Elizabeth Hand - Icarus Descending

She looked at me with those lovely clear eyes. “I was commandeered by the Imperator,” she said. “Against my will, to help him find my brother nemosyne Metatron. Since my awakening I have seen little to endear humanity to me—indeed, I have seen almost nothing but cruelty.

“But if what Tast’annin has told us is true, and your Alliance has declared war upon mankind and intends their destruction, I want no part of that either. I was programmed by Sister Loretta Riding, a member of the Order of Divine Compassion, a pacifist and freedom fighter before the recusants drove her into hiding hundreds of years ago. My allegiance is not to Ascendants or rebels but to womankind, and so to humanity. I will not aid in its extermination.”

“What of us, then?” I asked, my voice rising. “Do you support our enslavement by human Tyrants?”

“No, but neither will I support a world ruled by energumen Tyrants,” she replied coolly.

I nodded. Overhead the lights dimmed momentarily. From the voicenet came a soft but urgent announcement.

“Three ancillary craft bearing the designation Helena Aulis have entered the docking area without formal clearance.”

Captain Novus looked around anxiously, her hand at her weapon.

“Those are our brothers from Helena Aulis,” I said. I crossed to where a small monitor was recessed into the wall and switched it on. Blurry images of the three aviettes appeared on the screen. After a moment I switched it off again and turned to the others. “On Helena Aulis there was a violent rebellion. All human Masters were slain and many of them tortured. I did not support this or even know of it; I am merely informing you of what happened. The surviving energumens have contacted my sisters and told them of their union with the Asterine Alliance. Now these rebels are here. With them, we will be transported to the Element via your elÿon.

“Their leader, my brother Kalaman, says that the Oracle has told them they will breed with us. Our lives will no longer be governed by an Ascendant clock. We will be as humans; we will live and reproduce as humans do. But” —my voice rose angrily as I continued—“this thing called Metatron, the Oracle you call a nemosyne—it is a chary freedom he offers. He brings us to the Element only to draft us into battle. You know that our lives are short: a thousand days, less than three solar years. Mine is nearly ended, but I would not have it end in battle.

“And I am the only one of my sisters who fears this Metatron. I think he intends to betray us. At any rate, I do not believe in exchanging one form of tyranny for another.”

Captain Novus stared at me dubiously. “How can you breed? None of the energumens—”

“What of the rest?” broke in Tast’annin. “The others here on Quirinus?”

I bowed my head. “They will do as Metatron bids them. They believe it is the will of our father.”

“Your father?”

I nodded. “Luther Burdock.”

Tast’annin gestured impatiently. “Luther Burdock was executed shortly after the Third Ascension.”

“No,” I said softly, “he is alive. The Alliance found his DNA master and regenerated him. I have seen him. Last night, on a ’file transmission from the Element. There is no doubt in my mind but that it was our father.”

Captain Novus whistled. “They cloned Luther Burdock? But you’ve only seen a ’file—how can you be sure?”

“I remember him,” I said, nearly in a whisper.

“Remember him?” echoed Nefertity.

“They’re clones of his daughter.” Rage gave Tast’annin’s crimson mask a demonic aspect. “The energumens all share her memories, up until the time of the first successful cloning experiment. There have always been rumors that he had set aside his own DNA material, in case he was assassinated.”

“He is alive. I saw him,” I repeated.

Tast’annin turned to Nefertity. “This is how they will be able to reproduce and have normal life spans,” he said. “Among his effects there were records alluding to further work he intended to do with the Kalamat strain—he thought they could be manipulated so they could breed, and the matter of extending the life spans of geneslaves is really a very simple thing. But after his death this simple thing eluded us. Eventually the Ascendants turned it to their own purposes, shortening the lives of the geneslaves to a few years.”

From down the hallway came a faint noise, the sound of the doors in the docking area opening.

“They have arrived,” I said. “My brothers.” I looked at Captain Novus and said, “They will be armed and will kill any human on sight.”

“Captain Novus,” Tast’annin began; but Nefertity cut him off.

“She is under my protection,” she said in a low voice, but there was a cold warning in her tone. “They will not harm her.”

She turned, and Tast’annin and Captain Novus with her. We watched as the doors slid open, and the rebels entered Quirinus.

One does not become an Ascendant Imperator without developing a certain intuition regarding the minds and motives of others—even energumens. I did not believe the one who called herself Kalamat was lying to us. But she seemed unsure of herself. Despite her brave words, her girlish voice betrayed her. She seemed restive, almost frightened. She had said that she was nearing the end of her thousand days. That might have been what caused her unease, but I detected a desperation in her that I feared might endanger Valeska Novus, if not myself and Nefertity.

And what of the others on Quirinus? How many were there, and were they prepared to fight against their brothers? Certainly Kalamat would be a formidable enemy. Over seven feet tall, golden-skinned, and with the enormous opaque eyes of her kind, like those black crystals the Emirate uses to hone their telepaths.

Still, there was something bizarrely childish about her, not in her appearance but in her mannerisms and voice. The nervous manner in which she moved her great long-fingered hands, as though unsure where to put them; the way she had called Nefertity “Mother.” I had seldom seen an energumen who invoked in me any sense of pity, any feeling that I was dealing with another human being, rather than a heteroclite.

But Kalamat put me in mind of that other creature I had seen so long ago, her namesake at the NASNA Academy. It was not long after we had seen that Kalamat in our classroom that Aidan Harrow had killed himself. I always wondered if he had glimpsed himself in that pathetic chained monster; or if in his arcane books he had read something of the tangled destiny of those demonic creatures, perhaps the Final Ascension that Jude Hwong had predicted. A destiny that it seemed might now be coming to pass; a destiny the thought of which had driven Aidan Harrow mad.

But this was no time to dwell upon such matters. I heard the sound of many large, soft feet treading upon the floor. I looked up, and faced the rebels from the Asterine Alliance.

“Greetings, Imperator Tast’annin! And greetings to you, O my sister.”

The same girlish voice as Kalamat’s rang through the chamber. I gazed into the same face as well, though set within a young man’s frame, and with skin of a deep red hue. He was not as extravagantly scarred and tattooed as Kalamat. His teeth were filed, and he carried a curved blade like those borne by janissaries within the Archipelago. An incongruously small blade within that powerful grasp, but no less threatening. Behind him stood others, perhaps a dozen or more. All were armed with flame guns and other weapons pilfered from their Ascendant Masters’ armories on Helena Aulis.

It was the creature that stood beside Kalamat that made me wish I held one of those weapons myself. He was an energumen like Kalaman’s own reflection made flesh, save that he had only one eye, and that eye gleefully ablaze with a hatred he took no pains to conceal. A number of tiny gold rings dangled from his brow. When he saw me, he laughed, and the rings jingled with a fine, chilly sound. If anything, he looked more dangerous than his twin, beautiful but with the contained madness of a caged eyra or jaguarundi.