Юн Ли - Revenant Gun

“How can you be taking this so calmly?” Especially when none of the other Kel had.

Dhanneth’s breath hissed out between his teeth. “You’re my general, sir.”

That couldn’t be the whole story. He was theoretically the general of the rest of the Kel, too, after all. But to reassure Dhanneth, whose eyes looked bruised with worry, however reluctant, Jedao drank some broth. It took all his concentration, and he still spilled some of it on his shirt. The shirt absorbed the moisture with eerie and total rapidity. In spite of his initial skepticism, the broth did, in fact, make him feel better.

Jedao fell asleep afterward, without intending to. The next time he woke, Dhanneth was gone. That made sense: even an aide had to have time to himself. Still, Jedao resolved to ask Dhanneth about the inhuman walking corpse business the next time he saw him.

He surveyed his surroundings more thoroughly this time. The walls were a soft, uncomplicated white. He stared at a small corner table whose legs were shaped like pillars of cavorting foxes, forever winterbound. Kujen? Kujen’s assistant? Kujen’s personal interior decorator?

Well. No time to waste. He asked the grid where he was and what was going on. Luckily, someone had troubled to turn his augment back on. The grid replied that they were in parking orbit around Isteia 3 while the hexarch consolidated their gains. It also reminded him, primly, that today was the Feast of Burning Veins.

“That sounds pleasant,” Jedao muttered. The date it gave indicated that four days had elapsed since they’d attacked Isteia. Which meant his attempt to save the mothyard had probably been futile.

He used the water closet, then stripped off his shirt and searched for evidence of the injuries. Nothing, just the scars he’d woken up with that first day. Kujen had implied that scars were trivial to remove or hide, so that wasn’t conclusive. He replaced the shirt and made sure he was presentable.

Then the name of the remembrance penetrated. Feast of Burning Veins . “Just what does this remembrance entail?” Jedao asked the grid.

The grid reassured him that it wasn’t too late to observe the remembrance, which it managed to do while hinting that he ought to strive to do better. Then it launched into a recitation of the chant he was supposed to meditate on and the particular numbers that were significant to this feast.

“No,” Jedao said, starting to be pissed off, “I don’t mean what I’m supposed to do.” Which, fucked if he was going to do it, but no need to tell the grid that. “What gives the remembrance its name?”

The grid explained to him that an authorized Vidona official rendered a chosen heretic by, essentially, setting their blood on fire. It started going into the technical details. Jedao wasn’t a medic, but he didn’t miss the fact that no mention was made of, say, anesthesia. The victim had to be conscious for this.

The grid never used the word “victim” at all. Jedao wondered how many euphemisms deep this went.

He had a moment to make the decision. It was tempting to ask where the hell Kujen was while this went on, but he didn’t want to inadvertently attract Kujen’s attention. So instead he merely asked the grid one more question: “If I want to attend in person”—he was gambling that this wasn’t the oddest request a stray general had ever made—“where would I go?”

Obligingly, the grid provided a map. Jedao had the uncanny feeling that it approved. That, or whoever had programmed it wanted to encourage observance of remembrances.

Four guards stood outside the door. The one in charge was a stolid corporal who had not, strictly speaking, shaved as well as he should have. Jedao opted not to dress him down about the matter, especially since the corporal looked like he’d piss himself if Jedao raised his voice.

“Sir,” the corporal said waveringly, “you can’t be recovered yet.”

That wasn’t an outright You can’t leave , so he was ahead. “I wish to attend the remembrance ceremony.”

The corporal’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened, then closed. If not for Jedao’s certainty that someone was being burned alive right now , the effect would have been funny. Jedao guessed that he had chanced on the one request that the corporal couldn’t turn down.

“I suppose that’s all right, sir,” the corporal said. “We’ll escort you.”

“Of course,” Jedao said. Don’t smile.

“You’ll want to be in full formal, sir,” the corporal said, even more waveringly.

If he’d still been at Shuos Academy, Jedao would have cracked a joke to lighten the mood. He didn’t think that would help here. He merely nodded and set his uniform to full formal. “Ready,” he said.

The first surprise, once they exited not-Medical, was the view. Someone had set up the hallway so the walls imaged what he guessed was Isteia 3 and its moons. He couldn’t help slowing to gawk at it, his first good view of a planet with its marbled swirls of cloud and ocean and dark land masses. Clusters of lights shone faintly from the moons, which must be cities.

Even more impressive, and not in a good way, were the ruins of a station: Isteia Mothyard. Jedao knew from the intel reports what it had once looked like, an immense cylinder sporting numerous blisters for the young voidmoth hatcheries. His people had reduced it to a shatter-scatter of metal fragments and scorched shards. He had the awful suspicion that whoever had decided to image this particular spectacle had done so the way you might put up a trophy.

Did anyone survive? he asked.

The Revenant didn’t answer. Nor did anyone else. He could only assume that any mothlings had perished in the carnage. For the first time, he wondered if any of them would have been old enough to talk to him. Not that he would have blamed them for declining.

It didn’t take them long to reach the remembrance hall. He’d never given it much thought back when Kujen had first presented him with the Revenant ’s blueprints. Of all the things to forget.

Even if he’d forgotten, he should have asked earlier.

“I’ve never been here before,” Jedao said to his escort.

The corporal coughed, cleared his throat. “It’s only expanded for use when we’re docked.”

Yes, of course. He remembered the relevant section of the Kel code of conduct now. Personnel on warmoths in transit were exempt, not least because the fussy local calibrations were too much of a pain in the ass. And possibly also because carting around heretics to torture was, as the code said, logistically inconvenient . He wondered now how many euphemisms were hidden in the code.

The remembrance hall had several doors, each marked with the Vidona stingray in bronze against metallic green. Even from the other side of the doors, he could smell the incense. The sandalwood blend should have been soothing. Instead, Jedao thought of what the grid had told him. Setting their blood on fire.

For once, heads didn’t turn as he entered the remembrance hall. The Kel within were in full formal, seconded officers in their factions’ equivalent. Everyone’s attention was intent on the Vidona official and her victim.

The “heretic” was laid out on a dais. It was a Kel soldier. One of Inesser’s soldiers, to be specific. The black-and-gold uniform was almost the same, but had, in addition, an armband with a golden kestrel stooping to catch its prey. By some miracle, the fires did not blot out the kestrel; instead, they made it shine more brightly. It was, by some measure, the brightest thing in the hall.

Inside, the everywhere incense was not quite strong enough to drown out the distinctive reek of roasted flesh and what must be the particular smell of burnt fabric.