Authors: Elizabeth Hand
“And the energumens?”
Agent Shi Pei avoided my eyes as she reached for her rice brandy. “They survived,” she said drily. “We received a transmission from them informing us of the death of the janissaries.”
“I see.”
I turned to stare out the window. Below us I could see small figures moving to and fro, a cluster of uniformed figures crawling over and beneath Kesef like so many yellow jackets. “Where are the Aviators assigned to Cisneros?”
“Most have been called into combat by the interim government at Vancouver. Captain Novus and two others remain, to provide me with some protection.”
“What of the other HORUS stations? Helena Aulis? MacArthur?”
Agent Shi Pei took a long sip of her brandy before replying. “We don’t know,” she said at last. “Or rather,
I
don’t know. Occasionally we receive word that someone—one of your Aviators, usually—has picked up some kind of strange transmission in flight. The talk is all of treachery, of overthrowing the Autocracy; but as far as we know here on Cisneros, the Autocracy has already been overthrown.”
“Who commands this elÿon fleet, then?”
“I do.”
“And who commands you?”
“No one.”
I looked back and caught Valeska Novus staring at me grimly. “No one?”
Agent Shi Pei shook her head. “As far as I know, this is the largest remaining fleet that has not been seized by rebel forces. The last relay I received from the Autocracy was in April. That was over two months ago. Since then there have been scattered relays—one from Jhabvala 6, another from the Vancouver bunkers. Oh, yes—and several transmissions that claim to be from the energumens on MacArthur. They say that they have overthrown HORUS and are launching an attack on Earth.” She coughed and took another sip of brandy.
“That is all?” I tried to keep my voice from betraying fear and rage. “An insurrection in the Autocracy, and you can speak of it so calmly? Why was nobody informed?”
Agent Shi Pei laughed shrilly, the marbled keek rolling wildly in its socket. “Who is there to inform? The HORUS colonies are in the hands of rebels. We have heard they have formed an Alliance throughout HORUS and the other stations; that they intend to bring this Alliance to Earth and declare war upon us. Some of my people think it has already begun. They hear things, they tell me—messages, rumors…”
Shi Pei snorted. “Rumors! New ones every day—stray radio transmissions, ’files sent from unidentified sources. Last month we even had a replicant arrive to tell us of an explosion at the Port Lavaca refinery—the replicant had no human escort, no point-of-origin program, nothing. In the middle of the night files appear in my bedroom with messages for me. The Autocracy is slain or scattered, HORUS is gone completely; HORUS has been retaken, the Autocracy is saved. What can I believe? The only thing I know for certain is that there was a coup on the Helena Aulis station. The energumens there rioted and murdered the entire station colony, and from ’files that were broadcast to neighboring stations, it appears that the victims were cannibalized. A single aviette escaped with Livia Marconi and her advisers aboard and landed at Vancouver three months ago, but I have heard nothing since then. And the city of Araboth is fallen, but you knew that.”
Suddenly Shi Pei’s face seemed immeasurably aged, as though the mere recitation of these horrors had been enough to exhaust her. She ran a hand across her forehead and sighed. “I’ve tried contacting my former superiors at the embassy at Kirliash in the Commonwealth, but so far there’s been no response. Two Aviators flew to the old capital, where you were last year; my last message from them was that the entire city was in revolt against the janissaries. There are other strange things, too. Six weeks ago I received a disturbing report from the Chief Architect at the Hotei station.”
She paused, ducking her head in the manner people of her country employed when embarrassed for another. “He said—well, he claimed to have seen that eidolon your people talk about.”
I frowned. “What thing is that?”
Agent Shi Pei flicked her fingers in distaste. “That millenial star, whatever you call it—”
“The Watcher in the Skies,” Captain Novus finished for her. “It was only a single report, Imperator, and a week later the Chief Architect went mad. Copper poisoning, we think.”
I shook my head impatiently. The Watcher in the Skies—another legendary apparition of the HORUS colonies. “Don’t tell me about phantoms. What else has gone wrong?”
Agent Shi Pei sighed. “Well, as for us—there hasn’t been a supply ship here at Cisneros in six months. It’s all I can do to keep my troops from defecting and joining the
fantômes,”
she ended bitterly. “There is justice in this, Imperator. Slaves always rebel; even geneslaves, it seems. With your education, you and the other Aviators should have known that.”
She spat the last words at me. I looked away, recalling the empty spaces between the stars where the HORUS stations should have been.
You should have known.
She was right, of course. If I had not been so driven by hatred and my need for vengeance in Araboth, I might have learned of this sooner. Only days sooner, but it might be that we had only days left. For a few minutes the room was quiet. I could hear Valeska Novus breathing, Agent Shi Pei prying the cork from another bottle of rice brandy. Nefertity remained motionless and silent, watching us with her calm eyes.
At last I said, “I wish to have an elÿon for myself and my server.”
Shi Pei’s hand shook as she poured another measure of brandy. She held the tiny cup up to me, then drank it in a gulp. Tears sprang into her one eye as she stared at me incredulously.
“An elÿon? After what I’ve told you? For what—yourself and a
taomatan
? A fembot?”
I nodded and she hooted, banging her fist on the arm of her chair. Angrily I clenched my right, human hand. I had long before decided that I would simply kill anyone who tried to stop me, but to my surprise Agent Shi Pei rose and took a few unsteady steps until she stood before me. She bowed, arms crossed in her country’s mark of obeisance, then made a clumsy gesture with her fingers meant to be the NASNA salute.
“Of course, Imperator! Did you think I would refuse? But who else is left to command me?”
For an instant I saw a cold glitter in her eye—a look I had seen before in the eyes of traitors, a shaft of betrayal and guilt that quivers where it cannot be dislodged. Agent Shi Pei noticed my expression and quickly looked away. “Though it is madness, I think, to travel to HORUS,” she added with a sullen frown.
“I intended to go before I knew of all this. But now it seems I waited too long.”
I stalked impatiently toward the window, turned to look back at her. “Have you ever heard of a replicant kept by the Autocracy in one of the stations? An unusual construct, very old, very finely made. It might resemble that—”
I pointed at Nefertity. Agent Shi Pei regarded the nemosyne wearily, and finally shook her head.
“Never. But that doesn’t mean anything, Imperator. They might have any number of such things up there—” She flapped her hands, indicating the ceiling. “I have never traveled to HORUS; besides, I am a rehabilitated war criminal. I would not be privy to such matters.”
I nodded curtly. “Of course. Very well: ready an elÿon for me.”
Agent Shi Pei’s mouth twisted into a cold smile. “Ah! but which one do you want? I would advise against the
Caesaria
—”
She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I knew her adjutant in his earlier life as a saboteur for the Commonwealth. He suffered from hallucinations
before
he was chosen for his present position.”
Behind me Valeska cleared her throat. “Perhaps you should prepare a formal request, Agent—”
Shi Pei made a rude sound and glared at the Aviator, her prosthetic eye rolling wildly. “Haven’t you been listening, Captain Novus? Who would I petition? He is an Imperator—surely he has wonderful reasons why he wants an elÿon. Who am I to stop an Aviator—even a
rasa
Aviator—from going to a second death?”
Her laughter rang harshly through the room, and suddenly I saw the rage behind that single amber eye. Probably she had been a high-ranking officer in the Commonwealth before she was taken as a prisoner of war, rehabilitated, and then sent here as a test of her new loyalties. That would account for the keek. It would also explain her drunkenness—alcohol and drugs impair the stability of the prosthetic monitors—and her casual acquiescence to my request for an airship. I felt a fleeting kinship with Agent Shi Pei, and when I spoke again, my voice was less cold.
“The construct I am looking for is called Metatron. I believe it might have been brought to Quirinus two hundred years ago.”
Captain Novus shook her head. “We lost contact with Quirinus last month, Imperator.”
“Plague!” Shi Pei cut in gleefully. “A traitor got on board, a psychobotanist supervising the disbursement of provisions. Strain 975,
irpex irradians,
introduced via a shipment of rice from Mudjangtang. According to the notice of death filed by the station computer, only the energumens survived.”
She tugged at a flap of her uniform and removed a long black cigarette, lit it, and smoked in staccato fashion. “Of course you and your consul would not have anything to worry about from plague,
Rasa
Imperator.”
Irpex irradians:
the radiant harrowing. One of the older microphages, dating to the Second Ascension. Even as the bodies of its victims succumbed to the quick wasting and dehydration of the disease, their minds grew more acute, seeing in the air subtle colors that have long been lost to the rest of us. In their last hours they rave ecstatically, of lights and angels and the thoughts of men darting like goldfinches through the air. Perhaps two solar days might pass between the plague’s inception and death. Survivors have described the smell of the corpses as being reminiscent of lilies. Not the worst of the plagues created by the Ascendants, except that without its serum antitoxin there was no survival rate whatsoever.
“I am moved by your concern, Agent Shi Pei,” I said coolly. “Perhaps now I could make use of your expertise in a matter of less importance—”
She tapped her cigarette ash onto the floor, her nostrils dilating so that the butterfly tattoo seemed to flutter. “Of course, Imperator.”
“Some months ago there was a research subject who escaped from the Human Engineering Laboratory, in the Northeastern United Provinces. Subject 117, a young girl named Wendy Wanders.”
Shi Pei frowned. “I have no jurisdiction over HEL. The Ascendant Governors—”
“She is no longer under HEL’s control, and according to what you have told me, there is some doubt as to whether there
are
any more Ascendant Governors. I want to find this girl. She escaped into the City of Trees and lived there for several months, disguised as a young man named Aidan. I was with her immediately before my death; I believe she is still alive. I want her found and brought to me.”
Agent Shi Pei and Valeska exchanged glances. Finally Valeska said, “That City was retaken by Ascendant janissaries in January, Imperator. As Agent Shi Pei told you, there has been some trouble, and it has been necessary to use viral weapons to restrain the rebels there. As far as I know, any survivors of the original invasion were detained as a recreational labor force by the new governing body there.”
I smiled grimly at the thought of Subject 117 drafted as a prostitute by the Ascendants. “Then it should not be difficult to trace her.”
“If
she survived.” Shi Pei tossed her cigarette across the room. It struck the window in a burst of sparks and dropped to the floor. “And
if
I can reestablish contact with the City.”
“She survived. I’m sure of it.”
Shi Pei raised her eyebrows. “And what does the Aviator Imperator want with this young girl? I assume the obvious reasons no longer apply to a
rasa.
”
I crossed to the window and ground out the smoldering cigarette beneath my boot, gazed down upon the smoky yellow lights and softly swirling mist. “She was an empath engineered as a terrorist, a suicide trigger. When I last saw her, she was somewhat confused—it appeared her empathic abilities had been impaired, by grief or stress. I may have a use for her in spite of that. If what you say is true—if there is a geneslave Alliance planning war against us—then we may need humans like her fighting with us. Wendy Wanders. Find her for me.”
I continued to stare out the window. Behind me I heard a click as Shi Pei withdrew a vocoder and repeated the name. “Anything else, Imperator? Requests for aid from the Emirate’s fleet? Messages for the dead in Elysium?”
“I’d like to see a roster of the elÿon in port. We’ll leave immediately.” I turned in time to see Valeska looking anxiously at the nemosyne. “My server won’t need clearance, Captain Novus. You may accompany us to the elÿon and vouch that we are not allied with the rebel forces. Agent Shi Pei, I trust you will carry on your duties here until you are relieved of them.”
I glimpsed Agent Shi Pei’s bitter smile as I strode toward the door. She followed, stooping to pick up a heavy book with marbled cover. She flipped through it, marked a page with a bit of torn paper, and handed it to me.
“Here—I think this is the current list. Remember about the
Caesaria.
” She made a mocking bow as Nefertity and I passed.
In the doorway I paused. I reached out and rested my metal hand upon Shi Pei’s shoulder. The derisive lines faded from her face; her brown eye rolled nervously, then blinked closed as I squeezed her. A moment later she cried out, buckling beneath my grip. When I let her go, she staggered against the wall. Valeska stared openmouthed, her Aviator’s composure shaken.
“The empath. I will be expecting to hear from you within one solar week, Agent Shi Pei.” Without another word I tramped down the stairwell.
The book Shi Pei had given me was heavy, with creamy thick pages and gilt edging, its covers an expensive swirl of violet and blue and yellow. Rather an archaic means for a Commanding Agent to track the comings and goings of an Ascendant staging area; but inside I found a meticulous record of just that, page after page of transport duties, arrival times and departures and ports of call, with the names of the various elÿon transcribed in an elegant hand whose delicate characters resembled ideograms more than our Arabic alphabet. The violet ink made the tiny figures difficult to read at first, but eventually I puzzled it out—