Chapter 18
There is a child crying.
Zanlan.
Someone is comforting them, an Adjumiri in still-sodden rain gear, holding the child by the chin and whispering soft words of placation, of calm.
Others wait around the room – nine in all, including the one with the gun, the weapon still tucked into the fold of aer arms, aer face set with a deep frown as ae gazed down at me.
Sprawled in a chair from which I was already half fallen, chest burning from the shock of impact and fingers still shaking from the misfires of a nervous system unsure how to cope with all of this, I imagine I looked a picture.
More relevant to Zanlan, Rencki was on the floor.
Qis bright russet fur was scalded black across the top of qis spine and front of qis neck, where the bulk of the shot had impacted, and qis tails and legs were splayed at an angle that in any creature of muscle and sinew would have been a grotesque, unnatural sight.
I lurched towards qim, and was immediately pushed back by one of the assembled peoples, the gun swinging towards me, the threat clear, the consequences lifeless at my feet.
“Qe was safety,” I growled. “Qe kept people safe.”
My Adjumiri did not seem to be adequately communicating what I meant, for brows flickered in confusion, but no one started running, no one called out in fear at the meaning of my speech.
Instead, Ranwha leaned forward, ignoring the small furry body at his feet, rested his hands on the arms of my chair so his face was next to mine, breathed: “We know you have a ship.”
I stared into his eyes, saw a man trying to make himself terrifying, make me afraid; nearly laughed, nearly choked on it. “And?” I blurted. “And what of it?”
“You’ll show us. You’ll take us away.”
“Take you where? On Adjapar they’ll arrest you as numberless, songless.
The cryotanks are full, there is no capacity for extra lungs, extra bellies.
They’ll space you; it’s the only logical thing to do.
Or maybe you fly to Namak or Mayxclan and seek asylum.
My ship can’t immunise you; they’ll shove you into quarantine, and if you’re lucky, you’ll be dumped in some refugee camp on an isolated moon and left to rot, a problem to be solved, not people at all. Is that your plan?”
“If that’s what it takes,” he snapped. “We will live. My child is going to live.”
So long as Zanlan didn’t look at Rencki’s body, they seemed a little calmer, their face turned away and tears carefully dried on the end of a stranger’s sleeve. I looked round the assembled Adjumiris, murmured: “You’re all numberless? All of you?”
They didn’t need to answer.
“You should take Zanlan away,” I breathed. “Keep them far from this.”
“You could help us,” said Ranwha, squatting down in front of me, his voice hard and fingers dancing the hand-speak of entreaty, begging almost. “It’s just luck – that’s all it is.
Some people got lucky, some didn’t. Do you really think it’s fair we should die – my child should die – because we didn’t get lucky? ”
I felt tired now, a swathe of regret, knowing the things that were to come, Rencki at my feet, burning in my chest. “Do you really think it’s fair,” I sighed, “that people with guns should take the place of those who have none? That’s all we’re talking about here, at the end of the day.
There aren’t enough places to fly. There were never going to be enough places to fly.
Someone was always going to be left behind. ”
“So you want us to die meekly. You want us to say, ‘Well, if that’s how it is’, take our cups of Grace, feel happy for the ones who lived, is that it? You want us to be good little corpses. You sound like a Behkdaz.”
I sounded like Gebre, and I knew it. The thought of ter caught me momentarily off-guard, a shimmer of something shocking through my chest, a memory of why we were here – why I was really here.
I closed my eyes, could smell the bitter taste of Rencki’s singed fur on the air, hear Ranwha’s breathing, deep, ragged, resolved.
“You love your child. I understand that. I have never loved a child, but I understand – intellectually, you see. I really do. You will do terrible things. I have always tried to understand the terrible things people do. Can I tell you a story? It’s not long, it goes like this. Once, when I was new—”
“Give us the fucking ship!” someone snarled, but another hushed them, leaned a little closer, listening.
“Once, when I was new, I went to a place called Hasha-to.
I had escaped a laboratory, was wandering without purpose, saw the sign of the binary star.
Followed it. Fell in with some rebels – Unionists, they are called in the Shine.
They had these big ideas of freedom and salvation and all sorts of things, and me…
well, I tend to go with the flow. Their words made me feel big, their emotions made me feel important, and so…
“But big feelings aren’t a substitute for a good plan, and they were dead minutes after we landed.
I should have felt terror, going back to Hasha-to, but instead I was simply…
curious. Curious to return somewhere so cruel, curious to understand how another human could treat their fellow humans so.
I thought – is it because they hate? Is it because they hated the debtors that they do such things?
But hate is a hot, burning thing, and their cruelties were cold, administrative, bureaucratic even.
And then I had this idea: maybe it was love.
Maybe the warders of that place believed in something – in an idea, in something important – or maybe they loved their family so much, had to do so much to protect them, had created all sorts of funny ideas about what ‘protection’ means – how to protect you must kill, and maim, and punish, and see those you hurt as less than human.
Maybe it was love. And I had to know. The thought of it – why, why, why, why is Hasha-to, why is this place the way it is, why did these things happen, why – it consumed me.
And I am… unsafe when I get into such a condition.
It is important that I stay regulated. I need you to listen – I need you to understand.
When I went to Hasha-to, the people there tried to kill me.
But I am a monster made in the dark. I am a copy of a dead man, rebuilt by forces unknown.
You cannot stop me. You cannot hold me back.
Eventually the lights will go out in this place, and in the dark I will turn, and when I do, I will kill you all.
If you love your child, you’ll get them out of here before that moment comes. That’s all.”
The numberless did not understand my story, but at least they took the child away before they started hitting me.