Chapter 41
Three people lie on the floor of the chapel, while around them chaos rages.
Valans.
He burbles: “It’s not what it seems! It’s a trick! They lured me here – they lured me, it’s a trick, it’s…”
Ulannad. He is face-down, hands tied behind his back like the rest of us, his head turned towards me as I try to blink the static from my eyes, the pain from my skull.
He seems very calm, even smiles. I suddenly wish I’d had a chance to ask him: what was your story?
How did you come to be here? You seem comfortable with pain, with terror – would it be too much to speak on that?
I am feeling curious, somewhere beneath the pain.
Nothing new there.
But also angry.
Angry to be on the floor, bound.
Angry at the whining of Valans’ voice, at the ringing in my ears, at the feet stomping around by my head, at the weight of someone’s boot on my back.
Glastya Row, a boot on my back, it rained the day we were sent to Hasha-to, the judge said that I had not mounted an adequate defence, and I replied that I had not been given the opportunity, and she said that wasn’t how things worked in Heom and I had only myself to blame, and thus my world had ended, and thus Mawukana na-Vdnaze had died.
Angry at Ulannad. At Hulder and Cuxil and the whole stinking, bloody thing.
Dysregulated. Angry enough to want to reach to that place inside, the little part of me that was recorded in error, because there is something in the dark, something fascinated and eager, that has never really understood this reality, never really been able to comprehend what it sees.
Here it is.
Here it is.
The part of me that sits in the place where the Lux would say I should feel a soul.
The thing that everyone tells me is wrong, incorrect, and it feels… like they are mistaken.
The light is dim, and I do not know how many I will kill before someone remembers who I am, expects me to be kind, if anyone here really does, right now, I do not care, and so…
“Everyone will please stand down now!”
It is Agran’s voice.
I strain my neck to see her, can’t quite against the weight on my back, hear feet moving, voices muttering, Normspeak and Mdo-sa and the language of the Spindle, then again, louder: “I said stand down!”
There were four Corpsec in the room – they must have been the ones who threw the grenade that so rudely interrupted our confrontation – and now there are five Spindlers.
People are shouting, barking accusations – perhaps some weapons are being pointed, it’s hard to see.
Valans is gibbering now, gibbering it’s not what it looks like, it’s not what it looks like, I was doing the right thing, I was making it all right! !
“You are on the Spindle, you will abide by Spindle laws – kindly get that fucking thing out of my face thank you!”
Shouting, posturing; from the floor it all feels rather futile.
Come down here, I want to say. It’s a whole other perspective.
Ulannad is smiling at me. There almost seems to be a kind of forgiveness there, which I instinctively resent.
I wonder if he knows what I will become.
I have a terrible feeling that he knows exactly what I am, and is deliberately trying to think kindly of me, to see in me some glimmer of compassion, humanity that is worth his respect.
Maybe he’s about to whisper: You’re a good man, Mawukana na-Vdnaze.
I think that will break me, if he does. It will certainly make what must come next far, far harder.
I mouth: Sorry, in Mdo-sa, but don’t think the motion of my lips really communicates it, don’t really have the breath to do much more. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
“They stole a device – Shine property – they stole it…”
“Put your weapons down now! Put them down! You are on the Spindle now, there will be opportunity to be heard, but you are in violation of every…”
This is how people get killed, I realise. Implacably roaring at each other, unable to imagine being the first to yield.
Maybe if I just lie here quietly, everyone who is standing will kill everyone else. The idea is briefly comforting. Perhaps someone else can be a monster today, so I don’t have to.
Then a voice says, from the direction of the door: “Stand aside.”
Hé speaks Normspeak with a Mdo-sa accent, and as I have never heard hím speak this speech, I cannot immediately place hím.
But the people standing over me seem to immediately obey; the weight on my back eases a little, guns lowered, some of the panting, gasping, raging fury of the room diminishes.
A gesture; hands lift me, Ulannad, Valans, prop us upright against the altar, and now I see.
The Executor stands in the door, flanked by more security, Riv at hís back.
In front of hím, between this new entourage and the plain-clothed Corpsec who moments ago were stomping on my back, is Agran and her team, guns still drawn, though noticeably not pointed towards hím.
No one points a gun at Theodosius Rhode.
“This seems to be a terrible misunderstanding,” Theodosius breathes, as hé drifts into the increasingly-cramped, candle-bathed room. “A diplomatic error, indeed.”
“These are yours?” demands Agran, gesturing to the Corpsec leaning over us.
“They are,” replies Theodosius breezily. “Sent to protect me and my delegates – a task your security seems to be failing at.”
“They have attacked and detained civilians,” barks Agran. “They will—”
Theodosius silences her with a raised hand.
This should not work; she should just keep issuing her instructions, this is her station, her place.
But something of the power of the Executor, of hís expectation – expectations of obedience, immediate and absolute – seems to slam into her, knock the words from her mouth, and so instead, the master of hís universe, Theodosius drifts towards us, taking in Ulannad, Valans, me.
“A Unionist, a scientist and a ghost,” hé muses, nodding one to the other. “A rebel, a fool and… something else.”
“Whatever accusations you may make, Spindle security will handle it. Corpsec has no authority here.”
“What’s your name, Spindler?”
A hesitation, a moment – perhaps if she speaks her name, she will be marked. Hé will find her, hís people will find her – but then again, hé hardly needs her name for that. She was damned the moment hé decided she was. May as well cooperate, in the hope whatever hé has in mind hurts less, no?
“Agran,” she blurts. “Agran Hulathind Daj Kiddanasithwa.”
“An unusual name for a Spindler. No, wait, don’t tell me – Adjumir, no? Hadda. The ‘Daj’ – it was common to the colonies, rather than the mother planet. Something like ‘voyager’ or ‘pioneer’ – Normspeak doesn’t do these equivalents well, does it?”
This should be rhetorical – hé knows the answer – yet hé waits for her to confirm it, smiling patiently, tolerating her sudden dumbness. “Yes,” she mumbles. “Hadda. Yes.”
“And how many of your people are there on the Spindle? Did the natives of this station welcome in you one mothership at a time, saying yes, of course, come in your millions, we are one, we will learn to speak your speech, sing your songs, it is a privilege to be together with you? Or did you come in dribs and drabs, a dozen here, a hundred there, welcomed with a grudging ‘well, if it makes us feel good about ourselves’, second-class citizens told how lucky you were, how grateful you should be for scraps? It was the latter, wasn’t it.
The way you deport yourself, trying to take up space, trying to be strong, the big strong chief, because when you were a child other children laughed at you for the way you spoke and the things you ate, and you think you hear them laughing still, no?
Well, I have news for you, Agran Hulathind Daj Kiddanasithwa.
They’re not laughing now. You grew up, and you were not meek, and that makes you unacceptable. ”
Songs of Adjumir that will never again be sung:
The song of crossing the sands, sung to honour the return of would-be marriage kinn from the deserts, where for ten days and ten nights they were set to wander, to learn each other’s hearts and test the strength of their bonds.
The song of the moon pearl, which grew in the belly of a certain mollusc off the edge of a certain island, and in whose translucent form it was said, at a certain time, beneath a certain light, visions of the future would unfold.
Samples of the mollusc have been saved, kept in a laboratory, but no one has quite found the right conditions to reseed it, and no one is sure they ever will.
The song of the motherships, sung for the going-out and the coming-back. It was written in the final days of the planet, and will never be sung again.
Agran stands silent.
Agran has perhaps learned more silence than her kindlers wish she would.
Theodosius Rhode turns from her, to inspect the three of us. Hís eyes pass over me, linger a moment, but if hé knows me as anything more than an intelligence report, I cannot tell. At last, hís gaze settles on Valans. Behind hím, Riv watches, flanked by security, her face empty and cold.
Theodosius walks towards hís scientist, hís most valued engineer, makes no move to unbind him.
“Well,” hé tuts at last. “You have chosen poorly.”
“They have the interface – the Tryphon, the one from Seaburn,” whimpers the scientist. “I verified it, came here to retrieve it, to end it…”
“Ah yes. This old thing.” Theodosius reaches past the old man, picks up the interface, turns it this way and that.
It is tiny in hís oversized hands. “This has been bothering us for a while now. Minds reaching across the dark, calling out to our Pilots, whispering to them, asking them questions, so many questions. Where are you now? What can you see? Tell us, tell us, tell us where you are. We didn’t think that the spies of the Accord would be so bold as to hook the minds of their people to our arcspace interfaces, but then I suppose that is what they use you for. ”
Hís eyes flickered to me as he spoke these words, one grey, one gold, though hís body stayed turned to Valans. I stared back, wasn’t sure if I could look away, saw hím smile, shake hís head a little. The Executor was used to quiet disappointments from lesser people.
“I did it for you,” whined Valans. “I knew I could make it right, I risked everything to—”
“If you were able to make it right, you would never have had to come here!” roared Theodosius.
Behind hím, even Agran flinched, shoulders drawing back, breaths swallowed in.
Valans had tears in his eyes, was a curled-up bend of spine and neck beneath the Executor’s rage.
Theodosius glowered down at the bundled-up scientist, sighed, tutted, shook hís head.
“Agran Hulathind Daj Kiddanasithwa, I do apologise for all of this. It would appear one of my entourage has made a bit of a fuss. He will be reprimanded. We will be taking him to my corvette now; please feel free to revoke his visa.”
Valans crying out, but no, but listen, but I…
Theodosius has already lost interest in him. Already wiped him from hís awareness.
Turns fully, looks me up, looks me down one more time, and I cannot tell what hé makes of all that hé sees.
Turns again, looks at Ulannad, hís fingers still tracing the curve of the Tryphon in hís hand.
Then, without a change in expression or flicker of concern, hís fist closes.
I watch the thin, worn metal of the interface crumple slowly in hís grasp, case crack, tiny tendrils spilling from its belly like guts from a hunted rodent.
Watch it fall to the floor, a meaningless hunk of junk, barely worth the scrap.
“Well,” hé murmured. “Well. Hasn’t this all been interesting.”
So saying, hé turned, nodded once at a Corpsec guard, who stepped forward and calmly, without hesitation, shot Ulannad in the head.
I watched the Lordat’s neck snap back, then forward as he fell.
He bumped against my foot as he crumpled to the ground, as if the muscles that had sustained him had just been waiting for this moment, as if life had been an inconvenient kind of nagging blared out by the brain against the overwhelming instinct of the body to collapse, cease, sleep.
The pandemonium that had been suppressed by the Executor’s presence roared back into life.
Guns raised, shouting, get down, put it down, put it down, put it down now!
The actual wound in Ulannad’s head was neat, relatively tiny, a mere puff of blood from where the projectile had entered, a blossoming of pink behind the Lordat’s eyes the only hint of the internal carnage of its passage.
Through it all, Theodosius smiled.
Hé smiled, and as the raging, the shouting grew higher, hé began to laugh.
It was a rich roar of sound, full-chested, full-bodied, quite unlike any of the little huffs of dire mirth I was used to from the Managers of the Shine.
It was a full revelling, a joyous delight, an appreciation bordering on the artistic for that which unfolded about hím.
Hé was still laughing as hé ordered hís security to lay down their arms and, turning to Agran with that same expansive beam of pleasure, exclaimed: “Well then, we seem to have a diplomatic incident, no?”
And then, just for the hell of it, hé took a pistol from one of hís entourage and shot me in the chest.