Cast Off, page 5
part #3 of The Peridot Shift Series
“But captain, there are tests that must be—”
Kirna stepped into her usual role as mediator between her mentor’s academic enthusiasm and the needs of the ship. “We should at least perform a physical, captain. This wasn’t exactly how the simula were meant to be programmed.”
“I do not think there is cause for concern.” Dug straightened out the sheet before dropping to his feet. His movements seemed smooth, unhindered. “I feel excellent.”
Sophie’s eyes looked about ready to overrun with tears. “You look years younger!”
Dug flexed the knuckles of his free hand. Tendons and muscles moved beneath the smooth skin. His body appeared younger, but the experiences—the indelible marks that life leaves on a person—those were all there. Especially around his eyes.
Aside from the blue glow, anyone meeting him for the first time would believe he was a normal, Peridot-born Bone man. And really, as more and more people got that flame-green tattoo of Kirna’s, glowing skin wouldn’t stand out all that much in a crowd.
But that blue. Talis thought of Meran, walking through the throng of onlookers at Talonpoint, rising above them as she moved the earth to clear their path, the blue points along her arms brilliant even in the light of day.
Talis knew some people would likely always associate that blue with miracles and magic. Herself among them. But she’d rather Dug have his natural eyes. That she’d not let Onaya Bone put him in the position of needing to have his soul bonded to an alien simula.
“The transfer does appear to be a success,” Amos said, unable to take his eyes off Dug. He waved a hand and Kirna fetched a case from a locker beneath the table. “Perhaps we can minimize the examination. Just please allow us a moment.”
The alchemists studied the marks on Dug’s skin, murmuring over the fidelity of the transfer from the fabric. They evaluated him like Talis might search a lift balloon for possible points of failure. Dug submitted himself to it all, but his eyes were locked on her.
Talis cleared her throat. “Okay, Sophie, back to your duties, please.”
She balled her fists in frustration, and Talis thought she’d argue the point, but instead she asked Dug, “Are you up to a hug?”
Dug’s eyes finally unlocked from Talis’s. His face softened. “I believe I am.”
Sophie ran to him in a little shuffle, as if her feet wanted to dance even as they propelled her forward, navigating between the alchemists. She threw her arms around Dug’s torso, so much shorter than him, and squeezed. Dug returned the hug one-armed, still committed to holding up his drapery, and Sophie leaned into that arm as it cradled her. Talis’s brooding best friend had always been tender toward Sophie, but as the young engineer pulled away and wiped at her eyes, Talis realized she’d never seen them hug before. Sophie and Tisker, sure, they piled like puppies and had very few shields up. But Dug had always seemed untouchable, from the heart of battle to the quiet of off-shifts.
Kirna grinned and squinted as she watched. Zeela smiled to herself. Amos searched the physician’s bag that Kirna had brought him, muttering about an undiscovered tool of some kind. Scrimshaw’s fingertips absently traced the copper and jade cuff on sist arm, which Dug had chosen for sin.
“Thank you for bringing me back,” Dug said to Sophie, with a hand on her shoulder.
Sophie sniffled, nodded, and collected her empty coffee mug as she left the cabin, with one last long glance over her shoulder, as if savoring the vision of their friend returned.
Dug adjusted his makeshift covering, tucking it around his waist to free his other hand, solely for the purpose, it seemed, of crossing his arms so he could fix an evaluative stare on Talis. “Did we succeed?”
Talis huffed, an exhale of air that the question stole from her. “Don’t I get a hug?”
“Do you want one?”
“Sophie makes it look so easy.”
“So.”
Talis sighed, twisting her fingers through her prayer locks again. “We did not succeed.”
Zeela shifted in her seat, the leather of her suit already worn in and silent as silk. “Be fair to yourself, captain. There is more to it than that.”
Talis let go of her locks and rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, but he didn’t ask ‘What happened?’ He asked if we succeeded. Really, we didn’t.”
“Dug,” said Zeela, cool and measured though Talis thought for certain the woman was laughing at her. “You might want to ask what happened. The details are somewhat critical. You are in a new body. I am here.”
Dug looked at her, then back to Talis. “Who is she?”
Talis grinned. Tension melted from that spot in her neck. “Now you’re just being difficult.”
Then Dug reached out, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her in for a hug. Amos made a small complaint as he circled them like an insect, trying to draw a sample of whatever counted as “blood” from Dug’s new body.
Talis leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s good to have you back.”
Dug inhaled. Talis heard the air hiss into his nose and felt the rise in his chest. He was warm, and the muscles were dense coils beneath his skin. “Thank you for bringing me back.”
They were the same words he’d said to Sophie but sounded as new as if they were meant only for Talis.
“Not gonna let anything happen to you ever again.” She was surprised to find a lump in her throat that needed talking around.
“Okay.” He broke from the hug and held out an arm to Amos. “Let’s finish this business of tests and explanations. I want to spar.”
“You kidding?” She looked him over. Fair, he didn’t look like he’d spent the last few weeks as a nightlight. “You can take all the time you need to get used to that fancy new body of yours.”
He shook his head. “It feels perfect. Even a bit faster and stronger.”
Talis felt something like a wave of vertigo. Physically speaking, this wasn’t actually Dug’s body. His real body was still out there, still hijacked by his once-unquestionable deity. But here he was. Only the bright Yu’Nyun blue glowing from the sigils across his skin and in his shoulda-been-brown eyes gave away that he was no longer feathers, flesh, and bone.
And he still didn’t know why.
Talis shuddered. “What do you remember?”
A shadow crossed his face, the effect compounded as he closed his eyelids over the bright irises. “We were in the city, looking for Hankirk.”
“His people ambushed us. They injected you and Captain Wallis with the alien soup, so I got to see a close-up of what happens someone has Kirna’s tattoo and when they don’t. Amos grilled me on that for days.” She winked at Amos, but the professor was busy taking measurements and dictating them to Kirna for the record, and the wink was wasted.
Dug touched the spot at the base of his throat where even the protective sigil now glowed blue rather than green. “It didn’t work?”
Talis choked on a laugh. “Oh no, it worked, but the windless Tempest rotters had knocked you out. Onaya—” she preemptively winced, and Dug tilted his head.
“Onaya what?”
“She’s got your body. Saw the vacancy, I guess, and took it.”
Dug was silent, his tells locked up tight as he processed that information.
Kirna ducked her head and crossed to Zeela, where they began whispering. Zeela’s sensors weren’t an imitation of sight. They saw things no visioned people could. No doubt the alchemists were interested in recording everything about this process.
For posterity, Talis hoped. She didn’t want to have to use it again. She thought of having to save Sophie, or Tisker, and suddenly the room was too stuffy, the bulkheads too close.
And Dug was still silent. Talis’s guilt was not.
“I tried to get her back, but damn you, Dug, you kept that body in top shape. Even injured as you were, she got away on a temple ship. She must have been planning something for a while. How she knew . . . I mean, she was a goddess, but she hadn’t been in a long time.”
When he ended his silence, finally, with an exhale, Talis could read a new weight on his shoulders. Another worry line near his mouth. “And what is she doing with my body?”
“We haven’t seen her, but the rumors are she’s been at the Bone Temple, working on those ships again.”
“So, little has changed.”
“Except that she has opposable thumbs again. Your opposable thumbs.”
He took a deep cleansing breath. “And what happened with Hankirk?”
“Sophie, Tisker, and I found Hankirk and Empress Emeranth. He set off his gas bombs.” A chill ran up Talis’s shoulders and down her arms, recalling the feeling. The disorientation, and the terrible agony. Every corrupted soul out there? She knew what they felt, though she’d come back from it. “Kirna’s tattoos saved us”—the fledgling alchemist made some happy-flustered noise of pride at that—“and I managed to grab us this.”
She pulled Silus Cutter’s ring from her pocket. Dug’s focus narrowed on it, muscles tensing just as Amos knocked on his elbow with a tiny rubber hammer.
“Mr. Kheri, this would go faster if you would please sit down!”
For a moment, Dug didn’t move, then he relented and found one of the stools tucked beneath the worktable. He never took his focus off the ring. “And what are we doing with that?”
Talis snapped the artifact up in a closed fist. “Well, we were going to wake a second Meran.” She gestured at the second simula.
Dug seemed to notice it for the first time. “But?”
Scrimshaw finally found sist voice. “The unit is broken.”
Dug looked from Scrimshaw, to Talis, to Kirna, and then back to Talis. He gestured to the deck in a way that paralleled the speed of the ship, barely felt in the warded cabin. “So the hurry is to find more simula?”
Talis grimaced. “Not quite. The aliens have been salvaging their ships, we learned just a few moments ago. Doesn’t look like we’ll find any more simula, at least not in flotsam. Zeela and I grabbed the last two intact units to be had. Well, last one. Sophie will probably call dibs on the other for parts. And that’s that. Upon advice of Scrimshaw, I’m ending the search for the Yu’Nyun wrecks.”
Amos stood back from Dug. “Your physical bond appears strong, Mr. Kheri, but please let me know if you experience anything unusual.”
“I will, professor.”
Amos brandished a wooden tongue depressor. “I mean it. I have far too many important projects to work on. I can’t keep stopping to bring you back from the brink of death any time it suits you.”
The scars where the assassin in Lippen had stabbed Dug were gone, but apparently not from Amos’s mind.
“Yes, professor.”
“Come back after your sparring. It will be valuable to see what effect the exercise has on you.”
“Yes, professor.” So excused, Dug inclined his head toward Talis, and she grabbed her forgotten coffee mug and led the way out of the alchemists’ cabin.
“I’ll go with you,” said Zeela, calling after. “I can take measurements.”
“I should go too, professor,” Kirna said, making it a plea for permission. “To record what Zeela perceives.”
“Fine but come right back after. Both of you.”
There was apparently going to be an audience for their sparring match. And Talis was not going to benefit from a fancy new, vigor-restored body. In fact, she was several weeks out of practice since the Bone goddess had stolen her sparring partner.
Strong winds whipped Talis’s hair into her mouth as she ascended to the weather deck. Tisker made use of the tail wind, catching its full force in several dozen unfurled stunsails. The Wind Monk ship would be propelled on the same Trade Winds, but chances were there weren’t any able hands tending their ship. The Trade Winds would have brought the gas to them well ahead of any warning. They had no masks. No tattoos.
Talis stood to one side, catching Tisker’s eye. His throat moved with a swallow, and his fingers adjusted on the handles of the ship’s wheel, just in time for his knees to practically buckle as Dug, now dressed in his old clothes again and looking like exactly his old self—well, exactly minus a decade and with the addition of glowing marks in his skin—emerged onto the deck, unfazed by the winds that snatched at the long tail of his hair.
“Good to have you back, Dug!” Tisker shouted, and for the first time since she’d let him start flying, Talis thought it looked like there was somewhere other than at the wheel he’d rather be.
“Thank you for bringing me back,” Dug replied, his voice so loud the wind had no chance to stealing the words away before they reached the young pilot.
Tisker grinned. Though he was growing up, that grin had all his usual boyish exuberance. “Sure thing. You’re on washbasin duty tonight.”
Dug actually laughed. Talis marveled at the sound. Gods, she hadn’t heard it since their last bar brawl. Then he turned to her, his shoulders dropping, and as Tisker radioed down to Sophie to tell her to come up top, quick quick, Talis knew she was not going to enjoy this next part.
“Go easy, please,” she barely had time to say, before Dug’s shoulder was under her arm and the deck disappeared from beneath her boot soles.
She landed on her back and the air went out of her lungs with a whoomph, but Dug’s hand had supported the back of her neck even as he moved the arm around and flipped her onto her stomach in what was quite easily the fastest pin of his career.
“So Meran’s plan is our plan now?” He backed off so she could get to her feet again.
“I need to modify the plan slightly now, but yes, roughly speaking.”
She was on her back again, with no memory of how she got there. This time she heard appreciative gasps from their audience. Kirna looked like she needed a bowl of crackle nuts for the spectator sport of it all. With any other crew, Talis would lose her captaincy for this performance. But even she was delighted in her losses, in how fast Dug was. How effortless.
“Describe this rough plan. Perhaps I can help you hone it.” He said it like he was also expecting to want to counter it with an entirely different plan if possible. Talis couldn’t blame him. She’d love another plan if one were available.
He knocked her on her back again, and with a shiver, she thought of Onaya in Dug’s body, blades spinning out like the panels of a skirt, a force of nature. With more lethal potential than Dug ever had, Onaya’s violence was unleashed and Dug’s muscles were the tools. But again, Dug had dropped Talis without doing much more harm than knocking the breath out of her body and promising some light bruises in a few hours. His control was astounding.
Dug held out a hand to help her up and she clasped his forearm. She could talk, or she could fight. As it was very unlikely she could win, she relaxed, and focused on the conversation, giving up any notion of besting him or of even losing with an attempt worth being proud of.
“Well, the plan was to find and activate all the rings, each in a separate simula.”
Dug’s heel hooked hers, but she managed to spin this time and land in a crouch. In the surprise at not landing on her rump, she failed to see the next move coming and ended up with her arm twisted behind her back. Only enough pressure on the joint to force her to lean forward until the strength of her body was useless against the hold. She laughed in surprise and Dug let go, bouncing back on the balls of his feet, just out of range of a counter grab.
“So you would control a troupe of Merans. How did you see this playing out?”
Talis felt her neck and face go red at the implied accusation. “I saw it playing out where Meran couldn’t get us neck-deep in trouble, then run off without helping us out of it.”
“Because you would hold all four rings.”
“Well, three.” She took a couple deep breaths while Dug watched her from a crouch. “Sophie’s new ship is still under construction, so Onaya’s ring is out of reach for now.” Another breath. “Amos and Kirna assure us the first Meran—they’re calling her ‘Meran Prime’—won’t need all the rings or stolen elemental powers to free herself. Get her, or a different version of her, four total pieces and that should be enough to tip things in her favor.”
She forced complaining thigh muscles to match his low stance, but he stood instead. Fight over, apparently. “To free herself. And kill the Five.”
“The Three, by our latest count.” She shrugged and smirked. “We don’t really count Onaya. Sorry.”
He paced a few steps toward the railing, crossing his arms. Talis took the opportunity to fully catch her breath.
“So you are going to create multiple Meran manifestations. Have you thought this through, Talis?” His back was toward her, but it wasn’t a cold shut-out. His head was turned, watching her at least in his periphery. Like she might prove dangerous.
“If not all the way through, a gods-rotted hell of a lot. I thought as a group, multiples of her could solve the alien gas issue, without having to find out what would happen if she was restored to her full strength.”
Zeela stood. Sophie went into alert mode, perching a little more lightly on her section of railing. But Sophie knew as well as Talis that Zeela’s skylegs had been quick to develop. Between her cane, her sensors, and the decklift added to Fortune’s Storm, it seemed Zeela’s adjustment to life on an airship had gone smoothly.
“Dukkhat Kheri, we have only met in passing.” Zeela’s voice was smooth as silk—as ever—but Talis was getting to know the Vein woman well enough to read the infinitesimal bumps and threads beneath its surface in a way she would very much would have liked to have when Zeela had been inviting her to tea with the Yu’Nyun at the start of all this. “Talis and I have spent many evenings discussing this situation. I promise you we have considered this from many angles.”
