"My friend--the one I told you about--will be here soon," she says, her voice rough. "He wasn't far from here when I called."
She'd commandeered the nav deck for a while when the patrol ship first picked us up, saying she needed to make a call to an old friend, one she grew up with. Ast was his name. She said she could use someone's help, someone who wasn't tied to the Assembly or Thuvhe or Shotet. Ast was "brim spawn," as some people liked to call it, born out on some broken moon beyond the currentstream barrier.
"I'm glad," I say.
I try one of my favorite feelings on her now, to calm her--water, which is odd, since I don't know much about water, having grown up on an ice planet. But there was a hot spring in the basement of the temple in Hessa, to enhance the visions of the oracle, and Mom had taken me there once to learn to tread water. It was dark as a tomb down there, but the hot water had surrounded me, all soft, like silk, only heavier. I let that heavy silk fold around Isae now, watch that tension in her shoulders ebb away. I'm learning her, slowly, and it's easier, now that we're not on that little Shotet ship anymore.
"He was the mechanic's son, on the ship where I was raised," she says, rubbing her eyes with the back of a hand. Her trade vessel was always adrift, never staying anywhere for long. The perfect place for someone who needed to stay hidden. "He was there, too, during the attack. He lost his father. Some of his friends, too."
"What does he do now? Still a mechanic?"
"Yeah," she says. "He was just finishing up a job on a fueling station near here, though. Good timing."
Maybe it's the idea that she needs somebody else, even though I'm here, or maybe it's just plain jealousy, but I don't feel good about Ast. And I don't know what he'll make of me.
It's like thinking about him summons him, because the door buzzes right then. When Isae opens it, there's an Assembly-type standing right there, his eyes sliding down her bare legs. Behind him is a broad-shouldered man holding two big canvas bags. He puts the side of his hand against the Assembly man's shoulder, and what looks like a flying beetle whizzes out of his sleeve.
"Pazha!" Isae exclaims as the beetle lands on her outstretched hand. It's not a real bug--it's made of metal, and emits a constant clicking. It's a guide bot, meant to help the blind maneuver. Ast tilts his head toward it, following the sound, and drops his bags just inside the doorway. Isae, with the beetle perched on her knuckles, throws her arms around him.
Her currentgift is tied to memory--she can't take a person's memories, the way Ryzek could, but she can see their memories. Sometimes she sees them even when she doesn't want to. So I understand when she tucks her nose into his shoulder, taking a sniff of him. She told me once that because smells are so tied to memory, they're special to her; they turn the tide of memory she sees when she touches somebody into a little trickle. Controlled, for once.
It's not until Ast blinks that I notice his eyes. His irises are ringed with pale green light, and his pupils are circled with white. They're mechanical implants. They only move by shifting, incremental. I know they likely don't show him much--enough to help him, maybe, but they're just supplements, like the beetle Isae called Pazha.
"Nice new tech," Isae says to him.
"Yeah, they're the new fashion in Othyr," he drawls in a brim lilt. "Everybody who's anybody is cutting out their eyes with butter knives and replacing them with tech."
"Always with the sarcasm," Isae says. "Do they actually help?"
"Some. Depends on the light." Ast shrugs. "Seems like a nice setup in here." He flicks his fingers, sending Pazha away from Isae's fist and into the room. It flies the perimeter of the room, whistling at each corner. "Big. Smells clean. Surprised you're not wearing a crown, Chancellor."
"Didn't go with my outfit," Isae says. "Come on, meet my friend Cisi."
The beetle is whizzing toward me now, turning fast circles around my head, shoulders, stomach, legs. I try to hear the clicking like he does, how it reveals the shape and size of me to him, but my ears aren't trained for it.
He's dressed in so many layers I don't know what piece of clothing is what. Does the hood belong to his jacket, or the sweatshirt under it? How many Tshirts is he wearing, two or three? There's a screwdriver at his hip where a knife ought to be.
"Ast," he says to me, in almost a grunt. He holds out his hand, waiting for me to step forward and take it, and I do.
"Cisi," I say. His skin is warm, and he has a good grip, not too tight. By instinct I pick a currentgift feeling for him--waves of warmth, like ripples in the air.
Most of my textures work for people who aren't in some kind of turmoil, at least a little, but the ones I like to use are the ones people don't detect. But judging by his little frown, he knows something isn't right.
"Whoa," he says to me. "What's that all about?"
"Oh, sorry," I say. "My currentgift is hard for me to control."
I always lie about that. Makes people less wary.
"Cisi is the daughter of the oracle of Thuvhe," Isae says.
"Sitting oracle," I correct automatically.
"There are different kinds?" Ast shrugs. "Didn't know that. We don't have oracles out there in the brim. Or fated nobility."
"Fated families aren't nobility on Thuvhe," I say. "Just unlucky."
"Unlucky." Ast raises his eyebrows. "I take it your fate doesn't meet with your approval?"
"No, it doesn't," I say softly.
He fusses at his lower lip. One of his fingernails is so bruised it looks painted.
"Sorry," he says after a beat. "Didn't mean to touch on a sore subject."
"It's fine."
It's not true, and I get the sense we both know that, but he doesn't press me.
Isae searches out her gown from the floor and pulls it over her shoulders, fastening it in front so the skirt is closed, though she doesn't bother with the dozen or so buttons that go up over her undershirt.
"You might have guessed that I didn't ask you here to bring me my old stuff," Isae says, folding her hands in front of her. She's switching into her formal speech, her chancellor posture. I can tell Ast notices something's different. He looks almost alarmed, his eyes twitching from side to side.
"I want to ask for your assistance. For a longer period," she says. "I don't know what you're doing, what you're leaving behind. But there aren't many people left I can trust--maybe just the people in this room, and--"
He puts up a hand to stop her.
"Quit it," he says. "Of course I'll stay. As long as you need."
"Really?"
He holds out his hand, and when she takes it, he shifts their grip, grasping her at the thumb, the way soldiers do. He brings their joined hands to his heart, like he's swearing an oath, but brim spawn don't swear oaths except by spitting, rumor has it.
"I'm sorry about your sister," he says. "I only met her once, I know, but I liked her."
It's beautiful, in its way. Straightforward and honest. I can tell why she likes him. I try another feeling, for him--an embrace of arms, locked around the chest. Firm but bracing.
"Now that's downright disconcerting, Cisi," he says. "No way to turn it off?"
"My brother's currentgift can, but I've never found anything else that does," I say. I've never met someone so aware of my gift before. I would ask him what his is, if that wasn't so impolite.
"Don't get so twitchy about it, Ast," Isae says. "Cisi's been helping me a lot."
"Well, good." He manages a small smile in my direction. "Isae's opinion about a person says a lot to me."
"It says a lot to me, too," I say. "I've heard a lot of stories about the ship you two grew up on."
"She probably told you it smelled like feet," he says.
"She did," I say. "But she also said it was charming in its way."
Isae reaches for my hand, sliding her fingers between mine.
"It's the three of us against the galaxy, now," she says. "Hope you're both ready."
"Don't be so dramatic," Ast says.
&nbs
p; She purses her lips, tightens her hand on mine, and says, quietly:
"I'm not."
CHAPTER 8: CISI
EVERY NOW AND THEN it hits me that most people don't make friends wherever they go. I do. Assembly Headquarters is like anywhere else--people just want to be heard, even if what they have to say is boring. And boy is it boring most of the time.
I get good information from it sometimes, though. The woman behind me in the cafeteria line that morning--piling synthetic eggs high on her plate and covering them with some kind of green sauce--tells me there's a greenhouse on the second level stocked with plants from all over the solar system, a different room for each planet. I inhale a bowl of cooked grains and head there as soon as I can. It's been such a long time since I saw a plant.
That's how I end up in the hallway just outside the room for Thuvhe. The corners of the windows are dusted with frost. I would need to put on protective gear to go in, so I stay just outside, crouched near the cluster of jealousies growing by the door. They're yellow and teardrop-shaped, but if you touch one at just the right time in its growth, it spits out a cloud of bright dust. Judging by the swollen bellies of these, they're just about ready to burst.
"You know, try as we might, we can't seem to grow hushflowers here," a voice says from behind me.
The man is old--deep lines frame his eyes and mouth--and bald, the top of his head shiny. He wears pale gray slacks, like all the Assembly staff do, and a thin gray sweater. His skin, too, looks almost pale gray, like he got caught downwind of the wrong field on Zold. If I think hard enough about it, I can probably figure out where he's from by the color of his eyes, which are lavender--the only remarkable thing about him, as far as I can tell.
"Really?" I say, straightening. "What happens when you try? They die?"
"No, they just don't bloom," he says. "It's as if they know where they are, and they save all their beauty for Thuvhe."
I smile. "That's a romantic thought."
"Too romantic for an old man like me, I know." His eyes sparkle a little. "You must be a Thuvhesit, to look so fondly at these plants."
"I am," I say. "My name is Cisi Kereseth."
I offer him my hand. His own is dry as an old bone.
"I'm not permitted to tell you my name, as it would hint at my origins," he says. "But I am the Assembly Leader, Miss Kereseth, and it is lovely to meet you."
My hand goes limp in his. The Assembly Leader? I am not used to thinking of the person with that title as a real person, with a creaky voice and a wry smile. When they are selected from a pool of candidates by the representatives of all the planets, they are stripped of name and origin, so as not to show any bias. They serve the solar system in its entirety, it's said.
"I'm sorry I didn't recognize you," I say. Something about the man makes me think he will like a subtle manifestation of my currentgift: the touch of a warm breeze. He smiles at me, and I think it must have worked on him, since he doesn't look like a man given to smiling.
"I am not offended," he says. "So you are the daughter of an oracle, then."
I nod. "The sitting oracle of Thuvhe, yes."
"And the sister of an oracle, too, if Eijeh Kereseth still lives," he says. "Yes, I've memorized all the oracle names, though I confess I had to use a few memory techniques. It's quite a long mnemonic device. I would share it with you if it didn't have a few vulgarities thrown in to keep it interesting."
I laugh.
"You have come here with Isae Benesit?" he says. "Captain Morel told me she had brought two friends with her on this visit."
"Yes. I was close with her sister, Ori," I say. "Orieve, I mean."
He makes a soft, sad sound, lips closed. "I am deeply sorry for your loss, then."
"Thank you," I say. For now I can push the grief aside. It's not something this man would be comfortable seeing, so it wouldn't show even if I wanted it to, thanks to my gift.
"You must be very angry," he says. "The Shotet have taken your father, your brothers, and now your friend?"
It's a strange thing to say. It assumes too much.
"It's not 'the Shotet' who did it," I say. "It was Ryzek Noavek."
"True." He focuses on the frosty windows again. "But I can't help but think that a people who allow themselves to be ruled by a tyrant such as Ryzek Noavek deserves to shoulder some of the blame for his behavior."
I want to disagree with him. Supporters of the Noaveks, sure, I can blame them. But the renegades, the exiles, the poor and sick and desperate people living in the neighborhood around that building we used as a safe house? They're just as victimized by Ryzek as I am. After visiting the country, I'm not sure I can even think of "the Shotet" as one thing anymore. They're too varied to be lumped together. It would be like saying that the daughter of a Hessan farmer and a soft-handed Shissa doctor are the same.
I want to disagree, but I can't. My tongue is stuck, my throat swollen with my stupid currentgift. So I just look passively at the Assembly Leader and wait for him to talk again.
"I am meeting with Miss Benesit later today," he says at last. "I hope that you will attend. She is a bit thorny at times, and I sense your presence would soothe her."
"That's one of the things I like about her," I say. "That she's 'thorny.'"
"I am sure in friendship it is an entertaining quality." He smiles. "But in political discussions, it is often an impediment to progress."
I give in to the instinct to step back from him.
"That depends on how you define 'progress,' I suppose," I say, keeping my tone light.
"I hope that we will agree on a definition by the day's end," he says. "I will leave you to look at the plants, Miss Kereseth. Do stop by the Tepessar area--it's too hot to go in, but you've never seen anything like those specimens, I promise you."
I nod, and he takes his leave.
I remember where I've seen those eyes before: in pictures of the intellectual elite on Kollande. They take some kind of medicine designed to keep someone awake for longer than usual without suffering fatigue, and light-eyed people's irises often turn purple from prolonged use. That he's from Kollande doesn't tell me much about him--I've never been there, though I know the planet is wealthy and not particularly concerned about its oracles. But those eyes do. He's someone who values advancement over his own safety or vanity. He's focused and smart. And he probably thinks he knows better than the rest of us.
I understand, now, what Isae meant when she said it was me, Ast, and her against the galaxy. It's not just the Shotet we're up against, it's the Assembly, too.
Ast, Isae, and I sit on one side of a polished glass table, and the Assembly Leader sits on the other. It's so clean that his water glass, and the pitcher next to it, almost look like they're floating. I rammed my legs against the edge when I sat down, because I wasn't sure where the table ended. If it's supposed to disarm me, it worked.
"Let us first talk through what happened in Shotet," the Assembly Leader says as he pours himself a glass of water.
We're in the outer ring of the Assembly ship, which is arranged in concentric circles. All the outer walls are made of glass that turns opaque when the ship rotates to face the sun, so nobody's corneas get burned. The walls to my left are opaque now, and the room is heating up, so there's a ring of sweat around my collar. Ast keeps pinching the front of his shirt and pulling it away from his body to keep it from sticking.
"I am sure the footage the sights provided is more than sufficient," Isae says, clipped.
She's wearing chancellor clothes: a heavy Thuvhesit dress, long-sleeved, buttoned up to her throat. Tight boots that made her grimace while she laced them. Her hair is pinned to the back of her head, and shines like she lacquered it there. If she's hot--which she must be, that dress is made for Thuvhe, not . . . this--she doesn't show it. Maybe that's why she put such a dense layer of powder on her skin before we left.
"I understand your reticence to discuss it," the Assembly Leader says. "Perhaps Miss Kereseth can give us a
summary instead? She was there, too, correct?"
Isae glances at me. I fold my hands in my lap and smile, remembering that the Assembly Leader's preferred texture was a warm breeze. That's how I need to be, too--all warm and casual, a layer of sweat you don't mind, a gust of air that almost tickles.
"Of course," I say. "Cyra Noavek challenged her brother Ryzek to a duel, and he accepted. But before either of them could hit each other, my brother Eijeh appeared--" I choke. I can't say the rest.
"Sorry," I say. "My currentgift isn't being cooperative."
"She can't always say what she wants to say," Isae clarifies. "Which is that Eijeh was holding a knife to my sister's throat. He killed her. The end."
"And Ryzek?"
"Also killed," Isae says, and for a tick I think she's going to tell him what she did on the ship, how she went into the storage room with a knife and teased a confession out of him and then stuck him with the blade like it was a stinger. But then she adds, "By his own sister, who then dragged the body aboard, I assume to keep it from being defiled by the mob that had erupted into chaos."
"And now, his body is . . . ?"
"Drifting through space, I assume," Isae says. "That is the preferred Shotet method of burial, no?"
"I don't familiarize myself with Shotet customs," the Assembly Leader says, leaning back in his chair. "Very well, that is all as I expected. As far as how the rest of the galaxy has responded . . . well, I have been fielding messages from the other leaders and representatives since your sister's death was broadcast. They have interpreted the killing as an act of war, and wish to know how we will proceed from here."
Isae laughs. It's the same bitter laugh she gave Ryzek before she cut him open.
"We?" she says. "Two seasons ago, I asked for support from the Assembly to declare war on Shotet in light of the killing of our falling oracle, and I was told that the 'civil dispute' between Shotet and Thuvhe, as you have termed it, is an intraplanetary matter. That I needed to handle it internally. And now you're wondering what we will be doing? There is no we, Assembly Leader."
The Assembly Leader looks to me, eyebrows raised. If he expects me to--what word did he use?--soothe her, he's going to be disappointed. I don't always get to control my currentgift, but I don't want to do something just because he says so. I'm not sure, yet, whether there's any advantage to Isae being soothed.