6. Gnash #3
A sound comes from the recording that I understand before the subtitles process it.
A woman calling a child’s name.
Ursa freezes. The lens points toward the street, but the image wobbles. Her breathing changes. The woman calls again, hoarse and desperate. The child behind the compad whispers, "Mama?"
I reach toward the console to stop the file.
I do not stop it.
The blast that follows is distant enough not to shake the camera much.
That makes it worse. Smoke rolls across the intersection.
People vanish into it. Ursa makes a sound so small that for one stupid moment I want to reach through twelve years and a thousand systems to put my body between the child and the street.
She does not run out.
She does not throw the compad aside.
She stays low, sobbing through clenched teeth, and keeps filming the direction the troops moved.
"My mother was near the east shelter," she says after a long, ragged breath. "I cannot see her now. Alliance fire continues from the roof. Coalition forces are returning fire from the transit entrance. Civilians are between them."
The recording continues for another forty-two minutes.
I watch all of it.
When the final segment ends, the chamber feels colder than before.
The station still hums beneath me. Ships still dock.
Workers still shout through comms. Somewhere below, cooks prepare the feast that will make ambassadors sweat and Reapers laugh.
The world has continued, as worlds always do after devouring the people inside them.
I close the archive and bring up her adult profile again.
Ursa Ramone looks back at me with that same steady gaze, older now, sharpened instead of broken. The girl from the footage survived, and the galaxy did what it always does with survivors. It turned her pain into a symbol because symbols are easier to consume than people.
I know something about that.
My door chimes.
"Enter," I say.
Skahar steps inside without waiting for the door to open fully. He takes one look at my face and stops several paces from the desk.
"You watched it."
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"Yes."
His cane taps once against the floor. "And?"
I look through the viewport toward the docking lanes. A freighter drifts past under escort, its hull lights flickering like small, stubborn stars. "She did not stop."
"No."
"She was terrified."
"Of course."
"She did not stop."
Skahar comes closer, slower now. "That is why the broadcast mattered."
"That is why she matters," I blurt.
Skahar’s old face tightens with something that might be warning, pity, or memory. "Careful."
"I have done nothing."
"Interest is not nothing."
I turn from the viewport. "I am curious. That is all."
"I once watched you disassemble a bomb because you were curious whether Helios timers used standardized wiring."
"They did."
"The bomb nearly killed six of us."
"Curiosity requires standards."
Skahar does not smile. "The Blood Feast is tomorrow.
Theryki invited her because she wants movement.
Gobold will watch for weakness. Wilcox will watch for casualties.
Zune will watch through whatever eyes he purchased.
Your station will watch you. If you let that human unsettle you in public, every predator in the room will smell it. "
"Then I will not be unsettled."
"You watched a dead child’s town burn for nearly an hour and came out looking as if someone put claws under your ribs."
"That is private."
"Nothing is private for a ruler. You taught me that while refusing to let me die in peace."
I walk to the desk and pick up the cracked ceramic cup, though it is empty. My hand needs occupation. "She accepted the invitation knowing what a Blood Feast is."
"Perhaps she does not truly know."
"She knows enough to be warned."
"Knowing danger exists and meeting it at the table are different skills."
The memory of young Ursa’s voice returns, shaking and steady all at once. Civilians are between them. My mother was near the east shelter. I am still here.
"She will not run from a meal," I say.
Skahar’s gaze rests on me for several seconds. "No. I suspect she will not."
The admission pleases me more than it should.
I set the cup down carefully. "Order Vesk to keep her within guest protections tomorrow. No hovering obvious enough to insult her. No special treatment visible to the diplomats."
Skahar’s brow lifts. "Guest protections for all invitees already exist."
"Then I am repeating policy."
"You never repeat policy unless you are hiding preference."
"Your suspicion grows tedious with age."
"Your lies have not improved with command."
I bare my teeth, but there is little heat in it. "Tell Rikka to seat her where she can observe the high table."
"That is special treatment."
"It is useful placement for a reporter whose reactions may irritate Theryki."
"Ah, strategy has returned wearing a very thin cloak."
"Would you rather she sit among Coalition clerks and be bored to death before the second course?"
"I would rather you admit when a variable becomes a person in your mind."
I step close enough that most would retreat. Skahar merely tilts his head back and waits.
"Do not push me, old one."
"Someone must."
For a moment, all the years between us stand in the room: the starving boy I was, the captain he had been, the ship we took, the dead we buried, the station we stole, the people looking to me now because I told them I could make a future out of wreckage.
I trust him more than any living being, which is precisely why he is so damn irritating.
"She is a reporter," I say.
"Yes."
"She is brave."
"Yes."
"She is walking into my hall tomorrow because Theryki thinks she can use her."
"Yes."
"And if Theryki can use her, so can others."
Skahar’s expression softens into something worse than agreement. "Yes."
"Then I need to know what she sees before they do."
He studies me, then lowers his gaze first. "I will tell Vesk."
"And Rikka."
"And Rikka." He turns toward the door, pauses, and looks back. "Gnash."
"What?"
"When you watch her tomorrow, remember that everyone else will be watching you."
After he leaves, I stand alone in the cool chamber with the archive still waiting on my console, ready to play again if I am foolish enough to let it.
I do not replay it. I do not need to. The images have already fixed themselves in places memory reserves for wounds, debts, and the rare forms of courage that make mockery feel obscene.
Outside my viewport, Guyver Station turns through the Badlands with its markets full, its shipyards burning bright, its enemies drawing closer, and its feast hall waiting below like a mouth full of knives.
Tomorrow, Ursa Ramone will enter that hall.
I find myself wondering whether the most dangerous thing at my table will be the questions rather than the blades.