets the gold stars of Intelligence and longs to impress the general, and these ambitions drive her to pursue her study aggressively and rather unconventionally.

This leads to the occasional uncomfortable encounter, and though you are fast-becoming used to Purple’s unorthodox remarks and questions, it is another matter altogether for your comrades.

At dinner, still soaked in sweat from sparring, you and Purple are joined at your table by the two other surviving Infantry Sixths, a narrow-shouldered Zeta47 and a brawny fellow who calls himself Strike.

“You two were at West Wind as well, weren’t you?” Purple asks, puncturing a fhoda leaf pakora in the stew; the mushrooms inside release a ribbon of steam and a whiff of Tree’s extra eovh spice.

Your comrades prickle at the question; not only was the Battle of West Wind a humiliating disaster, it unleashed the wrath of General Volantius. The Command officers involved who survived were publicly executed for their failure.

“Aye, Sen,” Zeta47 says quietly.

“Did you know it was a trap?” The two stop chewing, Strike even sputters and chokes a little. You hide a smile. Ah, Purple.

She’d asked you the very same thing, and more: Why do you think the Uilai attacked unprovoked? Why didn’t you retreat when it was obvious humans were being slaughtered?

You not only prickled at the audacity of the questioning, you became angry. Surely she knew that to admit even a hint of knowledge of the trap would imply a soldier deeming themself more intelligent than their late commanding officers? That the Uilai are monsters sans motivation to attack? That to retreat without order is disobedience, and more than that, utter cowardice? It is the burden of Command to strategize, and not the soldier to question orders.

She took your retorts in stride as she did your swooping strikes of Magpie on the Oak by tactfully rolling around them with Hedgehog Caught in Summer Sun. She continued to pry, and after a time you began to chime in to the spiral of speculations yourself. Why do the Uilai not want to share this world? Why are they so greedy? Are they hiding something? Something cool perhaps—do they falsely dye their furs and feathers and are afraid of being discovered? Why are these boring old gray jumpsuits the best Engineering could come up with? Perhaps humans should make dresses from purple leaves and build homes in the trees. To which you both collapsed together in roaring laughter.

The reactions of Strike and Zeta47 are as defensive as your initial response had been: “It is done now, why are you even speculating such things?”

Purple did not press them as she had pressed you, though after a couple more questions they ask permission to be dismissed through gritted teeth, clearly battling the urge to storm off. She waves them away.

In any case, Purple already knows what you are all born knowing: that we of the Uilai are primarily bipedal, but quadrupedal when haste is needed. That we speak with our minds through mind-talk and choose not to with our mouths. That we are communal and creative and harbor technologies you cannot fully comprehend.

And that every time humans push westward—in the direction of Kai Springs, the location of the battle that started the war ages ago—they are met with more aggressive opposition than from any other direction.

General Volantius wanted to put an end to that.

The Battle of West Wind is so called because a song was carried on the wind that drew the attention of the Infantry maniples the general had deployed westward.

The soldiers followed the song and stumbled upon a clearing in which an Uilai behaved rather oddly—she appeared to be asleep but standing on her head, antlers driven deep into the ground. She also appeared to sing in her sleep.

Not one to pass up an opportunity to gather information, and perhaps greedy in their own ambitions to impress the general, the Command officers ordered the maniples to inspect the clearing and the lone Uilai, who remained unmoving even as they approached. Know your enemies as you know yourself and you are already victorious.

What they hadn’t noticed were the Uilai camouflaged in the trees, waiting.

Your kind underestimated us in your assumptions about our “savagery” and “predictability.” Having no term for the word “war” until we encountered humans, we made infantile mistakes at first, engaging in battle when clearly outnumbered, not regulating and securing supply lines, falling prey to easy ambushes. With every defeat we learned and adapted. What you Sixths encountered in the clearing was utterly nonsensical, as it was designed to be.

We do not walk on our heads or sing in our sleep, but you will believe anything simply because you assume we have nothing in common.

Oh but we do have more things in common than you know.

You are the descendants of the ESS Orion, the sole colonial starship to survive the disaster that demolished its fleet only to plummet into the jungles of Uiloolea. You cling to a precarious thread, the crash having destroyed any chance of flight, many human technologies, advanced weaponry.

Thousands of years of history weigh on your collective shoulders.

You fight for the preservation of the human race.

A fight that is, at the end of the day, not dissimilar to the secret in the west we so fiercely protect.

You, caretaker of kittens.

A crackle in your ears snatches you from dreams of musical greens, playful waters, and the one who now calls herself Petal. Soldiers never remove their ear comms, not while showering, not while sleeping.

You leap from your bunk and with practiced ease slip into boots and gear. In your half-sleep it takes you a moment to register that you are the only one doing so; the barracks are still dark. And that there’s a whisper in your ear through the hazy crackle.

“Stinky? Wake up, Stinky!”

“P-petal?” you hiss. This is most unprecedented and as fond as you are becoming of her, not only do you grimace at the obnoxious breach of protocol—the comms are not for personal use; what need of personal use communicators have soldiers, anyway?—you hardly appreciate being awoken so gratingly.

“I require assistance. Report to the Via Sacra immediately. Bring water.” You suck in a breath. Outside Volantius’ compartment? What is Petal playing at?

“On my way . . . Sen. Zeta73 out.” The crackle fades.

You scamper through the halls gripping a hydration pack tighter than necessary, crossing bulkheads and the two courtyards it takes to reach the shuttle-pod-turned-housing-unit of Volantius’ compartment. The compartment is dark, but the road leading to it that cuts right through the wet trees are flooded with bright lights, and there are guards stationed out front.

Your eyes catch a spark; a shadow obscured in bushes along the road up ahead flashes a small mirror in your direction.

With a hefty sigh you skulk across the road, giving the guards a wide berth.

“Here,” whispers Petal. She pulls you into the bushes, though you don’t really need her help, and you stumble at the unwanted extra force. Oh this girl does make you clumsy.

When you crouch beside her, hidden by the bushes and trees, your eyes take a moment to adjust, so you hear the chirps and mews before you can see their source.

What come into focus are tiny tottering balls of moss, with squinched eyes and naked rubbery tails.

“The eff is that?”

“They’re babies . . . orphans. Volantius’ cruiser hit what I think was the mother on our way in this evening. Tried to save her, but I couldn’t.” It is then that you become aware of a large unmoving mossy mound just beyond the scraggy pakoras, the focus of their agitation. They try to climb it but they climb over each other instead, and their mouths seek teats that will never offer milk again.

“The water,” Petal says, coaxing the bottle from your clamped fingers; you’re suspended in incredulity—had Petal really breached protocol for this? If you are caught you will be heavily reprimanded, maybe flayed, or even worse: stripped of your station and sent . . . wherever those who had the misfortune to display even the slightest weakness of mind were sent. You never saw them again. Any deviation from protocol weakens the military machine.

The right thing to do would be to leave immediately and report her. Instead, you watch as she rolls a thick leaf to drip water into their mouths.

Protesting your own passivity, you decide right then that you don’t like her very much, that you will stop seeing her, curse the day you first met her . . . even as you note how gracefully her limbs move, how tenderly she cradles the little things. Have you ever witnessed such softness before? No, no, you don’t think that you have.

Your body doesn’t seem to agree with your decision to dislike her, and you find yourself leaning in to help when a particularly jumpy one fights against her gentle grip. Feisty little thing.

As Petal drips water into its mouth, you notice that the joints of her fingers are at odd angles, as though they’d been broken, and the repair process had not quite put them back together correctly.

“What in the name of Old Earth happened to you?”

Petal doesn’t answer, of course, and instead coos over their mossy features, their little mouths, their furless tails that coil and whip every time they mew.

“They aren’t exactly cats, are they? The ones in the forms. They’re the closest we have, though, look they’ve even got little whiskers and ears. Let’s call them kittens.”

After a befuddled pause, you catch yourself agreeing not only to the nomenclature, but that together you’d find a dense bush nearby and check on them in alternating shifts each day, bringing food and water and all else they could need to flourish and grow without a mother.

Merde. What are you getting yourself into?

But you see the bruises on Petal’s face and her broken fingers, a change in her dark eyes, the way she buries the dead mother, and in that moment you find yourself wanting to give her everything her heart desires.

You, irrevocably human.

The kittens yawn and stretch and twitch as you nuzzle their ears. Their bedding of shredded linen tucked within a turquoise barnacled bush is freshly replaced and they aren’t hungrier than usual, so Petal has definitely visited. You, however, haven’t seen her in three days.

Even though you know A soldier who delves more in thought than action is already defeated, your thoughts race a deleterious marathon. Why is she avoiding you? You were too easy on her the last time you practiced forms. No, you were too hard on her. You chided her for calling you Stinky, even though you secretly adore her carrying a name just for you on her lips. Why hadn’t you told her that? Did you forget to wait for her at a meal?

You find excuses to pass her private quarters—more closet than quarters, really—taking long detours from one duty to another, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. You continue to check on the kittens once a day as promised, but the visits take on a whole new meaning: they’re your one connection to Petal and on a whim you leave a note, a simple, “Talk soon?”

The note is nowhere to be found on your next visit, but lacks a response.

It is during an early dinner when General Volantius enters the canteen with her retinue that you spot Petal among them, one gleaming gold star at her lapel. At first, your heart leaps—she’s worked hard for this!—but your exultation rapidly recedes when the reason for her distance occurs to you. Intelligence is sequestered from the rest to avoid contamination. You had hoped that would happen only after she’d earned all three stars.

You position yourself at your usual table hoping to catch her eye, but she drifts like a dead leaf on a harsh wind, following without expression. She seeks food from the nearest window, not from Tree, and barely touches it throughout the meal, simply punctuating whatever the general has to say with a nod. She doesn’t look at you, but the general’s eyes flicker in your direction for a brief moment, and there’s something in that look that makes your skin tighten.

The shadow on her face makes you wonder if Eta1 is still Petal at all—she wears a new name so frequently, by now she must have had at least two. Or none. It makes you feel distant from her, more distant than the spans of dining soldiers between you.

You stir your spiced stew absentmindedly, ignoring any attempts at conversation from your comrades.

After dinner you pass her quarters, and you hear a wail. It is a disquieting sound, something you’ve never heard before. Alarmed, you push open the door and find Petal crumpled under a bookshelf, hands wrapped around her knees, rocking, rocking. The quiet, cutting wail makes you sweat; you want to run, but find your arms instinctively reaching to her instead.

A moment of hesitation passes before you settle your arms around her. You’ve never touched her before . . . well, not like this.

She sinks into your chest, drawn like dew to petals. She fits well. Her wail subdues to a succession of choked sobs that shake your body.

“Tighter.” The voice is weak, though provides the sobs a brief, broken respite. And once more: “Tighter, not tight enough.”

She’s angry for some reason as the demands for an ever-tighter embrace grow stronger and you squeeze as hard as Tree once did while demonstrating juicing some citrus fruit. You worry for a moment whether you’ll hurt her, whether her insides will turn to juice as well. The silliness of that thought strikes you shortly after. Juice? Really?

The two of you are so entwined for what feels to be hours, but the light from the window above remains unchanged. The sobs diminish into sniffles and then there’s a silence that you don’t know how to break.

Eventually, Petal speaks: “It’s only been one year.” . . . What?

“I can’t do this, this thing,” she continues in fragments. “Can’t be her, she doesn’t get it.” You are confused at these words. Of course Petal can’t be General Volantius, wasn’t that the whole problem with the First generation? You are no geneticist, but you know, as all soldiers do, that those clones had been expected to not only look identical, but act identically. That failed, obviously. Volantius wouldn’t expect that of her, would she? While it is true that certain inclinations are genetically encoded during the reduplication process—an enhancement of traits more suited to a soldier’s stream—personalities emerge on their own.

“You can’t . . . ” you begin to say, grappling for the right words. “You aren’t . . . ”

Luckily Petal finds her tongue before you do and words tumble from her mouth, slowly at first, then with more abandon.

Volantius is dying. There is friction between the general and her replacement, expectations not being met. Petal questions when she shouldn’t, and Volantius accuses her of being too soft.

Too soft. Merde. You’ve heard those words before. In whispers in the corridors and out on the field. Of the occasional soldier considered “faulty,” unsuitable for the military. Usually identified soon after birth and then never seen again.

You never gave them much thought, but you also did not know them the way you know Petal.

At once it hits you that this woman you hold has a target on her back. When you peer down at her, study her more carefully, pressed into you, you notice cakes of blood and even more broken bones badly repaired.

When she grows silent, you ask delicately, “What did you mean by ‘it’s only been one year’?’” She raises her wet eyes to you.

“Orion? It crashed last year.” You stiffen. Huh?

“We’ve only been at war for a few months,” she continues. “The fighting hasn’t been going on for years. It’s the comms in our ears, they do more than relay orders, they . . . make us believe.”

“But . . . that would mean Kai Springs—”

“Last month. The Battle of Kai Springs was last month. It’s why you were born. It’s why the Uilai fought so hard a few days later at West Wind.”

The world lurches but you shake it off, no, no, Petal is obviously distressed. Perhaps she suffers a neurosis? Irrespective of what ails her, she still has a target on her back, and desperation begins to coalesce in your throat.

What . . . what if she disappears? A world without her smile and her changing names and the way she makes you see things you wouldn’t have otherwise noticed. A lackadaisical world devoid of color no matter how vivacious the local flora and fauna.

No. No, you would rather die than live in a world without her—the thought surfaces from the depths of your desperation. You have to pause for a moment. For many moments. This is too much.

What could you possibly do?

After eons you say, “Let’s leave,” so softly you are unsure the whisper reaches her ears. “There’s ample food and cover out there. I’ll protect you.”

She laughs, but it is more pathetic shake than laugh, really, too soft. Yes, she is too soft. And in danger.

The sound emboldens you. “I’m serious,” you say. “We’ll leave. Find an abandoned cave.”

“The planet’s small. They’ll find us.”

“It’s not that small. We can hardly track beyond a few kilometers anyway with the humidity and rains and trees, do you really think they could find a pair of smart pakoras like us?”

Her face brightens a little, a hint of the day you first laid eyes on her. She studies your face as you study hers, and your pulse quickens.

“Alright,” she finally says.

You fix a time to depart at night and leave her tucked in bed for a short rest, feeling lighter on your feet than you ever have.

With your head whirling with fancies of the joyful life you will live, and the minutes not moving fast enough, you find a welcome distraction in keeping yourself physically busy before lights out by driving rollers away from underneath your bunk.

Rollers: tiny marsupials a deep plum in color with eyes so dark a blue to be nearly black. Their weakness is the assortment of protein bars in the soldiers’ packs under the bunks. An occasional, reprimandable sight is a smattering of rollers snoring on their backs amid empty wrappers, bellies amply thickened by gluttony. You marvel at their contentment, even as you thwack them away from your pack, and marvel that you will soon join them in their contentment.

Just as you rid yourself of the last roller, a bell tolls. What is odd about the sound is that you can’t tell whether it comes from outside or from within your head. Either way, the sound penetrates your nerves. Along with vibrations, words pour into your ear.

Your barrack-mates are struck as you are, frozen in place for a split second. They consume the words they hear as truth, and the words threaten to ring true for you as well. If you did not feel as deeply as you do, you’d ingest them and then forget the bell had ever tolled at all.

The words?

Eta1 was never born. Eta1 does not exist.

You, on fire.

The world leaks as though it’s been turned on its head and gravity’s crime is to push and not pull. Your chest convulses with gulped half-breaths as though your lungs are stone and not flesh. Your gut grows leaden, your limbs cold.

Petal—wait, was her name still Petal, anyway? Why in the name of Old Earth hadn’t you asked her?? Petal. Petal is dead, and you are the only one who can remember her. Her quarters are empty and clean, there is not a single speckle of dust to betray someone had ever occupied this space.

Your surroundings are dulled and muted. Somehow you manage to stumble your way to an exit and gasp for the clarity of the night’s air outside. The violent shades of Uiloolean colors that once thrilled you seem now a pompous barrage, too loud, too loud. How could the world boast its colors with Petal gone?

The kittens have disappeared and even as you frantically overturn rocks and part bushes in search of their wrinkled faces you are unsurprised. Of course they knew. Of course she knew, and now she’ll come after you, that woman who dared share Petal’s face.

Bioflourescent succulents splatter beneath your boots and you run even before you become aware of your movement. Run and run and run, ripping off the comms in your ears. The moons bounce silver off leaves and moss and petals, guiding your way. Branches tear at your jumpsuit and your skin, and you bleed a little but the stings outward are inconsequential compared to those within.

It occurs to you after some time that you head westward.

Westward. Kai Springs.

Where it all began, or so General Volantius had led you all to believe. You stumble as nausea threatens, but keep pushing forward, ever forward.

If Kai Springs had in actuality happened only a month before, why did Petal say the war had been going on for a few months? Petal. Petal again. No, no you cannot bear to think about her. You lose yourself for a while, even as your feet carry you forward.

When you return to your awareness, you are no longer running because your legs smart. You still move westward though, limping and staggering, yes, but still westward. The richness of the raw spice in the air, the dew on the leaves, and the chirps and chatters of insects flood your senses. The silver highlights of the jungle wash into teals and limes as the sun peeks over the horizon.

I feel the stir in the leaves even before I hear footfalls, crunches, rustles, snaps.

A human approaches, I send through mind-talk to the two who share my petrol duty this night: willowy Third Maternal Uncle, Rheal, and spritely Second Paternal Cousin, Ilya. We circle but a few spans outward from our collective nestled alongside Kai Springs. A lone human, Ireassure when they project their alarm and make to join me. I will take care of it, though stay you close.

As I move to intercept you, my thoughts are slammed with a swift wave, a wash of careening emotions from your direction. Oh hmm. Well. This is unexpected. I’ve seen this before, from others who have opened their minds and feel.

In this moment I make a decision; I lower my locked arrow, return the bow to my back.

Your eyes are blurred, so it takes a moment for you to realize that what you’ve run into is no tree. You back up slowly, instinctively draw your daggers, and crouch.

I open my palms, show them empty, and slowly lower myself onto all fours. Slowly, slowly. I can only imagine how startling it is to stumble upon a creature twice as tall, made even taller by looming antlers. As my hoofed fingers sink to the ground, you rise from your crouch into an intimidatory stance, meeting me eye to eye, emboldened by my apparent show of deference and peace.

“We . . . not so different . . . you and I,” I say, slowly, haltingly, for it has been weeks since I’ve spoken aloud. I pause. Taking a chance on you has to be the right decision.

You frown, run your eyes along the feathers down my spine to where they end in an abundant tail, the thick muscles under navy-purple fur, teal-lime highlights in the dawn’s light. My undrawn bow, the necklaces I wear at my neck, the embroidered cloth wrapped around my waist.

The decision you make after a considerable pause mirrors mine: you sheath your daggers and shrug off your stance.

As if on cue a wail pierces our silence and I tense.

It is a sound you’ve never heard before, and very different from Petal’s wail, higher in pitch and very strange. It unnerves you, triggers your primal instincts.

Shhh, I send to my collective. The wail only grows louder in defiance.

Do you understand?

No, I can see that you do not.

Ah, well. It would take much too long for me to explain aloud.

My thoughts trickle toward you, tentative prods against the wall that is your mind, and when I find insubstantial resistance I pour open. Human-Uilai mind-talk is not truly mind-talk, but a somewhat rudimentary variant. Sufficient, however. You gawk as we connect.

I will not cause you harm, I think to you. And you to me: I believe you.

You have lost something.

I’ve lost everything.

Your mind is erratic, undisciplined; memories course into our connection. That is when I see. You, on the day of your birth. You, meeting her. On a journey. Caretaker of kittens. Irrevocably human. And finally, you, here, on fire.

I motion for you to follow me and you seem baffled that you do.

Though we are not far from our destination, it is the nature of mind-talk that allows me to convey so much in such a short interval:

We were not always at war, the humans and Uilai. The first humans crashed onto our world, blown off course when the rest of their fleet was demolished by a phenomenon in the stars they’d never encountered before. We were angered and dismayed at the injury to our jungles and the loss of animal life. But it was soon made clear that they arrived by accident, that they suffered severe losses themselves; most of those who had not died in the crash perished soon after through radiation poisoning from whatever cosmic storm had flung them our way. We grieved with the survivors, exchanged foods and ornaments, gifts upon gifts. We attempted to repair the starship so they could resume their journey to find a new home.

Alas, star flight requires materials we don’t have here on Uiloolea.

At first the contact was amiable. They watched curiously as we rapid-reduplicated flora and fauna to compensate for the damage, eager to learn of our ways. Then came dangerous, desperate dreams. Knowing that it wouldn’t be long before they succumbed to the poisoning themselves, they envisioned rapid-building great cities, populating through reduplication, creating a third Earth. We pushed back, refused to let them cut trees and industrialize. We urged them to build constructively, following the land as we do, and not destructively and upward. The thought of caves and tunnels, however, seemed repellent to them.

Most of the first humans reluctantly conceded and elected to live their last days in the ship-turned-station, but there was a small group that refused to relinquish the dreams. It was led by a psychophysicist who had at first been the warmest of allies, ever intrigued by our technology.

Jayne, she was called. You know her as General Volantius.

At this you stumble, and I steady you before your head hits a swooping branch.

Yes, Volantius is a Progenitor. She is not of the First generation, though it was her DNA that birthed them.

The wail dissipates abruptly, its source as erratic and undisciplined as your thoughts. At the entrance of my collective, a compact network of alcoves and tunnels, we are met by Rheal and Ilya. They reach for their weapons, but I think to them, Ease. I believe this one can help.

Rheal narrows his amber eyes, questioning the judgment of someone who will always be a child to him. Ilya is more forgiving and steps aside easily.

Trust in me. I maintain my posture, drawing inspiration from the Raven Soars in the Moonlight you attempted to intimidate me with just moments before. Rheal looks from me to you and back, then with a sigh keening on the dramatic, joins Ilya to the side.

We enter the main tunnel and I direct you upward, through metal-earth stairs leading to the sky window at the peak of the first hill. You gape at the walls inlayed with lit panels webbed with iyaewah vines that guide our way. Rheal and Ilya trail behind us, and you know as well as I that a single wrong move on your part would be the end of you. An extraneous precaution; I will kill you myself, if it comes to that.

We emerge under the stars where Ilya’s mother, Ayaal, cradles a bundle amidst gifted diyas.

This is, I begin to tell you, but you don’t hear me: you are transfixed by what Ayaal holds. It is something that is very obviously human to you, with smooth skin and wispy follicles, ten fingers and ten toes, a mouth, two eyes, a nose. But it is tiny. You have never seen a human child before.

“How—how is this possible?” you say aloud, forgetting our connection in your confoundment.

“There was . . . a family,” I say. “More than one. That broke . . . from you. Bellies swole with love. We found them. We nearly killed them.”

But when it was obvious they wanted peace, to harvest the land, drink the waters, and to just live, simply live under the sun and sky, we protected them as they shed their mantles as soldiers to build a civilian life in Kai Springs. We shared meals and stories around communal fires in much the way we did with the first humans.

When Volantius discovered the deserters, we were no match for her focused force . . . not with your generation of Sixths freshly-birthed in internecine fury.

We could only save this smallest one, whose existence remains unknown to her.

However . . . I fear we do not know how to care for it; we’ve provided iya milk and lei honey, which appear to have nourished it for a time, but it weakens now and needs something more.

“Yes . . . something more . . . ” I continue aloud as you fall to your knees. “Why . . . why do you so weep?”

I touch your shoulder and squeeze, mimicking a movement I had witnessed in Kai Springs.

“I cannot,” you say in spasms. “Not after what I’ve done.”

Oh, oh but you can.

You see, I know you now. I know what your heart holds; I know what you are capable of—can you not see? This is a fortuitous, beautiful thing. A child who needs to be loved. And a you who needs to love.

It needs you.

About the Author

R. P. Sand is a theoretical physicist turned scientific adviser for literature and film, science communicator, and writer of speculative fiction. Cats, coffee, cosplay, and colorful socks are a few of her favorite things.

Aster’s Partialities:
Vitri’s Best Store for Sundry Antiques

Tovah Strong

The Unhappy Impetus

If the book had begun differently, perhaps it would have ended. Syd was overconfident. Reckless enough to edge into paranoia. She practiced verbal deflection and kept her notebook on a table rigged with gunpowder. It was not enough. Of course. Every thief knows doors are near useless on good days and secrets are hard to keep when one is simultaneously power drunk and paranoid. The magistrate’s arrival at the Academy’s west tower was unsurprising. His knocking began at ten after three and continued for almost two minutes, gathering intensity when he hollered, “Open the door, bedeviled woman!”

Syd released the nine locks on her door with steady fingers. The magistrate seized her before the ink on the letter ordering her arrest could dry. It is a shame Syd wasn’t suicidal. She might have died quickly. Instead, she was beheaded—hacked in two—by a less-than-adequately-sharp sword. Burned. Her skull lashed to a pole and forced into the sky for crows. Her tower burned. Scribes toiled overnight to scratch her name from the yearly edition of Vitri’s Finest Magicians.

A newspaper headline dated two months before her execution praised her brilliance: Miss Sydney Alting, it read, the Young Magician-Academic Transcending Our Understanding of Space-Time. She was as beloved as anyone with terrible power could be. She was not the kind of magician who pricked fingers for her spells or cleaned skulls and filled them with potions. Her magic relied on belief and a curious mix of book learning, glass flasks and burners, and long walks that often carried her through each of Vitri’s main streets before depositing her back home just as the sun rose. How were people to know she was more than an academic? She played the part with remarkable exactitude.

She slept in stolen moments, ate while consuming books with eyes sharper than any human tooth, and plotted out her days while dressing each morning. She learned all she could to complete her self-assigned quest; little else mattered. What else could matter when she was certain her time in Vitri was finite? It was supposed to be finite. If not for us, it would have been.

1:1:1:5 -aster.

Syd underestimated her notebook’s power. If she had not singed her thumb, cut it with her pen-nib, grasped the pen in her mouth as she wrapped her thumb in cloth—hissing out garbled curse words all the while—and dripped blood on the fifth word in the first sentence in the first paragraph of the first page in her notebook, it might have ended. All magic is troublesome: the magic of escape more so than the rest. Death does not count; it equals a circle: a body is spat from a womb, it grows to maturity, dies some horrible or less-than-horrible death, and the cycle repeats. Getting up from an armchair to enter the next room does not count either: it equals a slight shift in locale—perhaps a shift in perspective as well—but that depends entirely on the get-up-and-mover’s mental state and, as anyone knows, human minds are fickle.

Syd sought a sense of complete transportation, of removal from one’s known, constructed world to a form of existence that still contained a vast cavern of malleability. She sought a deathless dismemberment of body and soul capable of undergoing reconstruction. Our selfless, forgiving side may argue that her death was a pity—a pity for knowledge, for human understanding of the universe’s construction, for the poor souls and poorer bodies who attempted to continue her quest long after her execution. Unfortunately, we abhor selflessness. The concept of forgiveness makes us feel weak, and we despise weakness. Unfortunately, the blood Syd spilled on her notebook eighteen days before her execution, and the muddled curses that leaked out around the shaft of her pen, formed a spell that mangled an ending beyond repair. Her death furthered the chain of events. All that blood pouring down her neck created an unhappy accident: us. Our infant self swept in before her bodiless head was launched into the sky and ate her stiff tongue. Now she lives in our mirrors. All fourteen of them.

We began as all living things begin: a bit of matter floating in fluid. Our fluid was deep as a black hole. Our matter equaled one word dribbled in blood: -aster. Aster became our name. Aster, wrapped in Syd’s unintentional spell, pulsing with her death-blood, cloaked in her last words.

“You will remember me!” she had screamed. “Burn my belongings, write over my name, wash your children’s ears if they dare think of me, but you cannot get rid of me. I’ll linger in your court, the corners of your houses, the square you’re bound to burn my body in. I’ll look down on this town even after the crows have picked out my eyes.”

She died and we grew larger with her stiff tongue filling our mouth. What was left of her slowly solidified our crevices like mortar. We were built from bone as all things are built. First: a foundation made of clay and gravel, bones and charred bricks from Syd’s tower. Second: wooden studs like the studs in any building. Third: walls and windows. Paint on the inside. Plaster on the outside. A roof. We contain six rooms, one brick chimney, and enough plumbing for running water. Our doors are thick oak set with iron hinges and handles. Our dark foyer leads into a room that swallows all but a small kitchen alcove on our first floor, occupied only by two floating shelves. Narrow stairs hidden beneath a cabinet we stole from a junkyard lead into a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom with dry plumbing. Syd is our only occupant. What use do ghosts have for plumbing? We ate a four-poster bed with paisley sheets in shades of sunset orange, a nightstand, a periwinkle couch overflowing with matching cushions, and a table crisscrossed with scars left by butchering knives to furnish our upstairs rooms. Mirrors wink from every wall. Our downstairs lies empty except for a pile of dusty coins and cracked autumn leaves left by our last visitor. He was delicious. His throat hinged with fat, his ribs encased in silky skin, his fingers thin enough to become toothpicks. We used his bones as we have used all the rest: to shore up the weakest crevices in our walls.

Syd battered the inside of the mirrors while we chomped and sucked and gnawed. Our visitor disappeared too quickly. We belched a foul breath through our chimney and settled into our foundations as our stomach rumbled and gurgled to beg for more.

8:1:2:13 -eternity.

We are perpetually hollow. Unfulfilled. Syd shrieks soundlessly, mouth hanging open, and rushes from one mirror to the next. The city hisses and screams and rumbles and crawls around us. Vitri has grown since we were born: it has sprouted heads that belch smoke whose foulness rivals our own; it has pounded paving stones into the earth; its population has multiplied thrice; its buildings have grown taller than any gallows or tower or turret; its shifting streets forced us to move from one block to the next until we set our foundations down in a grassy plot between brick buildings occupied by people who get up at the same hour every morning, dress in drab uniforms, and stumble off to work with sleep still clouding their eyes.

We are hungry. Aching for nourishment we do not expect to receive. Our walls feel like compressed sand—all too easily knocked down. Syd jostles the mirrors. We cannot free her from her accidental prison. We cannot free ourselves of her. We have tried, but her spells are thick and heavy and wrapped in every scrap of certainty she had while still alive: Vitri will always lie under her gaze. So, she continues bashing against the inside of the mirrors and we continue breathing and eating and wondering where we will move when this street, too, spits us out.

Our front doors open. Slam shut. Our walls shake. We grind our teeth. Surely, we are hallucinating the footsteps pounding over our downstairs floor. Surely, the panting breaths are our own. We crack our eyes open and stare down at the small body crumpled in our first floor alcove. The child reaches a shaking hand into a chestnut-brown coat pocket, heaves a breath, and lets their eyes flutter closed. We lick our lips and think of blood on our tongue, but it has been a long time since a child opened our doors. We are too curious for our stomach’s good. The child’s coat sleeves are filled with patches in mismatching shades of orange and gray. Their short hair sticks up in greasy, sweat-matted clumps. Their oversized, broad-legged pants are cinched with a scratched leather belt and folded up a half-dozen times at the ankles. Holes fill their mass-produced shoes’ peeling soles.

We move our eyes closer, stomach grumbling, and lick our lips. We are hungry. So hungry. We digested our last visitor five days ago. Surely this child will not be dearly missed. We inch our mouth closer, teeth almost poking through our gums—and our floorboards. The child opens their eyes, releases a long breath, and withdraws the hand from their pocket with a thin, glittering silver chain hanging over their fingers and something clutched in their palm.

A glint. We shiver. Inhale through our chimney. No, it’s impossible. Not right.

We stop.

The child smiles down at their hand, lips peeling back over crooked teeth. A giggle erupts from their throat, course and unused, then so gleeful we find ourselves trembling. We recoil from the child, move our eyes into the ceiling and shove our teeth into our foundation. The child straggles to their feet, tightens their fist around the necklace, and begins to stagger toward our entrance. Syd grows still in the mirror she has been scribbling spells across and tilts her head downward like she can steal our eyes and see the child clutching her necklace—her necklace. We hiss. The necklace’s pendant peeks between the child’s ring and middle fingers: a pearl set in a silver bowl that once hung in the hollow of Syd’s throat.

The magistrate ordered it burned with Syd’s body. Everyone knows a magician’s talisman must be destroyed if they are to be erased from the grounds that felt them die. At least, a magician as powerful as Syd. Perhaps her imprisonment is not entirely our fault. The thought itches, and itches, and itches. We do not care. Do not care. A chortle builds in our walls. The child stumbles the last few feet to our double doors leading out to the street, grasps the doorknobs with sweaty fingers, and shoves themself through. We slam the doors closed behind them and smirk.

7:2:1:3 -kindness.

We are as asleep as any building can be when the child returns, carrying the scent of rotten leaves. They shut our front doors behind themself, check for a lock, and—finding none—walk to the center of our downstairs. For a moment, they stand still. We hold our breath and wait. For what? We don’t know. Syd twitches inside the mirror carefully situated above the bed. The child turns in a slow circle, heaves a sigh, and slings a tan backpack darned with yarn instead of thread off their shoulder. The backpack falls with a painful thump that reverberates through our floor. Is the child carrying cans? River stones? A collection of petrified heads?

The thought almost makes us scoff. Our stomach grumbles and we tell it to shut up already. We are hungry, but this—this has never happened before. Last time we refrained from eating a visitor, they returned with a real estate agent and city officials with clipboards determined to discover where we came from. Because “houses don’t just appear, you damn idiots,” the real estate agent had said while scuffing the tip of her shoe against the bottom of our very nice front doors. We left to find a different street that night and not even Syd complained when we waded through the sewer’s drainage system. No one we decided not to eat—a decision we have only made twice—has ever returned . . . and with a backpack heavy enough to make us wonder how the child hasn’t crumpled beneath the weight.

The child sets their hands on their hips and turns in a slow circle, “Not bad.”

We bristle. Not bad? Not bad? Upstairs, Syd shakes with a sudden bout of silent laughter. We consider stacking all of her mirrors in the center of the bedroom—facedown, so she will be trapped in darkness. Syd has not laughed for almost eighty years. We know because we heard her laugh her last laugh as the executioner squinted one eye and lined his sword up with the back of her neck. Of course, she did enough damage during her lifetime to earn some degree of post-death misery. And being locked up with us for seventy-nine and three-quarters years would make anyone insane. We reconsider stacking her mirrors in the center of the bedroom—leaving one faceup for a view of the ceiling.

The child kneels in front of their backpack and yanks the main compartment’s rusted zipper pull. The zipper shrieks. Our stomach grinds and gurgles an insistent eat the child already and be done with it. The child opens a round can—at least one can after all—with a faded label, sticks a spoon in the center of it, and gobbles the can’s indiscernible contents with unnecessary slurping. We shift our foundations, grimacing and grinding our teeth until the child wraps the can in a paper bag and washes the spoon with a small bar of soap and water from a metal bottle decorated with pink butterflies. They lie down on their back and tuck the backpack under their head. We quickly close our eyes and move them into a corner of the ceiling. Being seen moving wouldn’t do any good. The child lies still for a minute before their lips twist and they let out a snort of derision at some internal joke. They wipe their cheeks with the backs of their hands, cross their feet at the ankles, and close their eyes.

A few minutes later, they let out a quiet huff and turn onto their side—asleep. We stare, dumbfounded, and slowly creep our eyes closer. Our mouth moves beneath them, tongue sliding along our lips. It would be so easy to open our jaws and swallow. A few crunches. A bit of blood for us to lick off the floor. And the child would be gone. Still, we hesitate and want to slap ourselves. Syd shrieks gleefully. We shake our upstairs walls in warning, but she only tilts her head back and opens her mouth wider. Our eyes snap back to the breathing body stretched out on our downstairs floor as the child rolls onto their other side. A nuisance. That’s what they are. A potentially delicious, strangely tense, infuriatingly mysterious sack of food and building materials sleeping on our floor as if we’re some kind of inn.

8:9:2:4 -death.

The child sleeps past the following morning’s dawn. We do not sleep at all. Not for lack of trying, of course, but the child remains an infuriating mystery lying on our floor and we can’t close our eyes for more than a few seconds. Syd spends the night moving from one mirror to the next, occasionally opening her mouth and grumbling to herself as she tries to find a comfortable spot. We circle our eyes over the ceiling, hunting for silver glinting at the child’s neckline or peeking out from beneath their sleeves. They could not have sold Syd’s necklace without raising questions. A magician’s talisman contains a sort of weight that inherently makes anyone who tries to carry it, except for its rightful owner, queasy. The child must have known that they were picking up something they were not supposed to have—unless they knew and decided not to care. We shiver. It is not a pleasant thought. It would point toward either sheer arrogance or recklessness and we do not know which one we like least.

Arrogance would be painfully familiar. Syd was arrogant, but not without the power to prove most of her claims. Recklessness makes humans difficult to predict—or too easy; it rarely exists alone and it can make people rely on the strangest parts of themselves. Was the child’s first rush through our doors driven by desperation or determination? They shift, roll onto their stomach with a sigh, and wiggle all of their limbs in mockery of an octopus. Finally calm, Syd loiters in a bathroom mirror. Her hand-stitched clothing is unchanged from the day of her execution: a light gray blouse tucked into an ankle length, pastel yellow, pleated wool skirt and a dark-gray waistcoat with three buttons.

Weight settles onto our stairs. We leave Syd alone in the bathroom in favor of peering down at the child slowly creeping up to our second story. Their eyes stretch wide as they survey our living room. After a few minutes, they inch toward the bedroom. Syd tilts her head in the bathroom mirror, lips pursing, and leaps into the living room with a speed we have not seen since the first day she tried to break out of our walls. The child pokes their head into the bedroom, hums, and turns around only to stumble back with a shriek, slip, and land on their butt. Syd blinks at them from the full-length mirror across from the bedroom door. The child’s jaw falls slack, “Um. Hi.” Their voice grates and they wince. “You look—um . . . you look familiar.”

Syd opens her mouth, shuts it, and crosses her arms over her chest, one index finger tapping her elbow. The child swallows and slowly climbs to their feet, “I . . . my name is Mor.”

Mor. How pretty. Get out, impetuous child. We grind our teeth.

Mor runs a hand through their bedraggled hair, “I spent the night downstairs, hope you don’t mind.”

Syd grins. Shakes her head. She might not mind, but we mind. We mind a whole lot. We grind our teeth louder. Mor, oblivious to our grinding, runs a hand through their hair again, “I’m guessing you can’t talk because I haven’t heard you.” They pause. “I hope I can stay a bit longer—”

We bristle. Absolutely not. This Mor has caused enough trouble already. They burst through our doors and disrupted our existence. If they lead people to us, we will be forced to pull our feet out of our foundations and find a new plot. We are hungry. We are tired of being used like a bed and breakfast. We want a good juicy meal and a better night’s sleep. And now that Mor is talking, they haven’t shut up. We want them to shut up.

“—I’m in a bit of trouble. I’m hiding out and all that. I think I found . . . anyway . . . You see, when I said I think you look familiar I really mean that I’ve been researching Vitri’s history—magic, raiders, the whole early-trade-route kerfuffle. I was turned onto it by this old guy at the library who was telling stories about magicians to anyone who’d listen—and a lot of people who didn’t want to. He’s bonkers, off his mind, but I was practically living in the library anyway and I was interested in the whole magician-thing and decided it wouldn’t hurt to do some research, so . . . anyway, you look like one of the magicians who was executed for ‘morally-dubious experiments’ and you’re in a mirror . . . ” Mor clears their throat, “Anyway. Can I stay? Just for a few days. I’ll have my mess straightened out soon, I hope. I bet you haven’t had much company in the last, uh, eighty years?”

Syd breathes a foggy circle onto the mirror and lifts a hand to scribble, “You can stay.”

Traitor. It will not last for long. We have not decided if it will last at all.

“And no,” a wicked grin reveals Syd’s teeth. “I have not had a scratch of good company.”

Double traitor.

After giving Syd an awkward wave and hiking downstairs to snatch their backpack, Mor flops onto the couch and tugs off their hole-ridden shoes. Outside, doors open. Footsteps pound the sidewalk. Loose lunch pail handles clang as the neighboring apartments’ occupants march off to work. Mor talks and Syd fogs up the mirrors to answer. We bristle and groan and grit our teeth, but neither Syd nor Mor pay attention. The day passes with the usual humdrum and insufferable clanging caused by people pretending to matter. By the time the apartments’ occupants march back to their homes, down whatever food they have in their pantries, and crawl under their covers, we’re certain both Mor and Syd have successfully communicated their entire life stories.

We drag our eyes away from the ceiling above our front doors where we have pointlessly waited for a morsel—at least one pitiful visitor—to enter and take up posts in the back corners of our living room. Mor lies on their back on the couch and Syd hovers in the mirror fastened to our ceiling above the periwinkle cushions. We shake our floor in annoyance, but they are deep in a lively debate about the possibilities of transportation via magic blah-di-blah and neither of them seem to care. Perhaps it is time for us to rearrange our walls, but Syd is smiling. She scribbles boring words we read and immediately forget. She smiles again. We are tired, and hungry, and we will consider rearranging our walls at some future date.

20:5:1:13 -us.

Mor opens a can of peaches for breakfast. We watch them wave to Syd, shove their backpack under the couch—how dare they—walk down the stairs, open one front door, step outside, close the door, and head down the street with their hands in their pockets. Syd performs her morning stretches and moves to the bathroom to perfect her hair. After tucking the last strand into a low bun, she breaths on the glass to scribble, “I like them.”

We want to be furious. Syd has not talked to us for years. We have lost count of exactly how many.

“Let them stay.”

We despise orders. They make us think of weakness, but Syd has never been weak and perhaps there is little shame in taking orders from her. After all, we are—at the bottom of it all—a sort of unwilling prison. We can choose to be nice. Occasionally.

Syd breathes out another patch of fog, “Please.”

We cannot be furious.

23:14:12:2 -home.

Our front doors slam open. Mor skids across the floor, “Fuck!”

Five people dressed in light gray rush in, steel-toed boots rattling our floorboards. The invaders’ beady eyes are sharp, extended swords grasped in gray-gloved hands, mouths shouting. Their coat collars are stitched with The Historic Preservation Society’s Acquisition Division’s half-moon insignia, but they have the look of mercenaries.

Mor drops into a low stance in the center of the room and turns, fists raised. A smirk settles onto Mor’s lips. They open one hand. Syd’s necklace dangles in their palm, the chin wrapped around their fingers and the pearl pendant glinting, “I have it and I’m not giving it to you. If you want it, you’re going to have to try and take it, you damn bastards.”

The invaders share quick glances and a short, bushy man in front shifts his weight to his back leg. “You’re going to regret saying that.”

Mor’s hand forms a fist with Syd’s necklace in the center, “Less talking and more fighting, please.”

The invaders rush forward: one swipes a sword at Mor’s head, another swipes at their legs. Mor launches a foot into a tall man’s stomach with a yell, spins to duck beneath a sword aiming for their neck, presses themself to the attacker’s chest, and jams fingers in his eyes. Upstairs, Syd bashes against the bathroom mirror, eyes narrowed and tongue clamped between her teeth as she scribbles spells with one hand and pounds the glass with the other. Something lies in the sink. We pull our eyes closer and gasp through our chimney. Syd’s last notebook fills the center of the basin, opened where Syd left off. “When I die,” Syd’s last sentence reads. “I will die knowing, someday, my talisman will find someone worthy of carrying it. When they try to return to it me, I will know.”

Mor found it. They gave it back.

A scream echoes up the stairs. Syd’s scribbling briefly becomes words we recognize, “Help them!” before morphing back into spells. We bristle, clench our teeth, and rush downstairs. The bushy man holds Mor against his chest, one forearm crossed over their throat and the opposite hand wrapped in their hair. Two of the five invaders lie in unconscious heaps. The two still awake and grinning stand in front of Mor, swords aimed for their torso and empty hands folded against their chests. Mor wiggles and winces when the bushy man’s grip tightens. We hiss. Our stomach grumbles. We open our mouth beneath the two grinning men, putrid gray tongue rising to drag them into our mouth. We grind our teeth down, spit the swords out onto our floor—safely away from Mor—and let out a pleased groan as blood washes down our throat.

The bushy man lets out a high-pitched whine, eyes wide and mouth slack as he clenches Mor to his chest. That will bruise. We rumble and lick blood from our lips. We could eat another. We are more satisfied than we have been for years, but we still have space in our gut. It is hard to fill us completely. The man takes a short step back, dragging Mor with him. The forearm against Mor’s neck tightens. He moves his other hand from Mor’s hair and slides it down to grasp the handle of a revolver hanging from his waist.

Dastardly things. We hiss. The barrel aims for our mouth, the trigger pulls. One bullet embeds itself in our tongue. Fluid washes our mouth. We shriek. Duck our mouth beneath the floorboards. The rest of the bullets stick in our wood. We shake and shiver and curse every word we know. The bushy man pulls the trigger again and again. Empty chambers click. Our eyes water. Mor looks up and smiles—smiles. They jam an elbow into the man’s gut, stomp on his foot, hit him in the groin with their forearm, and spin around to knee him in the face when he crumples forward. He falls to our floor with a thunk. We open our mouth and swallow him down, careful not to drag Mor down with him. His blood washes our injured tongue. We pull our mouth into the ceiling. We close our eyes.

Our foundation trembles like so much sand packed into a wobbly wall. We shake like Syd’s body shook while her executioner waited for the blood spraying from her severed neck to cease. If this is dying, we do not like it. A crack echoes upstairs. We barely feel a hand brush the bathroom sink, barely hear pages turning, barely smell familiar blood, barely recognize the solid weight of feet on our bathroom floor, barely notice the sound of a pen scratching old paper. A body crumbles and seeps into our walls, shoring up our crevices like mortar. The tongue we stole all those years ago and buried in our foundation sings. Syd’s hands pluck the bullet from our tongue and fill the hole it leaves with ink-stained fingers. She melts into us, last words sticking in our ears.

“I think I have been here long enough. Goodbye. Take care of Mor. They will need it.”

We shiver. We shake. We promise. Syd’s magic mends our cracks. A parting gift.

Mor flops onto their back in the center of our downstairs, “I like you.”

We crack open an eye. Bare our teeth. Bloody saliva drips from our gums. A drop lands on Mor’s cheek and they wipe it off with their fingers. Their grin widens. “You just saved my life. You!” A laugh rumbles in their belly. “You saved my life!” They splay out their arms and go lax. “Thanks, I thought I was going to die.”

We snap our mouth shut.

39:12:2 . . . a place we belong.

After hauling the dead men’s weapons into our living room, after sweeping the shards of Syd’s bathroom mirror into a box and carrying them outside, after closing Syd’s notebook and placing it on the couch, after washing our bloody saliva from their cheek, Mor wanders our upstairs with the steps of someone whose world has changed. They tug their backpack out from beneath the couch and turn down the stairs. Leaving. We whine and hiss and force the cabinet in front of our stairs to block the way. We made a promise. Mor looks up at our ceiling, “Does this mean you want me to stay?”

We crack our eyes open, pull our mouth into the plaster, and grin. They grin back. Maybe, just maybe, we like them, too.

After Mor returns upstairs, failing to keep a grin off their face, we ripple our floorboards to encourage them to unpack their backpack and rattle our plumbing to see if it will carry water. Mor is not a ghost, but we can become livable. After emptying the backpack on the couch, Mor stands in front of the closet we shoved all our morsels’ junk into and looks up at our blinking eyes, “What do you think about becoming an antique shop?”

We think of Syd melting into us, the odds and ends we have collected, the five bodies moving through our digestive tract. It is unlikely today’s armed invaders will be the last. The Historic Preservation Society has always been tenacious in their quest to find and lock up relics from the magicians’ golden age. But we are tenacious, too. We will need to find a new street tomorrow, but we do not need to be alone. Besides, we made a promise to watch over the child. Yes, we think. Yes, yes, yes.

About the Author

Tovah Strong is a queer human from a small train town in New Mexico. She is a graduate of Alpha: the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Workshop for Young Writers and a senior in the creative writing department at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She writes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction–and she has begun to enter the world of journalism. She cherishes rainstorms and watches ravens whenever possible.

Leaving Room for the Moon

P H Lee

By the time we arrived at the court of the Emperor of All Space and Every World, our entire family was dead. We knew this; of course we knew it; sixty thousand years is so very long; we had prepared for it; but it was still horrible. When you go to sleep, you know it will happen, but until you wake up, until you read the tightband transmission logs, you have in your heart some fragment of hope. You do not even realize it is there, until you read the last words in your language, the last words by your people, the last words that will ever be written, and see the course of history continuing right past it, oblivious and destructive and awful. You do not realize the hope you held until you feel it evaporate under the unending torrent of time.

It was not just our parents, or our brothers and sisters. It was all their children and their children’s children and so on. Our entire people were gone. The two of us were the only Tehu that remained in the entirety of the cosmos. We still lit the ancestral candles and spoke the ancestral prayers out loud in a language that we barely knew, alone in our cell in long-term quarantine. Of course we did. It didn’t matter anymore, but we did it anyway. What’s the point of a ritual, unless it doesn’t matter?

When you are a child—as we were, when we arrived at the court of the Emperor—you hear the stories about the Emperor of All Space and Every World. You hear stories about his court, and its splendor, and you imagine it, palaces within palaces, each room finely appointed with the tapestries of every people and every world, every feature clad in gold and iridium carved in particular styles, the very space folded in upon itself to hold the totality of its grandeur. You imagine the court itself, with representatives from every people on every world, the Emperor flanked by his ministers of state, and each audience accompanied by eight rows of beautiful yi dancers. You imagine the majesty, the grandeur, the intrigue, the tasteful opulence.

But when, out of quarantine at last, we arrived at the court of the Emperor of All Space and Every World, we found a dusty, dry complex, mostly outfitted in stucco. It was the sort of house a merchant might buy if she had come into more money than she could wisely spend. Much of it was completely disused—a palace only for rot and spiders. And there was little to recommend what remained. The imperial yellow of the walls had faded to an unpleasant brown. The gold and iridium fixtures had worn or been stolen away long since. Even the twists and folds of the palace’s space-time were somehow shallow, mere mirrors and murals with nothing behind them but a few thin echoes.

How long did we wander in those endless and disappointing halls, before we saw the Emperor? It must have been years. But every day in them new children came as new tributes for even this decrepit ruin was still the Emperor’s palace and the man within it still the Emperor. What were we, if not for him? Only more mouths to snatch food from nooks and crannies, more senseless tributes from dead peoples, useless and meaningless and little else at that.

It must have been years. We went to sleep as children, and by the time we were called to the Emperor’s residence we were nearly at our twelfthyears. I remember, because it was the night before the haro festival, and the haro festival was a week before our call-day. Do you remember the haro festival? You would stay up with grandmother and she would set you on her lap and guide your hands in making the bimi buns. She would tell us the story about the missing moon, as you folded the buns over and over. “You have to fold them just so,” she’d tell you. “You have to leave a little triangle for the moon.”

I was always jealous of you for that, your time on grandmother’s lap, listening to her stories just for you. But you were the girl, and grandmother would only let me watch. Let her grandson make the bimi buns? She would sooner fly between the moons, she always said, so I had to content myself with watching.

(We flew between the moons, on the way to the ypnository. I looked out the window and held your hand because you were afraid of heights. It doesn’t matter.)

“Make the bimi buns,” I would tell you. How I counted the days and the years, I cannot begin to say, but I always knew the night before the haro festival. You would sit, and I would lie on the ground next to you, and watch your hands struggle through the motions, but there are no bimi buns for you to make. “You have to fold them just so,” I say to you. “You have to leave a little triangle for the moon.”

I see your hands hesitate—was it a left twist or a right fold?—you cannot remember, and it does not matter anyway. Where would we begin to find the flours for them, the ovens for them, the neighbors to bring them to while singing the limpid songs of haro night? (Most of us had no idea what the words meant, anymore, but we only sung them all the louder.) It has been 60,000 years. Even if our people survived—and they have not survived—how could it be that they would still eat the same bimi buns that our grandmother folded with you on her lap?

It was then, one of those times, my head in the ground, looking up toward you folding no more bimi buns, that a solitary yi dancer (Alone! What is an yi dancer alone, in not even a single row, no less eight? Not an yi dancer!) came to summon us to audience. She did not speak, she barely moved her gracious ball-joints, but why would an yi dancer approach us if not to summon us to imperial audience? Even now, after these however many years, we still remember that part of the stories, that part of our practice.

The imperial throne room was no better than the rest of the place. No throne, no carpet but the white filigree of mold along the ceiling, too high for the pillars to illuminate. No better room, that, just the same old stucco marked by the ghosts of gold and iridium, but there was a table. And behind that table the Emperor sat in a thick red robe and his traditional bull’s head, just a man, sitting at the table like our father waiting for his breakfast, except in front of him, like so many sugar dishes, are all the orbs of state, and corner to him is not his half-brother (who never liked us), but the Empire’s Chief Minister, more fashionably frocked by photosynthetic fronds.

“Children,” said the Emperor of All Space and Every World, and then he coughed, a long rasping cough that smelled like mildew. The yi dancer signaled our approach. “Come here and let me have a look at you.”

We weren’t children anymore, or we wouldn’t be, not soon, but we didn’t say anything, even when his breath smelled like mildew. You tried not to look at the white dogs nesting feral in the corner.

The whole wall behind the Emperor of All Space and Every World was black, and as you looked at it you realized that it is the Great Window, showing the whole of space, the whole of the Emperor’s possessions, so vast and dark that the stars were near invisible against it. You took my hand and tried to show me, but I was transfixed on the Emperor’s blunt and crooked teeth.

“And where are you from?” asked the Emperor as he inspected us.

You curtsied, still holding my hand so that I’d remember to curtsy as well.

“We are Tehu, if it pleases Your Majesty.”

“And where is Tehu?” He glanced disinterested at the Great Window for a moment.

I spoke before I thought better of it. “It is gone, sir. There is nothing left.”

The Emperor looked at me again, and his wide bull-eyes met mine. “Nothing left?”

“There is only us, sir. And we are here in Your Majesty’s court.” As I said it, my voice rose; began to crack. You heard me and you started to cry, and then me in turn. The Chief Minister glared at us to no good. If we could have stopped crying, we would have.

“Oh children,” said the Emperor, “there is no need to cry. In our palace there are truly all things. Nothing has been lost to you that cannot be returned.”

We stared, terrified, transfixed.

One of the orbs of state rolled off the table and cuh-clanked to the floor. A white dog came growling from the corner to investigate it.

“We have in this palace all things and every thing, and in amongst those things we have in our employ—” he turned to the Chief Minister, who made a sour face—“do we? Yes, yes, we do—a certain demiurgist. Whatever it is that you miss, whatever world you have left behind, she can surely create for you in every detail. No need for tears, then, my girls.” (We did not correct him.) “No need for tears! Chief Minister, you will show them the way, of course?”

(Much later, I realized that he had been trying to be kind. It does not matter.)

The Empire’s Chief Minister soured their face again, but stood up and walked us to the folds of the wall we’d entered by. Just outside, they turned to face us, glaring down from amidst their undulating fronds.

“Just so we’re clear, you little bits of tribute, I’m not taking you anywhere. I am an important being; I have important matters before me; I have no time to run around on the Emperor’s—” they said the word exactly like a curse—“whims and follies. Get out of here! Get out of mine eyes! I do not care if you go to the demiurgist or to the devil, so long as I nor the Emperor ever lays sight on you again!”

(They did not actually say “to the devil.” They say “out to Maranis.” But we understood their meaning.)

Things were different after that. Oh, we still had to scavenge for scraps of food and cloth, and we still lit our candles and mumbled our way through the prayers in that ancient language we had barely learned. I still counted the days as well as I managed to count them. But we knew that our state was only a temporary embarrassment. “The demiurgist,” we said to each other whenever we could not remember, whenever we made a mistake, or dropped a day, “the demiurgist.” Because we held in our hearts the Emperor’s promise, and we knew that when we found the demiurgist we would be once more made whole.

It took us months of careful searching—was it even years? I do not know, in truth I lost count—but at last, at the very end of the palace, we found a dusty old corner room at the edge of a rotten library, and in the room a woman in the particular head of an owl. An owl! She could only be the demiurgist. I rush toward the open doorway, but you hold me back. You point toward her: look! As she delicately draws her night-pen across the thinness of a palimpsest. Look! As a tender kite-jay flies from her page, chirping excitedly. Look! With another stroke and two, she draws forth for it a dully-feathered mate.

“Excuse me?” You step forward. She looks up sudden and at once, her great owl eyes scanning back, forth, then straight toward our hearts. “Are you the Emperor’s demiurgist?”

“I am a demiurgist,” she replies, “in the Emperor’s employ.”

“He told us . . . ” you begin. “That is to say. He said that if . . . ” but you have begun to cry again.

I step forward. “Can you make us home, Ms? Can you make it just as it was before?”

The demiurgist cocks her head and smiles. “Oh children,” she says, “within only the bounds of space and time I can make all and every thing.”

“Then can you make us bimi buns?” I ask. “Because tomorrow will be haro night.” (Actually, I do not know if it will be haro night. Somewhere in these many months I have lost my count of days. But. But. But.)

“Of course I can make your bimi buns,” says the demiurgist. “There is nothing that I cannot make and make exactly. But you must show me.” She gestures to her drafting table.

“Show her?” I ask you, because grandmother never taught me. You climb up into her lap and you sit with her, just like she was our grandmother, but now you show her the folds and twists as she traces them, first in ink, then with her night-pen, and in the end there is a bimi bun, and then another, fresh and hot and steaming as if from our own oven.

You look at the bimi bun, and squint. “It’s not right,” you say. “It doesn’t go like that.”

“What do you mean it’s not right, child?” says the demiurgist, her voice concerned and condescending. “That is the very picture of a bimi bun.”

You pout and squirm your way out of her lap. “It’s not right,” you say. “The twists are wrong. They should be in triangles, not crosses.”

You’re right. I remember what our grandmother always said, to leave a little triangle for the moon. But I don’t say anything. This is the craft of the demiurgist! How could it be wrong?

The demiurgist frowns, blinks her great yellow eyes at the buns, then frowns again. “That’s not so, child.”

“It is!” you say. “You have to leave a little triangle for the moon!”

She stalks out into the library proper, returning with a worm-eaten old device bound in dry crystal and marked with an Imperial seal. She sets the device down on her table and turns it to a specific page. “Here,” she says, and hands it to you. “It is the imperial rescript of all the days of Tehu.” The device shows, clear as can be, a bimi bun, with the folds in tight crosses, with no space between them.

“That’s not right!” you shout, in tears. “It’s not! It’s not how my grandmother taught me! I remember! She always said to fold it just so!”

I hold you and rub your back and sing a quiet song that I do not remember the words for. I try not to think. I know that if I think, I will begin to cry.

“Ahah,” says the demiurgist. “That must be the issue. My craft can make you a bimi bun, child, just as it was. But I cannot make the bimi bun that you remember, because you have remembered it so many times that you no longer remember it at all. You remember only the times you have remembered it, a material as insubstantial as it is fickle. Against the irregularity of memory, any art can only strive in vain.”

You cry more. I look up at the demiurgist. “What do you know about it anyway?” I yell, angry. “You never knew our grandmother! You never sang away a moonless haro night!”

The demiurgist kneels down on her inverse legs until her owl’s eyes, each the size of my head, are level with mine. “It is written in the rescript, child. Just as it always was.”

“I don’t know anything about any rescript!” I shout. “But I remember! I do!”

“I can draw you your home, child,” continues the demiurgist, her voice as kind as she can make it. “Or at least I can draw you all the things within it. But I cannot fulfill your sorrow. Nothing can do that.”

“What can I do?” I scream. I run and you run after me.

Later, in a disused bedroom, we will lie together in the must of some old cushions, the last two Tehu, and yet not even that. For what half-remembered songs in a half-remembered language can make a Tehu? What does it matter to our twelfthyears, or was it even them by which we counted?

What are we, then? Are we only our memories in a palace that has long ago forgotten even itself?

We will weep, together, through the night. We will not ask each other questions that we will not answer.

About the Author

P H Lee lives with the rose bushes behind an old walnut tree down a dead-end road out past the highway. Their other writing has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Visions Magazine, Worlds Without Master, and Four Ways to Die in the Future. Their hobbies include cooking and translating Classical Chinese texts.

Science Fiction and Schmaltz:
A Conversation with Connie Willis

Arley Sorg

If you Google “author with most Hugo awards” the answer Google pushes on you is that Robert A. Heinlein won four Hugo awards in his lifetime for Best Novel. Not counting retroactive awards, his last win was in 1967. If you squint you will see another result: Lois McMaster Bujold, four wins for Best Novel with overall sixteen Hugo nominations and seven wins. You have to pay attention to find Connie Willis, despite the fact that the correct answer to the question is actually “Connie Willis”: eleven Hugo Award wins and twenty-four fiction nominations.

Connie Willis was born in Denver, CO. She earned a BA in English and elementary education from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, in 1967, and taught elementary and junior high school from 1967—1981. Her first SF story was published by Worlds of Fantasy in 1971, “The Secret of Santa Titicaca.” She landed her first Hugo nomination for “Daisy, in the Sun,” published in 1979 in Galileo. In 1982 she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, which made writing full-time possible.

That year, she published her first award winners: Hugo- and Nebula-winning novelette “Fire Watch” in Isaac Asimov’s Wonders of the World and Nebula-winning story “A Letter from the Clearys” in the July 1982 Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. First solo novel Lincoln’s Dreams, published by Bantam Spectra in 1987, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and her second solo novel, Doomsday Book, published by Bantam Spectra in 1992, won Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards.

In fact, Connie Willis also has the most Nebula wins (seven wins and eight nominations) and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009. She has won or been nominated for pretty much every major SF award, a slew of minor awards, foreign awards, and even a number of awards you’ve never heard of, not to mention (take note, Google) a 2011 Robert A. Heinlein Award for “outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space.”

In 2011 she took home a Nebula for “novel in two parts” Blackout/All Clear (published by Bantam Spectra), and the next year the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America named Connie Willis the recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award for her lifetime contributions and achievements in the field. She kept going with a Locus Award win in 2014 for collection The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories, Asimov’s Readers’ Poll wins for short story “All About Emily” in 2012 and for novella “I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land” in 2018, plus a handful of other nods and nominations.

Connie Willis has lived in Colorado most of her life. She lives (and continues to write notable work) in Greeley, CO with her husband Courtney. In November 2020 novella Take A Look at the Five and Ten was published by Subterranean Press and appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.

You made your first SF sale to Worlds of Fantasy with “The Secret of Santa Titicaca” in 1971, and earned your first Hugo nomination for “Daisy, in the Sun” in 1979. When did you start to really feel established in the industry, what did it take, and what was the road like getting there?

Like so many authors, I was one of those “overnight successes” that really wasn’t. I started writing stories and sending them out to publishers as soon as I graduated from college and got married (1967). I sold a short story (not SF) and an article on teaching in 1968, and then “Santa Titicaca” in 1971 to a magazine that promptly went belly-up, but basically I worked in isolation for nine long years ’til I finally found the Southern Colorado Writers’ Workshop in 1976. The worst moment in all that time was one day when I walked to the post office to pick up the mail. (We lived in a small mountain town without house-to-house mail delivery.) I had a pink slip in our mailbox, and I thought it was a present from my grandmother. Nope. It was every manuscript I had out, coming back with a rejection slip. Until then when I’d gotten a manuscript back, I could always say, “Oh, well. But I bet the story I’ve got out to Asimov’s (or F&SF or Omni) will sell,” but this time it was virtually everything, and I took it as a definite sign that God was telling me, “Time to pack it in.” Luckily, I still had a bunch of prestamped manila envelopes at home, so I sent everything out one more time, something sold, and I kept going.

As to when I felt fully established, the answer is never. When you’re as neurotic as I am, you’re always worried. As Robert Silverberg (another neurotic) said when we were discussing this, “There’s always something to worry about. With luck, you can go straight from, ‘Why can’t I sell anything?’ to all washed-up without anything in between.”

Your first novel out was Water Witch in 1982, a collaboration with Cynthia Felice; your first solo novel was Lincoln’s Dreams in 1987. Did writing novels change anything about the way you wrote or approached short fiction?

I remember people saying to me, “You should try novels. They’re so much easier. They’ve got so much more space.” Nope. If you do it right, you don’t have any space in novels either. Novels are definitely different—you’ve got to have lots more supporting characters and subplots and complications and reversals and twists and turns—but if they’re done right, they’re just as taut and carefully written as short stories. I love writing both for different reasons.

Are there books or stories that were particularly difficult to write for one reason or another, and how did you overcome the challenges you faced?

They’re all difficult. As Erma Bombeck said about housework, “If you do it right, will kill you.” Early on, I thought, someday soon I’ll figure this out and then writing will be a breeze, but that’s never happened. Every story and novel has a whole different set of things you need to learn how to do. It’s like you’re starting from scratch every time.

That’s not quite true. As you continue to write, you learn how to do a bunch of things—dialogue, flashbacks, transitions, description—which you can use on the new story, but writing is still a pain. As somebody or other said, “Writing is easy. You just sit down in front of a blank page and stare at it until drops of blood appear on your forehead.” When I’m on panels with writers who say, “Oh, I just love writing. I just sit down and it flows out like magic,” I always want to slap them.

I only remember one story that came easily, and that was only after I’d struggled for weeks and weeks to come up with an idea. I was supposed to be writing a story about quantum theory for a collection, and nothing, NOTHING, was working. I finally walked down to the library (a mile or so) to try to get an idea, spent a totally unproductive couple of hours there, and then, on the walk home, had a revelation. Once I had the idea, I was able to write the story very easily, based on my recent experiences at the Nebula Awards in Hollywood at a hotel opposite Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and just down the street from the Frederick’s of Hollywood Bra Museum. The story was “At the Rialto.”

That’s the only time that’s ever happened, and you can’t count on revelations or dreams or the cavalry riding in at the last minute. You just have to keep slogging away. Which, with the exception of that one story, is what I do.

You’ve been an award-winning icon in the industry and you have a ton of work out. Did you ever hit a career or a writing slump, where you struggled to sell or produce work? And how did you deal with it?

Despite appearances, I am an incredibly slow writer. I’ve just produced a lot of stuff because I’m really old. I’ve always been able to keep working, I think because of the way I work, which is in pieces. If I get stuck on one story, I work on another. If I get stuck on one part of a novel, I write some other scene or the ending or something and then come back to the place I was stuck in a couple of weeks. Or I work on something else altogether.

My main problems have been A) deadlines, which I hate and obsess over, and when you’re muttering, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” over and over in your head, it’s not really helpful. People tell me to just ignore the deadlines, but I can’t. I keep switching back to high school mode when I absolutely had to get papers in on time and, yes, I obsessed back then, too, and B) all the things that interfere with my writing, like having to feed the cat and call the vet because the dog threw up and deal with e-mails and phone calls and the dishes and the ironing and packing to go to conventions and writing speeches and . . . If only real life wouldn’t intervene, I could get SO much writing done.

On the other hand, if I didn’t have all those things to deal with, I wouldn’t have anything to write about, so . . .

One of the many things people love about your work is the dialogue. What are the keys to writing effective dialogue?

I was basically born talking, so dialogue has always come easily to me. (Note: it’s the only thing that has. Everything else—plotting, characterization, description, foreshadowing—I had to learn.)

Take a Look at the Five and Ten is a holiday tale. I feel like you are drawn to holiday tales, you even have a collection of them. What do you like most about writing them?

I love Christmas, which is reason enough, I guess, but I also think that good Christmas stories are hard to write—getting just that right mix of cheerful and ironic so the story’s not too schmaltzy, but you also don’t want to kill yourself after reading it.

I was just asked to help edit and to write the introduction for the Library of America’s collection of American short stories. It was fun, but really challenging—there are SO many stories to choose from, and we were trying to get just the right mix of funny and serious, mainstream and genre, old favorites and things people have never read before, and stories from lots of different backgrounds and cultures, just like the American Christmas itself. I just finished the introduction, and I’m really looking forward to the book’s coming out.

Take a Look at the Five and Ten is told from Ori’s point of view, a young woman caught up in various kinds of family friction. She’s the target of Sloane’s ire, who jealously guards her latest “boyfriend of the month” and Ori gets ensnared in said boyfriend’s scientific investigations. Or . . . so it seems! What do you like most about Ori? Do you see a lot of yourself in her?

Ori’s obviously a Cinderella character, and as Kurt Vonnegut said, everybody loves that story. It appeals to the downtrodden in all of us. I’m certainly not downtrodden anymore, though I still seem to run into people who make mean-girl remarks, like the kind Sloane and her awful mother are so good at and which invariably wound, as they are intended to. What IS it with mean girls? They must spend hours and hours thinking up the absolute cruelest thing they could possibly say. Where do they find the time? And WHY do they feel the need to say those things? I would love to write a story about the whole mean girl thing, only, even though I have been known on occasion to have a sharp tongue, I could never think of the hurtful comments they come up with.

What is special or important to you about Take a Look at the Five and Ten?

I worked at the downtown Denver Woolworth’s one Christmas when I was in college and absolutely loved it. As a result, I’ve been talking about it ever since, driving my family and friends crazy (it’s a really boring story) so I decided to see if I could get it out of my system by writing a story about it. With maybe a few embellishments . . .

What is your writing routine like, and has it changed with the pandemic?

I used to work at Starbucks every day, and the pandemic practically killed me, but I compromised by setting up a work table in the living room and getting my chai at the drive-through. A couple of weeks ago my Starbucks shut down due to COVID and I had to drive halfway across town to get my chai. Addiction is a terrible thing.

I try to write mornings and then do everything else in the afternoons. And I usually split my writing time into blocks: half an hour on research for the time-travel novel, then an hour on the novel and an hour on something else. If things start going well, then I just keep going, but if not, then the switching out helps me to be productive.

What else are you working on, or what else do you have coming up that readers can look forward to?

I just finished my alien abduction novel, The Road to Roswell, and it’s been handed over to my agent. It’s about a well-meaning maid of honor, whose crazy friend is getting married at the UFO Museum in Roswell during the UFO Festival, who gets snatched by an alien and forced to drive all over the Southwest while he?she?it? (it looks like a tumbleweed, but with the bullwhip talents of Indiana Jones) abducts other people and tries to communicate what it’s doing there and where it needs her to take him—Area 51? Monument Valley? A Las Vegas wedding chapel?

I’ve also started work on a new Oxford-historian time-travel novel called The Spanner in the Works, in which a young woman from 1980 accidentally gets transported to the future Oxford (something that’s supposed to be impossible according to time-travel theory.) The time-travel techs are freaked out and try to send her back before she causes any paradoxes, but the drop won’t cooperate and sends her everywhere but back home. Although my time-traveling historians are based in Oxford, I’ve never actually written about the city, which is the home of most of my favorite authors—the Inklings, Dorothy L. Sayers, Lewis Carroll, and Percy Bysshe Shelley (who’s stuck in a basement somewhere and probably deserves to be)—so I decided to write a novel where I could explore Oxford—and Tintern Abbey—in assorted time periods, and Hollywood in the 1930s.

Oh, and I’m working on a story involving paper dolls and another one about Orpheus.

About the Author

Arley Sorg is co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine. A 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, he writes SF/F/H, reviews for Cascadia Subduction Zone Magazine, is senior editor at Locus magazine, and associate editor at Lightspeed and Nightmare magazines.

The Ten-Year Journey:
A Conversation with E. Lily Yu

Arley Sorg

At age fifteen, E. Lily Yu won The Writer’s 69-Word Story contest. Her story was posted online and she won $50. Her parents told her that writing wasn’t a good way to make a living; she was later rejected from her university’s creative writing program. Regardless, Yu published poem “Patience” in Electric Velocipede and short story “The Transfiguration of Maria Luisa Ortega” in Kenyon Review Online, both in 2010. In 2011 Clarkesworld published her short story “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” which was a finalist for the Dell Award.

The genre community also took notice: the story earned her nominations for a Million Writers Award, a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, a World Fantasy Award, and a Locus Award. In 2012 Yu won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

Born in Oregon and raised in New Jersey, E. Lily Yu attended several schools in the West Windsor-Plainsboro district, the now-defunct Governor’s School of the Arts in 2007, and the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts’ YoungArts Week in 2008. She attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference as a Tennessee Williams Scholar in the summer of 2012 and graduated from Princeton University the same year. She deferred graduate school for a year to write, work, and consider her options, going to Clarion West in 2013, and then earned her MA from Cornell. In 2017 she received the Artist Trust/LaSalle Storyteller Award.

Roughly thirty stories later, appearing at a range of venues, such as Cicada, McSweeney’s, Tor.com, Boston Review, Hazlitt, Terraform, and F&SF, plus multiple appearances in Year’s Bests, Yu has developed a reputation for boundary-breaking fiction, wonderful prose, and thorough research. Creatively, she isn’t interested in limitations: she writes poems, plays, novels, essays, stories, songs. She has worked on video games such as Destiny and Destiny 2. Her 2015 Uncanny Magazine story, “Woman at Exhibition,” was part of the Discenza-Straub exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco; more recently, she taught an Interactive Fiction seminar for Clarion West.

Her debut novel, steeped in research from books, Persian language study, detention center visits, travel, and more, is called On Fragile Waves, and it’s due from Erewhon Books February 2, 2021.

What were some of the most important books for you when you were younger?

Ten years ago, my touchstones were A. S. Byatt’s Possession, John Crowley’s Little, Big, Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!

If you mean much younger, to the best of my recollection, third and fourth grade were marked by Redwall, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Boxcar Children, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lang’s Fairy Books, Watership Down, Roald Dahl, Dick King-Smith, Kenneth Oppel, Laurence Yep, David Clement-Davies, Jack London, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tamora Pierce, Tanith Lee, Diana Wynne Jones; sixth grade was Lilian Jackson Braun, Jane Yolen, Patricia C. Wrede, Piers Anthony, Garth Nix, Diane Duane; by seventh grade I’d read all the Discworld and Douglas Adams books, and started on Guy Gavriel Kay; by eighth grade Charles de Lint, Laurie R. King, Mercedes Lackey, Patricia McKillip, and Pamela Dean. I also hauled home the Windling and Datlow best-of-the-year anthologies throughout middle school, though I quickly learned to skip stories that only had Ellen’s initials on them.

How did reading become writing, and when did you start taking writing seriously?

Blow on dandelion clocks, you get dandelions.

I always knew.

Are there aspects of storytelling/writing that you feel are more challenging for you, things you struggle with? And how do you deal with those elements?

The courage required.

I wish I knew.

You had several notable short fiction sales before attending Clarion West in 2013. Then there’s this burst of stories appearing in 2013. Did Clarion West have a significant impact on your career or your craft?

It usually takes between six months and two years for a story of mine to be published, so I’d written all but one of the stories that were published in 2013 before attending Clarion West. That said, I benefited greatly from the instruction I received there, and you’ll recognize several of my teachers’ and classmates’ names in the acknowledgments of On Fragile Waves. Clarion West has also provided community and support for as long as I’ve lived in the Seattle area, both before and after my time at the workshop.

What is your short fiction writing process—is it spontaneous, or carefully planned and executed with lots of editing? And has this process changed much since back when you were starting out?

It depends on the story. Solicited stories tend to be planned. Other stories fall at unpredictable intervals, like apples or meteors, to be picked up and cleaned and baked and pied—or forged into swords—when I have the time.

I have less and less time these days. Though no less love.

On Fragile Waves opens with poetry, using space, sound, and silence to immerse the reader in war as well as to relate the moments of childbirth. But you are far more prolific as a published short fiction writer than a poetry writer. What is your relationship to poetry? Is it more personal, harder to write, or are there other reasons you focus more on short fiction?

I still write poems, but I don’t try to publish them. Poetry is difficult to place and doesn’t pay well outside the biggest magazines. Sending out and tracking poetry submissions isn’t a good use of my limited time, unlike sending out fiction, or, better still, reading other people’s fiction and poetry. I read Siken’s Crush while working on line edits for this book, and your question reminds me to get Beloit Poetry Journal again. They do beautiful work.

Power and helplessness are explored in On Fragile Waves. In your Lightspeed Spotlight for “The Valley of the Wounded Deer,” when asked how that story started, you said, “First came, as it does to all, the experience of cruelty from those with power.” What draws you to exploring power in your fiction?

The mesh-like, self-perpetuating networks of power that infiltrate our lives, whether formal or cultural, are both the strongest determinants of our behavior and the most invisible, least understood part of our lives. The American system of racism is one such network; corporate hierarchies are another; the global private prison industry is a third.

The more we can see the strands in these networks, how they interact, and how they influence what we think, do, and say, the more we can think, act, and speak freely and wisely, if we choose. A clear understanding of power not only frees the individual but also protects communities. There are plenty of unethical people who do see and pull these strings for their own benefit. They rely on others’ refusal to see power to get away with unsavory and destructive behavior. For the most part, unfortunately, that works.

If you are unfamiliar with what I’m describing, ask yourself, in a specific situation: to whom do I give the benefit of the doubt? And why? What evidence, particularly patterns of past behavior, supports or does not support that choice?

In your 2020 Debuts interview you said that On Fragile Waves took seven and a half years to write, and that when you started you weren’t able to write it. What were the most challenging aspects of it, the things you had to learn or do in order to write this book?

When the shape of the book showed itself to me, I was twenty. I knew that I was not yet the person who could write it, but that I could become that person, if I was willing to pay the cost. I also knew I could walk away. No one forces you to wear out seven pairs of iron shoes. You put them on because there is something greater and more valuable than your comfort and safety, than the years of your life that are poured out, at the end.

I did not know the journey would take ten years. I did not know how thoroughly the book would break me. I threw out three drafts—one of them twice the length of the published version—and rewrote the entire book four times, twice in longhand. And when I finally became the writer and artist and human being that the book needed, when I was satisfied with my work and the book was complete, every single major and minor publishing house rejected it.

I had to make peace with the fact that the best thing I’d ever written most likely would never see the light of day. That was difficult. I made my peace with it. After a year and a half on submission, I thanked my agent for his tremendous efforts and unwavering kindness and told him I thought it was time to give up.

He refused.

The morning that “The Valley of Wounded Deer” was published, I got out of bed in Ottawa, in the home of a kind and talented writer who has walked a similar road, to find an email from my agent. He had some news.

It was another month before I believed him.

Looking over some of your prior interviews, I get the sense of you as a person who dives deep into research and likes to get hands-on and experiential, if possible. What were some of the things you found (or did) that didn’t make it into this book?

I started researching this book in 2010 and finished the last major draft in 2018. I’m afraid I have forgotten almost as much as I’ve learned, especially the Persian. I also had five interstate moves in that period, so my notes are in disarray, and I’m not sure I’ve retained all my notebooks. But being chased by a pair of snarling, red-eyed dogs down the muddy side of a hill fort in Kabul was certainly an unforgettable experience.

Do you have any advice for new writers?

Trust the still small voice at your center. It will advise you better than anyone else.

Is another book on the way? What’s next, what’s coming up for you, or what are you working on that you can tell readers about?

At the moment, I’m collaborating on a short opera with Steven Tran for the Seattle Opera, as part of their Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab. This too has been a longtime dream.

About the Author

Arley Sorg is co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine. A 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, he writes SF/F/H, reviews for Cascadia Subduction Zone Magazine, is senior editor at Locus magazine, and associate editor at Lightspeed and Nightmare magazines.

Editor’s Desk: 2020 in Review

Neil Clarke

With the start of a new year comes the inevitable looking back at the previous one. Strictly by the numbers, here’s a quick snapshot of Clarkesworld’s 2020 output.

12 issues

69 authors

36 authors had never been published in Clarkesworld before

8 (possibly 10) had never been published before, 2 others were first professional sales

76 stories (classified by Hugo Award categories below)

44 short stories

30 novelettes

2 novellas

552,820 words total

0 solicited works (all works were published from open submissions, not by invitation)

24 interviews

12 articles

76 podcasts

12 works of art for our cover

In preparation for our annual reader’s poll and awards season, here’s a detailed list of the stories we published:

Short Stories

“The Last to Die” by Rita Chang-Eppig

“The Ancestral Temple in a Box” by Chen Qiufan

“The AI That Looked at the Sun” by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko

“Outer” by Hollis Joel Henry

“Eyes of the Crocodile” by Malena Salazar Maciá

“Mandorla” by Cooper Shrivastava

“Time Reveals the Heart” by Derek Künsken

“Coffee Boom: Decoctions, Micronized” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

“The Whale Fall at the End of the Universe” by Cameron Van Sant

“Distant Stars” by P H Lee

“A System for Investigating Recapitulation and Evolutionary Novelty” by Kyle E Miller

“AirBody” by Sameem Siddiqui

“The ThoughtBox” by Tlotlo Tsamaase

“The Translator, at Low Tide” by Vajra Chandrasekera

“Albedo Season” by Ray Nayler

“What Happens in Solarium Square 21” by Ashleigh Shears

“Optimizing the Path to Enlightenment” by Priya Chand

“Own Goal” by Dennard Dayle

“The Oddish Gesture of Humans” by Gabriel Calácia

“The House That Leapt into Forever” by Beth Goder

“One Time, a Reluctant Traveler” by A. T. Greenblatt

“Three Stories Conjured from Nothing” by ShakeSpace

“Artificial People” by Michael Swanwick

“The Lori” by Fiona Moore

“Drawing Lines Between the Stars” by Frank Smith

“The Plague” by Yan Leisheng

“What Remains of Maya Sankovy” by G. D. Angier

“Every Plumage, Every Beak” by Nin Harris

“The Book Reader” by Keishi Kajifune

“Blue And Blue And Blue And Pink” by Lavie Tidhar

“Callme and Mink” by Brenda Cooper

“Ashes Under Uricon” by Adrastos Omissi

“To Set at Twilight In a Land of Reeds” by Natalia Theodoridou

“All Living Creation” by Xiu Xinyu

“Death Is for Those Who Die” by Jana Bianchi

“The Land of Eternal Jackfruits” by Rupsa Dey

“The Murders of Jason Hartman” by Brady Nelson and Jamie Wahls

“The Love Life of John Doe” by K Raghasudhan

“No Way Back” by Chi Hui

“Forward Momentum and a Parallel Toss” by AnaMaria Curtis

“Songs of Activation” by Andy Dudak

“The Island of Misfit Toys” by Fiona Moore

“Things That Happen When You Date Your Ex’s Accidentally Restored Backup from Before the Divorce” by Lisa Nohealani Morton

“The Last Days of Old Night” by Michael Swanwick

Novelettes

“Helicopter Story” by Isabel Fall (This is the replacement title for the story published in our January 2020 issue and later withdrawn.)

“The Perfect Sail” by I-Hyeong Yun

“Monster” by Naomi Kritzer

“The Host” by Neal Asher

“Jigsaw Children” by Grace Chan

“Generation Gap” by Thoraiya Dyer

“The Amusement Dark” by Mike Buckley

“Leave-Taking” by M. L. Clark

“Grayer Than Lead, Heavier Than Snow” by Yukimi Ogawa

“Debtless” by Chen Qiufan

“Angel Pattern” by Henry Szabranski

“Quantum Fish” by Bo Balder

“The Language Sheath” by Regina Kanyu Wang

“A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential” by JY Neon Yang

“The Iridescent Lake” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

“How Long the Shadows Cast” by Kenji Yanagawa

“Strange Comfort” by Tegan Moore

“The Immolation of Kev Magee” by L.X. Beckett

“An Important Failure” by Rebecca Campbell

“Nameless He” by Robert Reed

“Certainty” by Isabel Lee

“Lone Puppeteer of a Sleeping City” by Arula Ratnakar

“Ask the Fireflies” by R. P. Sand

“You and Whose Army?” by Greg Egan

“Wandering Rocks” by Gregory Feeley

“Last Wishes” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

“Niuniu” by Baoshu

“Lost in Darkness and Distance” by Clara Madrigano

“To Sail the Black” by A.C. Wise

“Conversations in the Dark” by Robert Reed

Novellas

“Nine Words for Loneliness in the Language of the Uma’u” by M. L. Clark

“Power to Yield” by Bogi Takács

Art

Zarrio by Eduardo García

cattleDrive by Colie Wertz

Pitstop by Thomas Chamberlain-Keen

Home Planet by Beeple

From the Moon to Mars by Thomas Chamberlain-Keen

Plains of Forgotten Hopes by Viko Menezes

Family Portrait by Yigit Koroglu

Monk’s Mirror by Joseph Diaz

51 by Rodion Shaldo

Ancient Stones by Francesca Resta

Alien Scout by Arjun Amky

I Hear Them by Claudio Pilia

For the purpose of the Hugo Awards, Clarkesworld is classified as a professional magazine. This has been the case for several years now, but there are still a few people who continue to nominate us for Best Semiprozine. While we appreciate the sentiment, we are NOT eligible for that award. Instead, if you want to recognize our work, please nominate our stories in the appropriate categories and/or nominate me (Neil Clarke) for Editor Short Form. (My other 2020 editing work includes The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 5 anthology and twelve issues of Forever Magazine.)

Our annual reader’s poll—where readers pick their favorite Clarkesworld story and cover art from 2020—is once again employing a two-phase process:

Phase One: Nominations (mid-January)

Later this month, we’ll open for a forty-eight hour flash nomination period to identify the top five candidates in each category: story and art. The announcement for this phase will be sent out via:

Twitter (twitter.com/clarkesworld)

Facebook (www.facebook.com/clarkesworld)

Patreon (www.patreon.com/clarkesworld)

My blog (neil-clarke.com)

The purpose of the brevity of this phase is to create a sense of urgency and reduce the opportunities for a coordinated ballot-stuffing campaign. Previous efforts have proved this to be effective at meeting these goals.

Phase 2: Final Voting (February)

The five finalists in each category will be announced in my February editorial. Final voting will open on the 1st and continue through the 15th. The winners will be announced in our March issue.

Happy New Year! May things only get better from here!

About the Author

Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and Forever Magazine; owner of Wyrm Publishing; and a eight-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form). His anthologies include Upgraded, Galactic Empires, More Human Than Human, Touchable Unreality, The Final Frontier, Not One of Us, The Eagle has Landed, and the Best Science Fiction of the Years series. His most recent anthology, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 5, was published in October by Night Shade Books. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two sons.

Cover Art: Suspire

Yuumei

About the Artist

Wenqing Yan, aka Yuumei, is a Chinese born artist living in California. She uses inspirations from nature, her dreams, and personal experiences to create her art. They range from the magical dreamscapes to real world cityscapes, reflecting dynamic emotions from the whimsical to introspective.