Юн Ли - Revenant Gun

“That thing can’t tell whether we’re supposed to be its father or its lover. But then, that’s exactly what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Kujen didn’t intend to let Mahar defy him like this. In particular, Jedao couldn’t be allowed to guess Mahar’s attitude toward him. “You were bound to grow a spine sooner or later,” Kujen said. “Your timing is impeccable.”

Mahar had regained control of himself and merely shrugged. “Everyone is entitled to the occasional exercise in futility,” he said. “You always win. When he speaks, I almost think you pulled it off. And then.”

“Well,” Kujen said, “perhaps you need a reminder. Just a little longer, and you’ll have your freedom.”

“There’s no such thing,” Mahar said bleakly. “You taught me that a long time ago.”

“Perhaps not,” Kujen said, unperturbed. “But you’ll have the next best thing, if you want it. Haven’t I kept the terms of the bargain?”

Mahar lowered his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered.

At fifteen, Roskoya Mahar had shown extraordinary promise as a Nirai candidate. Kujen had gotten to him first. Mahar’s younger brother was dying of a rare disorder. Serve me , Kujen said, and your brother will receive the best care to be found anywhere in the hexarchate. You yourself will enjoy every luxury. The price is that you will never meet him again.

One of the things Mahar excelled at, then as now, was mathematics. He did the math. He agreed.

What Kujen hadn’t been able to offer, at the time, was immortality. While he and Esfarel had invented the black cradle, once upon a time, Kel Command watched it too closely for him to shove anyone else into it. And besides, he enjoyed Mahar’s company too much to give it up.

“Come,” Kujen said, and took up the puppet strings again. In Mahar’s body, he walked into the inner sanctum where he kept the most precious of his experiments.

This room, unlike the others, was not made for luxury. Whatever Jedao might think of him, he did know how to get work done. The walls here were a soft warm gray, and the candlevines never dimmed.

Inside the room rested three caskets. The first one contained another Jedao, although its eyes were blank. Kujen would have preferred to have more backups, but there hadn’t been time. This one lacked scars, purely an aesthetic consideration. He hadn’t been able to resist tinkering with the face as well. Subtle changes, the kind of modding people got done for vanity’s sake while still remaining recognizable to those who knew them.

The second one contained a Mahar, or rather, Mahar as he had been as a young man. Mahar kept declining this particular honor, but that didn’t trouble Kujen. Even if Mahar insisted on a natural death instead of transference into an immortal body like the current Jedao’s, Kujen liked the idea of keeping his likeness around. He had grown fond of the man after their decades together.

The last casket contained a man with curly brown hair and milky skin and amber eyes, a dancer’s physique, a smile that had broken hearts. Kujen gazed at his own duplicate, the way he’d looked at nineteen when he’d graduated Nirai Academy. The eyes resembled Mahar’s, although that was pure coincidence. They weren’t related; he’d checked, unlikely as the prospect was. But the single point of similarity pleased him nonetheless.

Kujen relaxed his control so that Mahar could speak.

“I won’t be one of them,” Mahar said in a low voice. “It’s too much, Kujen. I appreciate the offer very much, but I’m not the one with a pressing need to live forever.” Ordinarily he would have needled Kujen about unreliable prototypes. Today he refrained.

“I’ll always be here if you change your mind,” Kujen said. “Time runs out for everyone, though. Don’t wait too long.”

Mahar was silent for a long time. Then: “When I come in here for maintenance,” he said, “I see them stirring sometimes. They’re dreaming.”

“Well, yes,” Kujen said, patient. “There has to be some minimum of brain function or they wouldn’t be suitable to be inhabited.”

Mahar sucked in his breath. “Don’t condescend to me,” he snapped.

“My apologies,” Kujen said. The other reason he’d kept Mahar around so long, when he ordinarily changed anchors every decade or so: Mahar was good enough at gate mechanics and moth engineering to make a useful research partner.

“I need time alone, Kujen.”

Kujen heard the strain in Mahar’s voice. “Of course,” he said. He could be silent until Mahar regained his composure.

Mahar turned to the caskets. He avoided looking at his own, but he contemplated the extra Jedao with a mixture of pity and revulsion for a long time.

THE LAST THING Inesser remembered of Isteia was the evacuation. She hadn’t been conscious for the last of it, not after the hit that had taken out the command center of the Three Kestrels Three Suns . The medic had told her that she’d been lucky. Inesser had experienced enough battles to understand that no body parts missing was, in fact, lucky, despite the fact that she felt like one giant bruise made of multiple component bruises and she’d somehow broken her ankle.

At the moment, she was clutching a cross-stitch frame and what would, in theory, become a fetching stitchery depicting a folding fan. The only reason it had survived, frivolous item that it was, was that she hadn’t brought it with her onto the command moth. She’d brought it with her onto Isteia Station to give her hands something to do in case there was a moment of leisure, and left it behind by accident. When evacuating the station, Brezan’s people had thoughtfully taken it with them. Brezan’s assistant had pressed it into her hand when she first woke.

Inesser was currently ensconced in her own room in Medical on Brezan’s personal transport, the bannermoth Unfettered Harmony . To her side, a glass of water rested on a table. She’d tried some of it. The water had tasted stale. She’d considered asking the grid for rice wine instead, but she knew how that exchange would go.

She needed to concentrate on the situation. Instead all she could think of was how difficult it would be to source another skein of Maple Red #5. Genuine hand-dyed variegated silk, certified Andan product from a planet in the Compact. Specifically, hand-dyed variegated silk that was tuned to change color with the seasons on her own homeworld. Working with seasonal silks was a pain in the ass, especially getting the colors to coordinate year-round without having them change inconveniently on any proscribed remembrances. But the results were worth it.

“Protector-General.” Miuzan cleared her throat as she came in. She held a slate tucked under her left arm; her right was in a sling. “Are you ready for the meeting, or should I put it off?”

Inesser forced herself to pay attention. “Where?”

“They’re coming to you.” Miuzan smiled grimly. “My little brother may be strutting around in a jumped-up fancy uniform, but he’s not completely unreasonable.”

Inesser refrained from mentioning that if Brezan’s position was anything like hers, he wore the “jumped-up fancy uniform” because some protocol expert had thought it would serve for impressing the masses. While he hadn’t looked uncomfortable in it, precisely, he also hadn’t looked as though it brought him any particular pleasure. “Bring them in,” she said. “And Miuzan—”

Miuzan tensed at the sound of her name.

“Whatever he’s done,” Inesser said, “he’s still family. You have a chance to talk to him.”