Starchild- Exile, page 14
“No. You control your own actions within your given circumstances, and it controls everything else. But you’re part of it, like I said. So you’re controlling yourself and it is you. There’s a mantra that goes: I am the Song.”
As Liink said it, the scene around distracted him.
The buildings of the Citadel had grown larger. The light along the streets washed out most of the starlight, but the star traffic remained visible overhead. One star glowed bright, probably the system’s surge gate. It felt strange to see such a different sky.
People carrying wares to and from the marketplace moved about on foot, or riding beasts, or driving groundrunners. This made Liink uncomfortable because each of them moved behind him either coming or going, and instinct told him he could become prey at any moment. He tried to keep an eye on them all, as nonchalantly as possible.
The pilot eyed Liink with a skeptical look.
Liink felt embarrassed for letting his mind wander. “Sorry. I sense you are still unconverted.” Why had he believed he could convince a human?
The pilot nodded toward the buildings. “Nope. And we’re almost there.”
“A simple way to put it is that when you do something good, you feel good in your heart. That’s the voice of the silentsong, at least on a basic level.”
The pilot turned his head to the side and nodded: “Okay, that’s something I’ve felt. Once.”
Liink laughed. “My father would be glad to hear you say that.” It seemed the smallest of victories. He felt relieved the conversation had concluded. He certainly hadn’t done anything honorable, but at least he hadn’t done anything shameful either. He looked upward, mouth agape. The archway of the Citadel’s gates curved high overhead.
“I do have one question,” said the pilot. “I heard you zhani believed in things like no sex and Lethos and stuff.”
This was not a criticism Liink expected. “Don’t you believe in Lethos?”
“I did when I was a kid.”
“He’s real.”
“And does he really eat people?”
“More or less.”
“So your religion teaches that there’s a real-life nightmare cannibal who eats people while they’re sleeping?”
“No. Our religion doesn’t teach about him. He just happens to exist. And he’s more like a spiritual cannibal. He consumes his victims through genosis, eighth spectrum. It’s a zhani ability that he uses in a twisted way.”
“But what makes you think he’s real?”
“My father’s father has seen him.”
The pilot glanced back with an unconvinced look on his face. Without replying, he turned and sized up the shop on their right. “Time’s up.”
Abii and the Prophetess came to a stop, she keeping her distance. Abii bent over and picked up a piece of garbage and carried it to a bin.
The pilot laughed.
“What?” Abii looked indignant.
“Sorry.” The pilot’s mirth nearly vanished—though not quite.
Abii seemed calm, but he didn’t let it go. “You think it’s funny?”
“Surprising.”
“Why’s that surprising?”
“I’ve traveled the whole Photoss Galaxy, and I’ve noticed two kinds of people: the ones who drop trash and the ones who pick it up. The second kind is pretty rare. You caught me off guard is all.”
With the calm of street lights reflecting in his eyes, Abii said, “And which kind are you?”
“I try not to get involved.”
“It strikes me that your middle category is unfortunately more common than the two extremes.”
“Why’s that unfortunate?” the pilot said defensively.
“Indifference is the enemy of initiative.”
The pilot inhaled, about to unleash, but then he just let it go—just didn’t say whatever retort was burning on his insides. He swallowed it and smiled, looking calmly at Abii as the reply vaporized into oblivion.
Now that was honorable.
Liink really liked the pilot. He wondered whether they’d continue their conversation on the way back. Maybe they’d just resume their silent interactions.
“I’m going to try this place.” The pilot pointed to a sign that said Beck Yard. “Stay close. Contract still applies, and I’d prefer not to cut anyone else loose.” He gave Abii an even-you kind of look, then walked inside.
Without the pilot around, Liink’s shame mounted up for an attack. He felt unworthy to be around the Prophetess and Abii. Hopefully the pilot would get the fuel batteries quickly.
The miin looked warily at all the strangers around. Then he looked for a quiet, dark niche to lay low where no one would notice him. It was only in obscurity that honor didn’t matter. And in researching the Photoss.
Liink’s fur matched the charcoal ground, making him almost invisible, except for his yellow eyes. The solitude felt good, and he let out a depressed chuffle, something like a groan that came out as a rolling wave. He sized up the passers by, wishing he could use starsight without drawing attention. At least he’d been born with that gift.
Neon pinks and blues cast shadows on the pedestrians. Humans, as always, were most common, but here they didn’t make up a majority. Liink had seen many of these other strange species in books, but some were completely foreign to him—horns growing from heads or tusks from mouths, too many eyes, and odd sizes and shapes of bodies. It both intrigued him and unsettled him.
A mixed group passed in front of him laughing irreverently. One pointed at him and loudly whispered a slur about an endophallus. Even strangers judged Liink unworthy of honor. He bowed his head and retreated further, not wanting any trouble.
In this dark, crowded setting, he felt immeasurably alone.
He reflected on how he’d gotten here: His first interstellar flight happened on an illegal craft. Gaiing and Roark would love the story, but the council would not be impressed. Then Liink had toured the most dangerous prison in the galaxy in disguise, and he’d even taken a blow to help rescue the Prophetess. His friends would love that one too, but his father would hardly notice. Now Liink rested in an alleyway in a foreign marketplace on an unfamiliar moon, far from his family and friends.
Far from people who believed in the Kurosh.
He felt so alone. So unimportant.
The sky was black, the stars invisible except for the brightest few. Streaks of starships passed overhead, arriving and leaving.
A bipedal form with a mangled head, an arched spine, and two black, bulbous eyes stopped in front of a building across the street. Even in the low light, Liink’s sharp eyes could tell the biped was watching the Prophetess. Instinct told him to stalk this onlooker from behind and then clamp down on its throat until it stopped breathing, but sometimes instinct had to be restrained by reason. According to Abii, no one knew what the Prophetess looked like, so how could they be spying on her?
Probably just a creep.
The alien lifted his hand to his mouth and said something into a comms.
Liink raised a floppy ear, but the bustle of the street masked whatever the creature said. Liink touched the pistol hanging from his belt. It was a human design. Whenever he held it, he would grip the handle with three fingers, while his thumb wrapped all the way around to pull the trigger.
A human approached the alien and said something. The alien nodded, speaking back, and then pointed across the street toward the Prophetess, whose face and bare scalp were bathed in a pink glow from overhead.
Liink had been in a firefight three percents ago in which he played the role of an unarmed, frightened child. He’d lost one of his brothers then. People called it the Shartriin Massacre. He’d vowed that when his next firefight came, he would prove his valor.
He did feel fear.
But he obeyed his instinct and moved closer, circling silently and slowly through the alleyways, taking his time, till he was crouched in a kill position just a few body-lengths away from the alien and his companion. With five paws still on the ground, Liink reached across and fingered the pistol.
His yellow eyes watched his prey from the shadows.
The two strangers spoke in low tones, debating who they were going to contact for help, but the reason was an assumption never stated.
The alleyway was sprayed with graffiti in colors that matched the neon lights of the street. Posters of various sizes, shapes, and colors had been pasted along the walls, creating layers upon layers of visual garbage. He saw the corner of a poster that had been covered by a more recent layer. He cocked his head curiously, and the conversation before him became hollow and distant.
It looked like the poster had Abii’s picture in the bottom corner.
Liink found another copy of the same one, this time not covered. It showed two faces on it. One was the pilot’s. He looked much younger and he definitely wasn’t wearing his mask. The other was the Prophetess, with her eyes closed and head shaven—they’d given her no more dignity than a corpse. The lower part had a picture of Abii next to a miin that wasn’t Liink.
Bold type was printed across the top:
REWARD
By the mandate of President Taiberos
♅5,000,000
For aiding in the capture of BREK STARCHILD
his co-conspirator KALHETTE WHITESUN
and their accomplices
11. When She Fell
Nak sat on the groundrunner and leaned back.
He grinned, and the clients saw his expression. The woman in particular seemed to be appreciating his mood, so there were some advantages to letting people see his face. It actually felt somewhat liberating, but he was trying not to get used to it. He’d get another mask before he approached his next set of clients.
The leather seat felt good. It’d been a long time. And it was another example of how the galaxy’s technology was unearned. The good stuff came directly from the Photoss. Everything else was rudimentary at best. Fortunately, these groundrunners came from that lineage, and unlike Bloody Wings, people had figured out how to reproduce them.
The vehicle Nak straddled amounted to a contragrav engine with handle bars. As was the case with most Photoss tech, it had enough power to be pretty dangerous with the wrong pilot. Or a lot of fun. He’d strapped the fuel batteries and replacement parts to a small trailer behind him.
Benton sat on the other groundrunner, goggles hanging from the handlebar. Something about him wasn’t right. He was too thoughtful. Thinking could get you killed. Like when they cut Dray loose. Benton had been too weak to say, “Yes, let’s leave him.” So Nak made the decision, but it should’ve been Benton’s responsibility.
Nak adjusted the shadowlyss goggles stretched around his forehead. Then he reached a hand back, squeezed the tissues of his neck, and groaned. This sort of pinching pain was often caused by getting smashed in the face with a ton of rock so hard you do a backflip. He grimaced and happened to lock eyes with Kalh at the same moment. Not his sexiest move. You didn’t have to worry about that sort of thing while wearing a mask.
She stood between the two men, still apparently undecided on who to ride with.
The lights of ship engines traced paths in the darkness overhead. The pilots must’ve been looking down at Toar’s surface of shattered skin, which, instead of blood, oozed the orange light of lava. Nak wished he were up there.
He hated to leave his ship vulnerable like this.
Normally, when he was away from The Spirit, Cup would take her into the storm of infraspace where she’d be untouchable. He put so much trust in Cup too, such a tiny piece of technology. That was why he had to protect her from outside influences so carefully—so she didn’t become compromised or get ideas about going rogue.
He’d specify a time and place for rendezvous, with instructions for what to do if he didn’t show. They had backup plans for the backup plans, an elaborate scheme to make sure no one could touch The Spirit. Cup wouldn’t land, for example, without verifying Nak’s voice over the comms through a secret signal phrase, so someone couldn’t kill him and take the ship. And they’d need his hand to bypass the crypto key too. But while The Spirit was grounded, most of that security didn’t apply. Nak wanted to get back to her, sail someplace safe, and make the repairs she deserved.
He wished he had his dread mask too—that would make waiting easier. Either way, he wasn’t sure how much longer he was willing to delay. He kind of liked the miina cub, but the kid knew better than to wander off. Not while The Spirit was sitting out in the desert alone. That would be the second loss of their party though.
Nak thought about Dray. They’d had every right to leave him—it was in the contract. Besides, there was nothing more they could’ve done. Even now, it would take some luck to safely complete their escape. By his own reckoning, Nak had done right, and yet he still felt guilty. It didn’t add up. Maybe because he’d left an almost-friend in the hands of his worst enemy—Taiberos.
Nak looked at Benton, trying to get a read on his willingness to cut someone else loose. Benton tapped his handlebar anxiously.
Wild cloeties or something like them howled out in the distant desert. A faint ring of pale dust stretched across the sky. That was the Photoss Galaxy itself, and you could see that same ring from wherever you stood inside it, as long as you had enough darkness.
Benton peered into the dim streets around them—still no Liink. He turned to Nak. “You sure you don’t want to come with us for phase two? It’s going to be a riot.”
Nak laughed and then gave the same old line: “Sure. If you pay me more.”
“Come on. Why not?” Kalh looked at him like she meant it, like she wanted to see deep enough to understand. She was a strange creature. He sensed a lot of rage in her, but a brightness hovered about her too, and that drew him in. He wanted to be immersed in it.
“I don’t want to get involved in a revolution.”
“I never said it was a revolution,” said Benton.
Nak felt sure that it was though. It was just a matter of where and when. “Besides, you guys are crazy anarchists.”
She moved directly in front of him. “Oh, and you’re not?” Saucy too.
“First of all, I’m not crazy.” He leaned forward onto the handle bars. “Second, just because I practice a little personal anarchy doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for everyone.”
“So it’s a rule that applies to you and nobody else?” She didn’t look good. No, she looked good, but she didn’t look well. Her skin was pale, her face tired—in no condition to be out here. Yet she still had plenty of fight in her, especially now that they were talking politics.
“Uh, no. The rule does apply to everyone else. I’m the exception.”
“How does that make any moral sense?”
“I’m different than everyone else. And don’t try to argue that.”
“Okay, yes, Nak, I have never met anyone like you. That’s true—”
She paused just long enough for Nak to think she might be into him after all.
“—But there’s nearly one trillion other individuals in our galaxy who have no one else like them either. We’re all different. That’s the point of free will.”
Nak gave her a smile with lips only, unconvinced, but feeling no need to justify his stance.
On the horizon, the sun began its sprinting rise.
Kalhette, too, was just getting started. “What’s the biggest war from the history of your homeworld?” The hair on her head formed a gray cap where locks might’ve been.
Nak thought about making a newborn-babe joke, but it wasn’t quite coming together in his mind. “I don’t claim a homeworld.” More specifically, he didn’t claim Terron Prime. At least not with this crowd. They’d seen his face. That was too much already.
“Okay, we’ll use the First Galactic War. A billion people died in it. Killed almost exclusively by soldiers who would rather not have been fighting. People who fought because a few men in their respective governments commanded them to. All of the greatest atrocities in history have been performed by governments, not individuals. Every one of them.”
Nak looked at Kalh to show her he was listening. In the back of his mind, though, he was thinking of The Spirit. They really needed to leave.
“That war happened because a few billion individuals surrendered their power of choice. A few billion people voluntarily became slaves, willing to kill when commanded.”
Nak shrugged, not sure what to say. What came to mind was, That’s the cutest argument I’ve ever heard. But he didn’t want to say that in front of Benton. Instead, he glanced at his chronometer.
“If I may…” Benton pointed a finger as if at his own yet-unstated remark. “People think anarchy means mayhem, and they’re rightly afraid of that. But it doesn’t mean that.”
“That’s why we have the word mayhem,” said Kalh.
“Anarchy just means nobody gets to force anyone else, not a king, not a president, and not a majority. It means peer-to-peer instead of master-slave.”
Nak stroked the stubble on his jaw. “I’m sure I hate the PSD as much as you, maybe more, but don’t you think anarchy really would turn things into chaos?”
Kalh gave a frustrated groan. “Anarchy includes contracts, agreements, and alliances.”
“Yes,” said Benton. “It’s a type of order. Think about how a corporate runs. It has a founder and a board leading the group, but every employee is there voluntarily and may leave voluntarily. That’s anarchy because the employee is still the ruler of himself and his labors. He gets to choose whether to work for the company or not. In the PSD, you don’t get to choose. If you don’t support the government, they’ll take away your freedom and your property.”
“Man, I hate those guys.” Nak wasn’t exactly ready to trust his neighbors either though. Instead of saying so, he gently revved the engine. The machine purred. These particular models had been outlawed by the PSD because they moved too fast for hovering that close to the ground. That was why he’d gotten such a great deal on them. He looked down the alleyway again, longing for Liink to show up. “What’s going to stop people from randomly killing other people?”
