Элизабет Бир - Ancestral Night

I’ve never been as jealous of exoskeletons as I was when I saw Cheeirilaq’s space suit. It was just a film, adhering to the Goodlaw’s carapace and covering the oxygen-supplement tubes Cheeirilaq wore habitually in human-friendly environments anyway, though I assumed they were feeding it a richer mix now. It wore a combination oxygen tank and battery pack on its back between its wing coverts, and the shimmering gold threads of circuitry covering its intensely green body were thermal control. Since it didn’t breathe through its head, and since its lidless eyes were covered in a hard, transparent casing, it didn’t have a bulky helmet limiting its perception.

Damn, that was a convenient design, given planetary conditions that could support it.

Also, the filmsuit gave it an iridescent shimmer that was quite pretty, especially combined with the gold and the green.

“Message follows,” Singer said finally, and we all heaved a sigh of relief—those of us built to sigh, anyway. I turned and stared out the window. They were still coming. Visible progress: I could watch the flock of alien fighters or drones or limpet mines or whatever they were grow visibly, minute to minute, now.

Lots of time in space to appreciate what dire straits you’re in, unless you never even see what gets you.

“A change is as good as a rest,” Connla said, parting the sea of dark teal and slate gray Justice uniform suits.

I guess I probably should have found those suits… troubling, intimidating… anxiety-producing?… given the history I’d discovered with Justice. But I didn’t. Not now. Having consented to what they’d done made a difference.

Connla stood on my left. I kicked him in the ankle with the side of my afthand to let him know that I was grateful.

Singer waited a five count, then said, “Captain Farweather, we are requesting a truce.”

“ Captain? ” Connla leaned back.

“Whatever it takes.”

“We are requesting this truce for the purpose of discussing an alliance between you and our crew. We believe that our only effective means of dealing with an existential danger that threatens us all. We have half of the solution needed to communicate with and defuse the Koregoi countermeasures. We believe you are in possession of the other half.

“Again, we wish to offer you a truce and cooperation toward assuring our mutual survival.”

Connla bent his head toward my ear. “Do you think she’ll go for it?”

I shrugged. “She’s a narcissist. We’re appealing to her vanity.”

“Zanya Farweather,” Singer began again.

“Fuck me with a white coil,” Connla breathed.

Somewhere between seven and six thousand and twelve repetitions of the litany later, just as I was about to declare my terrible plan a failure and beg Singer to stop… the hatch cover on the main entry to Ops evaporated. I spun around, along with every constable in the place except Murtaugh, who was already facing that way and leaning on a crutch besides. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cheeirilaq freeze in what could only be a hunting posture.

The constables had their bolt prods out. Adrenaline thrilled up my nerves.

Connla didn’t twitch at all. He just kept staring out the observation port he stood framed against, tall and broad-shouldered and muscular, for a spacer, in his dusty blacks. Even if he wasn’t my type, I could see that the Spartacus gengineers were good.

Farweather stepped through the open portal. She was wearing better clothes than when I’d seen her last: something piratical in deep purple with flowing sleeves and a black waistcoat of some heavy, dully glossy material, playing to type—or stereotype. She looked better-fed, too. I guess she hadn’t been reduced to raiding the algae tanks to stay alive.

“Good dia, puppets of the hive mind,” she said pleasantly. “I understand you need to be rescued?”

“Come in.” I stepped back, opening a space for her. I waved at the constables to put their sticks away. Grrrs’s antennae quivered, but it holstered its weapon, pretty ostentatiously. Nobody likes it when their partner gets hurt.

The constables stepped back. Connla continued to stand where he was, feet apart, attention on the incoming storm of drones. They looked like flakes of mica, now. Like black, flashing octagonal mirrors; like solar panels slicing through the void. They looked like obsidian knives, reflecting their bloated red primary’s sullen gloom.

Our hull still resonated with their song. If they were intended to intimidate, it worked.

Farweather swaggered into the center of the circle. She had a weapon on her belt. Not the one I’d confiscated from her, but also a projectile weapon. I hoped she wasn’t noticing that I was wearing that one.

That must have been quite a cache—

Suddenly I knew where she’d hidden it. And herself.

Singer.

Busy .

I was so excited I didn’t think about how weird it was that an intelligence with as much processing power as Singer wasn’t feeling up to multitasking. I said, Right. But for later. Her cache is on the hull. It’s outside the damned ship. She never brought it inside.

I heard his exasperation. Oh, of course.

It was stupid and reckless. Sitting out there with the radiation and the micrometeors and Void knew what. Stupid and reckless.

Just the sort of thing Farweather would do.

Damn, I was really bad at thinking like a sophipath.

I stepped aside, ushering her toward the window. “You can see the problem.”

“That’s impressive,” she agreed. “You must be Connla Kuruscz.” She put her hands on her hips as she came up beside him. “Nice flying.”

He acknowledged her with a sidelong glance and a quirk of his mouth. I saw her react to the charm when he turned it on and surprised myself by feeling a little jealous, though I wasn’t sure of whom.

That was when Cheeirilaq, who had been lurking quietly in the corner, dropped a loop of webbing around her torso.

Or tried. Because I don’t know how she sensed it coming, but she did, and ducked and whirled. She had her weapon in her hand so fast I only saw a blur, and she had a bead on the Goodlaw and was pulling the trigger. I heard the huff of compressed air and felt the heaviness of the object leaving the barrel at the same moment—

I’m not sure what I did. How I reacted.

Everybody in the center of the deck hit it hard as I yanked the bullet down. I thought—I wanted—to slam it into the deck plates. Except the deck wasn’t plates and trajectories don’t work that way.

My ears popped hard as the bullet smashed through the exterior hull beneath Cheeirilaq’s web, and the song of the Koregoi drones was joined by the horrible, high-pitched wail of escaping atmosphere through a tiny hole.

“This again,” Connla said.

I had my stolen gun out and aimed at Farweather. There was nothing behind her but observation windows and the void and a glittering swarm of alien drones. The wind ruffled her hair. It tugged at mine.

She had just fired a projectile weapon inside a space vessel. I heard the shriek of decompression and did not think I could force myself to do the same. But I narrowed my eyes and tried to look like I would.

“Freeze,” I said. “You’re under arrest, Zanya Farweather.”

She grinned. “Oh, you can all burn in hell. No help from me.”

Singer broke in. “Fortunately, your help is not required. I am in communication with the Koregoi construct now.”

“Then it’s a good thing my reinforcements are here. Pity, this could have been the overture to a beautiful friendship.”

I gaped out the observation port. She wasn’t kidding. The drones swirled and broke, and beyond their swarm I could see the shimmer of something winking in out of white space.