Юн Ли - Revenant Gun

Fox and hound, she thought she was in here with him as some kind of personal punishment. “I’m here for the same reason you are,” Jedao said, which only made her eyes widen further, this time in incredulity. “I mean, not the sleeping part. The failure to go along with orders part. Sorry to disappoint you.”

Of course, since they were both here, and she was talking to him after all, maybe he could learn something about her, and about the ordinary soldiers that he didn’t get much opportunity to interact with. Even if she probably would rather that he leave her alone. But she was staring at him, and he doubted she’d relax so long as he was in the brig with her.

“Does it bother you,” Jedao said, “being shunted down here?”

“I’m just garden Kel,” she said after a hesitant pause. “I do well enough when I have some sky overhead, not all these walls. When the action picks up, things will go better for me. Begging your pardon, sir.”

“‘Garden Kel’?”

“Guessing no one used the term around you. It’s one of the nicer ones.”

“Infantry, then.”

She nodded, fidgeting.

“Have you seen a lot of action planetside?”

“A couple of campaigns,” she said. “One of them was real interesting. Some genius decided it’d be pretty to stick a station in the middle of a planet’s rings, nice view for an artists’ retreat. But you know artists.” He didn’t, but he wouldn’t have dreamed of interrupting her. “They made the mistake of broadcasting heretical performance art. One corporal in my unit got a hold of a couple unauthorized clips. Real pretty stuff, all gymnastics-like. But we were supposed to go in and blow the place apart, so that’s what we did.”

Jedao blinked. “You didn’t get in trouble because of the clips?”

“The officers don’t usually bother with that stuff unless it’s radioactively heretical.” She gulped—apparently she’d just remembered that he was an officer. Or something like one. “They got better stuff to mess with.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Her voice trembled. “I’m Kel Opaira. Just my bad luck to be here while there’s fighting going on, but it could be worse. At least I can, I can catch up on sleep. And it’s not like you were going to land infantry on the mothyard if you were planning to blow it up, were you? But what are you doing down here? Don’t they need you up in the command center?”

“Not the hexarch’s opinion, apparently,” Jedao said.

This got her attention. “You let him boss you around? Isn’t he afraid of you ?”

“Not that I’ve been able to tell.”

“You trust a civilian to do your job?”

He seemed to have hit on some issue of Kel professional pride. “How do you hear about all this from down here?” Jedao said. Especially if she’d been asleep?

Opaira shook her head. “They don’t tell you much, do they?”

He couldn’t argue with that. “Well,” he said, “you can remedy that.”

“Not anyone’s secret, really.” Opaira held up her left arm. “Wired for heat pulses in here, see? Kel drum code, everything all in rhythm, so the unit can get info on incoming hostiles or whatever the hell. But there’s also a bunch of chatter when things get boring. And, I mean, I don’t know what it’s like for someone like you, but for us garden Kel, things get boring a whole bunch. Your augment’s damped, right? But they don’t bother blocking the heat pulses.”

“Which I don’t have because I’m not garden Kel.”

“Or Kel at all.” Her voice dipped pityingly.

Jedao couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t have minded her life for himself. Waking up (or not) at reveille. Taking mess with the rest of the company in the designated hall. Infantry drill, the constant friendship of weapons. And always the humming awareness that if you died, you didn’t have to die alone.

“You’re right, though,” Jedao said. “I can’t stay here when people might get hurt.”

“How are you planning on getting out?” she said, wary again. “Can’t just walk out.”

“I don’t know how the lock works,” Jedao said. “But surely someone does.”

“Oh, yeah,” Opaira said. “Doctrine officers. Wormfuckers, all of them. Begging your pardon.”

“What would happen if we got into a fight?” Jedao said. How could he get someone to let him out?

Opaira winced. “Rather not, sir. You have—you have a bit of a reputation. Would rather live.”

Huh. “Would a medical emergency do it?”

“Oh, that’s an old one. They won’t fall for it.” She reconsidered. “Well, I guess you could bust up the shitter or something, but honestly, you want to end up pissing in the corner if the hexarch gets petty? I bet he’s the petty type.”

I bet so too , Jedao thought, but he didn’t say that out loud. He’d just experienced Kujen’s maddening arbitrariness firsthand, after all. And Kujen would be monitoring him here.

Jedao reinspected the commode anyway. Like all the furniture, it was securely affixed to the floor. He didn’t see any obvious bolts he could try to pry out.

“All right,” he said, “that’s not going to do it.”

“Good,” Opaira said, on firmer ground. “Sit down and wait, that’s what I always do.”

“Oh, no,” Jedao said, backing up to the far wall without touching it. He eyed the barrier. He’d discovered early on that it delivered an unpleasant jolt if he touched it. “No point in cutting up my arm or breaking my leg or any such nonsense. The hexarch doesn’t care if I can hold a stylus and it doesn’t matter to him if I’m ambulatory. What he wants out of me is my head. Even if he has a good acting general in Talaw. So—”

The cell was small. But it gave him a little freedom of movement. He lunged forward, accelerating as quickly as he could, and smashed his head into the barrier.

Behind him, Opaira squawked in alarm. Good: if she thought this was a terrible idea, so would whoever was monitoring him. For a moment he saw a bright starry flash. The jolting pain, too, hit immediately.

He backed up again without losing his balance, which impressed him. (Instant soldier: just add water.) Did it again.

And again.

And—

“—permanent damage if you concuss yourself!” Opaira was yelling. “To say nothing of getting your brain cells scrambled!”

Well, yes. That was the idea. He couldn’t bluff. His monitors would be able to tell. Or he hoped they could tell, because otherwise he was doing this for no good reason. Oh well, it might be educational to see Medical at work from the patient’s side of things.

Jedao levered himself up again—

He heard rather than saw the barrier go down just as he reached it, a thrum and a change in air pressure. He took advantage of the othersense: any newcomers? Yes, as a matter of fact. Lowering his head, he swerved and charged through.

“Ouch, snakefucker!” said the newcomer as Jedao swept her legs out from under her.

Huh , Jedao thought. I didn’t know I could do that either.

“Sir—I mean, Shuos, you’re under arre —ouch!”

By then he was past the newcomer, a squat Doctrine officer. The wolf’s-head emblem at her breast indicated that she was a Rahal. Another person he wouldn’t mind having a chat with. But now that he had escaped, he didn’t have any excuse to linger.

Despite the augment’s obstinate refusal to talk to him, a map unfurled in Jedao’s mind as he leaned on the othersense. Not only did he know the shearmoth’s layout, he knew where everyone on it was. The movements of individuals were as distinct as the spectra of stars in the forever sky. Even more, he could feel the motions of the other swarm moths as though they were dancing on the surface of his skull.