“We used—Hack’s systems?” I asked.
I didn’t realize I’d spoken until Oja said, “Yes. He hacked into your spy beetle and helped me disconnect you from the bot so you could rejoin the Link here.”
I dreaded my next question. “And Oblivion?”
“We deleted it,” Dyhianna said flatly. It’s gone. Dead.
“And—the others?” It felt like gravel filled my voice.
“The Uzan is in Izu Yaxlan,” Oja said. “He is fine. So is Nazam. He’s still coming out of the link.”
Dyhianna spoke more gently. “Calaj died with Oblivion.”
After all that had happened, I suspected Calaj had been glad to let go. “She can rest now.”
“We almost lost you, too,” Dyhianna added.
I grimaced. “I couldn’t handle the link.”
Oja watched me with concern. “You suffered tonic-clonic convulsions, back to back. It’s called convulsive status epilepticus. You were on the verge of dying for nearly twenty minutes.”
“Don’t sugar coat the news, eh?” I almost managed a smile. Almost.
“You are strong, Major.”
“I’m an ornery old soldier,” I muttered. “With rocks for a brain.” I pulled at my exoskeleton again, and this time it released.
He laid a restraining hand on my arm. “Don’t move too fast.”
I sat forward slowly. Dyhianna was in the Triad Chair, watching me, her long hair straggling around her face, huge shadows under her eyes. Damn. She managed to be beautiful even when she looked like hell. There ought to be some sort of cosmic law against that. Beyond her, Nazam was sitting back while another Abaj monitored the control panels by his chair.
“How long—?” I asked.
“We were in the chairs for about a day,” Dyhianna said.
In some ways it had seemed only a few minutes; in others, it felt like forever. All I knew was that I couldn’t sit here any longer. I stood up, then swayed and grabbed the arm of my chair.
“Major Bhaajan, you should sit down,” Oja said.
No. I wanted to see the sun, to convince myself this was real. “I need—outside.”
“That’s not a good idea.” Oja continued to look worried, not a good sign given how little emotion the Abaj usually showed.
“Let her go,” Dyhianna said.
He glanced at the pharaoh, then nodded with reluctance.
I took a step. I didn’t fall, so I took another. And more. I reached the edge of the dais. I started down, then swayed and almost fell. Someone caught my elbow. I looked up to see Oja.
“Gently,” he said. “You’re in no condition to walk.”
“I need to get out.”
He looked back at the pharaoh. I looked too. She was sitting straighter in her chair, and Nazam was standing next to her now, his gaze tired and shadows under his eyes.
“Go with her, wherever she needs to go,” Dyhianna said.
The Abaj inclined his head to the pharaoh. Then he and I descended the dais.
Aged light surrounded me, slanting across the world from the sun, which hovered above the horizon. I stood next to the stairs that went up the outside of the temple. In places, they became so steep that they seemed more like a ladder. I didn’t care. I needed to go up, I didn’t know why, except that I wanted to be above the desert, and I’d be damned if I ever let stairs defeat me again.
“Major, you can’t,” Oja repeated. “These steps are not meant to be climbed.”
“I need to climb.” I started up, leaning forward to counter the steep slant of the stairs. Behind me, Oja swore under his breath.
I climbed.
It took forever. Several times I had to stop while my head swam. My foot slipped, and someone grabbed my ankle, steadying me. I looked back to see Oja on the stairs behind me. I resumed the climb, no longer thinking, just staring at the stone under my hands. Put one foot above the other, rest, repeat, over and over and over—
My hands slid across a flat surface.
I raised my head. I had reached the top of the pyramid, a flat area about twenty paces across. I crawled up the last bit and sat on the edge. Oja stayed on the stairs, watching me, probably waiting to see what I intended to do. Far below us, the desert spread out in every direction. Cries rose in the distance, its reflective towers turned gold by the setting sun.
The top of the pyramid was mostly empty, except for an open structure in the center that resembled a stone gazebo without a roof. A low table stood within it, sculpted to resemble Azu Bullom, his head lifted, his legs holding up the tabletop. I struggled to my feet and limped to the table. I didn’t sit on it, partly because it resembled an altar and I wasn’t feeling sacrilegious today, but also because I couldn’t stay up without support. I sat on the ground instead and leaned against a leg of the table, facing away from the sun.
And I sat. I thought of Dark Singer. Whatever genes had created the Abaj, Singer shared some of that DNA. Singer. Her name meant assassin. What origin did that title have in our collective memory? That thought required more energy than I had left. So I just stopped thinking.
Gradually I became more aware. The sun had sunk partway behind the horizon, but up here its light still shone. The Abaj was sitting up here now, by the stairs, watching me.
“How long have I been up here?” My voice had recovered enough that it carried across the few meters that separated us.
“About an hour,” he said. “You have a visitor.”
A visitor? That made no sense. No one could climb this temple without permission from the pharaoh, and I doubted she or her bodyguards wanted to come up here. “Who?”
He stood up and stepped aside as he motioned to someone. A moment later, a man came into view, climbing the last steps. He reached the top and stood up under the bronze sky, bathed in the light of the setting sun, lean and muscular, dressed in dark clothes with a knife sheathed on his belt. The wind whipped his ragged hair back from his face.
Jak.
“How?” I asked.
“A stranger contacted me.” He walked forward. “Said I needed to come here.”
“A stranger?”
“Yah.” He sat next to me.
Oja was descending the steps. He wouldn’t go farther down than needed to take him out of our sight, but this way he gave us some privacy.
I tried to focus on Jak. “This stranger got a name?”
His gaze never wavered. “Dehya.”
“Ah.” I tried to remember where I had heard that name.
“Also Dyhianna,” he added. “As in Pharaoh Dyhianna.”
“Oh.” My brain still didn’t want to work.
“Bhaaj, for flaming sake, react.”
I struggled to concentrate. “Why?”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
I answered in Iotic, I wasn’t sure why, except that I didn’t want to expose the Undercity dialect to this temple. It didn’t feel safe. “Yes, I heard. The Ruby Pharaoh of Skolian Imperialate. Dyhianna Selei Skolia. She’s the one who hired me to find the Jagernaut.”
He stared at me for a long time, while the shadows from the table stretched out toward the edge of the pyramid. Finally he said. “Gods.”
“Yah.” What had possessed me to climb up here? I was beyond depleted. I’d never make it back down under my own power.
Jak spoke Iotic, which my people understood better than most. Few of us realized that fact, let alone knew why, but I was beginning to see. Our ancestors had retreated to the aqueducts to protect their minds, yes, but that wasn’t the only reason. They had also become the guardians of Izu Yaxlan, and through the city, of humanity. Somewhere over the ages, we had lost that history.
“Did you find the Jagernaut?” Jak asked.
“Yes.” I spoke dully. “She’s dead.”
“So you caught your killer.”
I regarded him steadily. “Never call her a killer. She died defending the pharaoh.”
“Bhaaj, what happened? The aqueducts were goddam
ned singing.”
“We needed them.” I wished they could sing away the pain inside of me.
“What is it?” he asked. “What is tearing you apart?”
“I’m fine.” We had destroyed the threat to our people. Nothing else mattered.
“I know you. You’re not fine.”
I looked at him, really looked, past the crime boss to the man who made love to me in the night. “You deserve better.”
“Better than what?”
“Me.”
He snorted. “Maybe. Depends on my mood.”
“Not joking.”
“Bhaaj, what’s this about?”
I wanted to believe Oblivion had created false memories, but I knew the truth. The EI had torn away my defenses, yes, and turned the imprint of my mother’s death into memories I couldn’t have had as a newborn, but the imprint of the knowledge had always been there. “I felt her die.”
“Calaj?”
“My mother.”
Jak froze, going completely still. “What?”
“Our minds melded. I was an infant, I didn’t know, and she was too far gone to understand what was happening.” My voice cracked. “I died with her. My birth killed her.”
His voice quieted. “I’m sorry.”
No. He couldn’t say that. We never apologized. Admitting sorrow, regret, weakness, fear, any intense emotion, made you vulnerable, and vulnerability killed.
“You need to go,” I said.
He scowled at me. “After I wasted all that time climbing up here? I don’t think so.”
“Jak, I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Love.” Dying with my mother had burned it out of me.
“Who said anything about love?”
“It’s—I—go away.”
“That was articulate.”
“Why are you being so dense?”
He had that fierce look now, dark and implacable, with fury in his eyes, or some emotion, I didn’t know what, something too intense for me to understand.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Can’t you hear me? You need to go.”
His voice roughed. “You want to talk about love, Bhaaj? Is that it?”
“I want you to leave.” My voice was barely audible but I wanted to shout. He had to stop.
“You stop,” he told me. “And listen.”
I put up my hand. “Don’t.”
Jak took my hand and set it on my leg. He spoke in a low voice, his words husky and relentless. “I’ve loved you my entire life, since that moment we met, when you were an ornery three-year-old kid hanging onto Dig and glaring at the world. I never stopped and I never will.”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“Yah, well, that’s bullshit.”
It was a long time before I answered, and when I did, I spoke in our dialect. “Yah, so.”
He nodded, accepting my agreement with his last words, Undercity style. We could win a prize for the least romantic declarations of love in the history of the human race, but it didn’t matter. We knew what we meant.
Jak put his arms around me and I leaned against him. He was right; we had done this dance of love our entire lives. I had left Cries, running away, seeking a new life, and I’d found it, yet in the end I came home. No matter how much I evaded it, I knew the truth; I couldn’t live without the Undercity and I couldn’t live without Jak. We had grown up together, fought, played, worked, argued, laughed, and loved together since we were three years old. I had never acknowledged that need because to admit I needed him was to admit he could die, his mind melded with mine, and I couldn’t bear that pain, never again. But without the pain, we weren’t alive, and I wanted to live more than I wanted to escape.
XX
One Step
The Lake of Whispers was close to a miracle on Raylicon. The Majdas had created it at their palace, the only substantial body of fresh water on the surface of the planet. It spread out like a green mirror, reflecting the sky. Imported trees clustered around its shores, silky foliage hanging from their branches. Blossoms floated on the water, a wealth of lilies alien to Cries. Gods only knew how they pollinated flowers on a world without insects. Maybe that explained why they imported shimmerflies.
I sat on the shore with my trousers rolled up and water lapping over my toes. It felt sinful. This lake had no practical use; it existed solely to serve the pleasure of the Majdas.
Footsteps sounded behind me, and I turned to see Lavinda. She wore civilian clothes today, blue slacks and a white blouse that rippled in the breeze. She sat next to me, uncovered he feet, and slid her toes into the water. Such a simple gesture, so unlike the rigid, restrained Majdas I had thought I knew. Lavinda and her two sisters were different from what I had expected when we met. Back then, they all seemed the same, towering warrior queens, army officers who rarely smiled and who claimed power with the ease of those born to its advantages.
That image had some truth, but they had become more human to me in the past year. Although Corejida wielded her financial power with authority, she had a gentler personality than her sisters. Lavinda took to the army so easily, it seemed as natural as breathing to her, but she had a mental flexibility I never saw in her older sister Vaj, the General of the Pharaoh’s Army. In another universe, where rigid social classes didn’t separate us, Lavinda and I might have become friends.
“Did you get verification of the arrangement?” I asked.
“Yes, it is set.” Lavinda glanced at me. “You will tell the assassin and her family? Everyone is trusting you to bring them in.”
I nodded. “They’ve agreed. I’ll bring them tomorrow.”
“Good.”
The arrangement we’d settled on for Singer was fair. She received a prison sentence, fifteen years, but not at one of the asteroid penal colonies. They were sending her to the Red Sands Research Facility on the Diesha, a world similar to Raylicon in that its habitable regions were mostly desert. It had a day closer to human standard, however, and the terraforming had succeeded there, unlike its failure here, making that world better suited to human life.
The Imperialate had no single military headquarters; its command centers scattered across many worlds, making it impossible to deal a crippling blow to the military in one strike. Diesha was the largest node. HQ City in the desert served as the main center, but the army had built the Red Sands base in the mountains. Isolated by deliberate intent, it served as a detention center and also as a training center for Kyle operators.
In return for Singer’s agreement to let the army study her and to use her abilities in service to Imperial Space Command ISC for the next fifteen years, they would let her live in the Red Sands facility. She would have the freedom to go outdoors within a limited region, even join a tykado team. In return for Taz accepting the arrangement, they agreed to let him and Singer live together with their daughter. ISC expected them to sign a formal marriage contract, but I doubted they cared. They were young, with the flexibility to adapt to this new life. At the end of the fifteen years, if the arrangement succeeded, ISC might offer Singer a civilian job to continue her work.
Most important, it would give Singer surcease from the darkness she had never known how to escape, until it nearly warped her beyond recovery. In the end, her instinctual awareness of Oblivion had driven her to seek help. ISC would work with her to understand what she, a “singer” of the aqueducts, meant to Earth’s lost children.
After a while, I said, “You know, she can’t actually sing.”
Lavinda glanced at me. “The assassin?”
“Yes.” I winced. “She has a terrible voice.”
“Did she know when the aqueducts sang?”
“She felt it, even at my apartment.” I had spent most of the last day sleeping at the penthouse. The Abaj had called in a flyer to get me from the top of the temple, but I refused to go to the hospital. The pharaoh let me go to my apartment only if one of her bodyguards stayed. So while I slept, Oja watched
over me, also keeping an eye on Singer and her family. Jak stayed, too. During one of the periods when I stirred to eat, we talked about the aqueducts. “She didn’t call it singing. She said the aqueducts woke up.”
“I’ve gone over your statements again and again,” Lavinda said. “The more I read, the more I realize how little I know about the Undercity.”
Her and me both. “None of us do. Oblivion killed whoever brought our ancestors to Raylicon.”
“How can you know that?”
I’d thought about it a lot recently. “We have no proof, at least not yet. But both I and the Uzan picked up pieces of their history during the fight with Oblivion.”
She grimaced. “I just wish I knew what the hell woke up that EI.”
I hesitated. “Maybe all that Kyle testing you did with my people last year.”
“Why? Those tests are pretty low key.”
“It’s not the testing, exactly. It’s that we’re awakening, too.”
She considered me. “You believe the Undercity was designed as a defense against the EI.”
“In part.” I struggled to put into words ideas that were as much instinct as conscious thought. “The aqueducts are literally part of Izu Yaxlan’s mind. It was dormant. The singing helped it awake. It may become dormant again, now that Oblivion is gone. I don’t know.”
Lavinda frowned at me. “The EI at Izu Yaxlan hasn’t been dormant.”
“Hasn’t it? I mean, what does it do out there? Drowse in the desert.”
After a moment, she said, “The pharaoh has a theory.”
“About Izu Yaxlan?”
“About the aqueducts. She thinks their structure models the brains in the beings who brought us here.” More to herself than me, she added, “A greatly enlarged model, obviously.”
“Why obviously?”
She spoke dryly. “I hardly think an entity with a brain the size of the aqueducts would fit into those ships on the shores of the Vanished Sea.”