Captive's War 1: The Mercy of Gods

Thirty-One

Rickar shifted onto his side. Dennia’s bed was the same size and shape as his own, the mattress the same thickness and texture. It was only that there were two of them that made it feel different. Exotic. Dangerous.

Dennia had been a technical specialist working with the high-precision lasers that the near-field visualization technology used. An engineer, not a researcher, but a critical member of the team all the same. She had a mole on the back of her neck and scars on her legs that she wouldn’t talk about. She had a husband and a son back on Anjiin. Maybe she did. She didn’t know if they were alive or dead. She didn’t know if she would ever see them again.

Rickar ran his thumb over her temple. Her pale brown hair was darkened now with sweat. Her eyes matched the color of her damp hair.

“That was lovely,” he said. And when she chuckled, “I mean, I hope it was. Was for me. Is there something I should be doing right now? Because if there’s some finish work that needs attention—”

The chuckle turned into a sigh. “That’s very thoughtful of you. I’m fine.”

It had been a very long time since he’d felt this kind of release. He felt a little intoxicated with it, relaxed and warm and loose in the joints. Dennia stretched, the same slow, easy movement as a cat in sunlight. Rickar reminded himself that this was a bad moment to decide whether he was in love. Better just to enjoy it and let the future take care of itself.

“I do have work,” she said. “We should probably…”

He kissed her again, once on the mouth. Once not. Then again. She caught her breath, shuddered, and pushed him gently away.

“That won’t help me work.”

“True,” he said.

They dressed. Rickar felt the lack of an in-room shower. Next time, perhaps, she could make her way to his quarters. They could sit by the window afterward and watch the sky.

Jellit and Merrol were at their kitchen as Rickar saw himself out. They ignored him, but not coldly. In a world without privacy, etiquette had to suffice.

The walk between the two workgroups’ quarters was growing as familiar as a commute. The wide, low plaza where groups of vaguely avian aliens gathered in a complex flock. The long, red-lit hallway with galleries leading off that smelled of mushrooms and peat. The well-known ramps. The curling halls that passed around the cathedral and the laboratory alcoves, of which they now owned—or at least had use of—two.

Rickar was astounded, as he walked, by how good he felt. How light the burdens of the world were in that moment. He was hungry. He was pleased. He could imagine himself feeling just the same while sitting in a street café outside Dyan Academy and watching the aurora.

The revelation was so obvious now that he’d had it. Even in prison, people indulged in affairs or fell in love. Even in prison, he could be surprised by moments of unexpected beauty. Life in captivity was still life. Unless and until he was thrown in total isolation, there would be the chance to make a human connection. He had food. He had shelter. He had work. He had a ration of joy and pleasure. There was no reason to think he would keep them, but he had them now.

His life hadn’t ended. Yes, he’d been hurt, displaced, traumatized. He wasn’t safe, and likely never would be. But he wasn’t killed. And life—even the joyful part that he would have thought was the first to wither and the last to return—was still there. People sang songs in death camps, and that wasn’t a comfort until you were in a death camp yourself.

As he turned the last corner, he saw Synnia. She was sitting alone, her back against the wall, across from the wide door. He walked toward her, slowing as he came close. Her legs were crossed under her, her hands folded in her lap. The lines in her skin seemed deeper than they had back on Anjiin, or even in those first days after they’d arrived when she’d been his only companion during the exile that Tonner had imposed on him.

She didn’t acknowledge him as he sat beside her. He shifted his weight, finding a good position. They’d spent days sitting beside each other before. The silence between them was comfortable and well practiced. He relaxed into it. His mind had wandered onto old memories of a lecturer he’d had early in his career who had broken up his classes with jokes and political commentary, when Synnia spoke. Her voice was calm and matter-of-fact.

“I don’t know how old I am. I know how old I was the night they came. I know how old I was when they killed Nöl. But how long ago was that? I must have had a birthday since then. Maybe two. Three? I don’t know. I’ve lost track.”

“I think we all have. No watches, no calendars. No days, not the way we’re used to them. The time in our spaceship cell coming over. That had to have been weeks, but I don’t think it was months.” He thought back to the dim half-world. The thinness of the people who had come out of it, himself included. The beards. The rags that had been clothing. Had it only been weeks? He wasn’t sure now.

“I tried to move past it.”

“It?”

“Nöl. I won’t help the Carryx. I won’t ever do what they tell me to do, but when we found out Jessyn was in trouble I thought maybe it would be all right. I could stand to help with the work if it was really for her. For one of us. But I hate them. I just hate them so much. I can’t get past it. I can’t get over it. I’m scared all the time, and I miss Nöl, and I’m only angry now. Everything that isn’t fear or anger is gone away.” She puffed her cheeks and blew out, like she was scattering dandelion seeds on the wind.

“Is that why you’re sitting in the hallway?”

“Tonner was talking with Jessyn about making food for the mock turtle. He’s still doing what they want him to, and I couldn’t listen to it anymore. Not right now. I didn’t want to be in that cell of a bedroom, and I wanted to be alone.”

“Ah,” Rickar said. “Well, I screwed that up for you.”

“It’s not the same with you. We were exiles together. You’re the one I can be alone with.”

He took her hand. For a while, they sat together.

Jellit had just returned from a meeting with Skinnerling and Kos, the two engineers who were in charge of manufacturing more guns. The conversation had to be clandestine because the head of the engineering workgroup had made it very clear that she didn’t want anything to do with Ostencour’s plan. She’d been in the transit with Ostencour and Jessyn, and a friend of hers had died in Ostencour’s first attempt. Her emotions had the best of her, and she wasn’t to be trusted. There were a lot of people who weren’t to be trusted.

Dafyd Alkhor, for instance.

Jessyn’s friend was waiting for him outside the quarters, trying to look casual and failing. In the time since they’d appeared on his doorstep, he’d started wondering if bringing Tonner Freis’s workgroup into the plan had been a good idea. Maybe he’d been wrong to vouch for them. It was just that he remembered them fondly from their old lives. And they’d taken care of Jessyn when he couldn’t. He’d let his emotions get the best of him too.

“Hey,” Jellit said.

“Good to see you,” the research assistant said. “I was wondering… This feels weird, but is there someplace we could talk?”

Synnia had warned that this might happen. Dafyd had been opposed to the revolt in transit. Had gone so far as to insert himself in the attack and been made sick for his troubles. The older woman expected that he’d want to put the brakes on the plan now as well. And, unless Jellit missed his guess, here were the brakes.

“Sure,” Jellit said. “Come on in.”

The truth was, he’d liked Jessyn’s workgroup. Been grateful to them, even. The presence of other people in his sister’s life, of work that she could feel pride in and be celebrated for… It had been a relief. Dafyd had been in the background: a pleasant, deferential man who’d brought coffee and pastries. The one who stayed behind to make sure the lab equipment was cleaned and dusted. There had been some connection to a rich family in the administration, but Jellit hadn’t paid much attention to that.

Abduction and imprisonment had been rough on the assistant. Had been rough on them all, Jellit included.

Merrol was standing guard, and she nodded at Dafyd as they came in.

“I can take over,” Jellit said. She knew him well enough to read all the nuances of the words.

“You’re up,” she said, and he knew her well enough to know that he and Dafyd were welcome to their privacy for the moment, but that she’d want a full report when he was gone.

She left the gun and went to the ladder, hauling herself up to the second level and the bedrooms. Jellit sat where she’d been. “What’s on your mind?”

“I just… I’ve been thinking? About your joint project?”

“I know the one,” Jellit said.

“I wanted to ask if, just hypothetically, if you found a good reason not to go through with it… or even just to go slower? Put it off for a while? Would that be possible?”

Jellit crossed his arms and leaned back on the stool. “I don’t know what that would be.”

Dafyd shifted, something like chagrin passing over him. “Fair point.”

“Let’s try this again,” Jellit said. “What’s on your mind?”

The tension in the air changed. “I’m worried about your sister.”

Jellit’s jaw tightened. Dafyd had no idea how wrong a tack he’d just taken, and Jellit didn’t feel any need to lift him out of his hole. “Tell me about that.”

“I was with her on the trip over. I saw her here when she was struggling, and when she got hurt in the attack. She didn’t talk much about how badly she missed you, how much not having you in her life hurt her, but I think it was hard. I think losing you made everything else she was going through worse. And I don’t want her to lose you again.”

“Lose me by…?”

“Fine. I’ll speak plainly. I don’t want her to go through the things she’d feel watching the Carryx kill you. And if that plan goes forward, you and everyone else involved with it being executed is the best case. That’s what I’m saying.”

“All right,” Jellit said.

“All right?”

“I hear you. You’re here to see if I’m really committed to the plan. If I’d reconsider. Maybe step back from it for Jessyn’s sake.”

“Yeah. Yes, that’s right.”

“I can help you with that,” Jellit said. “I’m committed. I’m all the way in. Deep as anyone can get, that’s how much I’m part of it. I watched these things kill people I know. My world was taken. My life was broken, and everyone else’s too. The plan where I just sit here like a good pet and try to make them happy? I’d rather die. I’d rather have Jessyn die. I’d rather have all of us die than live on our bellies, licking Carryx shit. Does that clear things up for you?”

Jellit hadn’t meant to stand up and start shouting, but he also hadn’t meant not to. It was done, and he didn’t regret it. He sat back down.

“What happened to you?” Dafyd asked, his voice small.

“A lot,” Jellit said. “Enough.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“I’m playing the hand I was dealt. Same as everyone else.” The same as you only you’re trying to make nice with the fuckers who put their boots on your neck. He didn’t say the last part, but the implication hung in the air like a bad smell.

“All right,” Dafyd said. And then, more to himself, “All right.”

He didn’t say goodbye, just lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave and made his way out the door. Jellit took a deep, slow breath. Then another. The tightness in his chest, the warmth of the rage. He knew they weren’t about the research assistant. Dafyd was just a little, frightened man, scared of rocking the boat because of what it might mean for him. Most people were cowards. Being angry about that was like being angry at time for passing.

Still, he wished Jessyn and Synnia hadn’t taken the weapons proposal to their whole group. However loyal they felt to Tonner’s team, discretion would have been a better plan. It was maybe an hour before Merrol came back down the ladder. She’d showered, and her hair was a long, damp braid. She didn’t speak, only nodded at the door that Dafyd Alkhor had left through. Jellit understood what she meant.

“He may be a problem,” he said.

Merrol considered for a moment, then nodded at the gun. Jellit understood that too.

Alarm courses through the swarm’s consciousness. It does this constantly now, each worry giving rise to greater worries in a spiral that rises forever. The others that are a part of its mind match the patterns of its distress, making analogies and connections the way that their minds evolved to do. Else recalls a time when she was young and sleeping overnight in the wilderness with her family. She woke in a cold morning, and neglected to check her boot. The animal that had taken shelter there had come boiling out just as she was about to press her sock-covered toes down into that darkness. The sense of discovering a threat at the last moment feels familiar.

As it searched for a transmission route, danger had been growing all around it, unseen. Humans linking to each other like roots of a bad weed, and it hadn’t known. If Jessyn had not led the attack on the Night Drinkers, if Dafyd had not used the translation device to find the others, if and if and if. The swarm sees all the ways its mission might have failed. All the ways it still might.

The echo of Ameer Kindred, dead now for so long her body has surely returned to the soil of her distant homeworld, remembers being caught on a malfunctioning transport. The edge of the road speeding by her too fast. Her powerlessness at seeing the drop-off and knowing that her mortal danger was both a fact and utterly beyond her control. They are all hostages to chance and the will of others now. The parts of the swarm that benefit from sleep cannot rest, and fatigue toxins exacerbate the host’s endless swirling anxiety.

If it fails, much more than Anjiin will be lost, but all its memories are of that world. Of that sacrifice. Else Yannin remembers the playground where she used to swing with her cousins. Ameer Kindred thinks of the scent of her mother’s lentil soup on a cold winter evening. The swarm has nothing of its own to call back. It takes these small pleasures and it mourns their passing. These are the things that are burned on the altar of war in the hope that prayer will bring peace.

Not peace. Victory.

The swarm is in its room, its door closed, but its skin is taut with sensor arrays, its eyes are altered to take in backscatter too subtle for the human tools to match. The walls, the floor, the ceiling—all of them are translucent to the spectrums and wavelengths where it keeps its attention. In the next room over, Campar is sleeping, a large hot lump in the center of the room’s cool space. Across the hallway, Tonner Freis, who was once its lover, paces, his muscles and mind a storm of impulses and energy. The fingers of his right hand flutter the way they sometimes do when he is lost in thought. It doesn’t know why he is agitated. Jessyn and Synnia in the main room are bare outlines, almost lost in the fog of solid matter. And Dafyd…

He should have been back by now, Else thinks. Ameer doesn’t disagree. The swarm feels her fear and the fears that fear inspires.

The wide door rolls to the side, and it rises from its bed, walks out into the hallway. Dafyd is exchanging pleasantries with Jessyn, but the swarm can smell the distress in his sweat.

Else, Synnia says. Are you all right?

Yes, fine.

Your eyes… Is there something…?

The swarm puts a hand to its face, rubs at the eyelids while it changes the sclera back to a more human whiteness, returns the irises to the color that Else’s had been. It is a stupid mistake. It shouldn’t have made it. And if it can make that mistake, what other mistakes is it making?

Ooh, it says. I guess I did have something in them. That feels weird. Dafyd, do you have a minute?

Sure, he says. They turn back. It hears the subvocal click of Synnia, but doesn’t know if the reaction is amusement or disapproval.

When they are alone, Dafyd sits on the edge of the bed, his hands in his lap. The distress is a shudder of static coming from his brain, a fast tapping like Tonner’s fingertips, an echo of the swarm’s own unease.

I don’t think I can do this, he says.

The swarm presses its fingers to its lips. It is a very human gesture.

Dafyd looks up into its eyes. His heart is beating fast. The anxiety in his expression is as painful as the fear has been. It hates that it is hurting him. It hates that it has to continue hurting him. This is so fucking wrong, the ghost of Ameer says. And I thought it was gross when you were just screwing him. The swarm ignores Ameer, and sits beside Dafyd on the bed. When he starts to move away, it takes his hand. He hesitates.

What happened, it asks.

I have to tell Jellit about the spy. He’s not going to let go of the plan unless he knows.

If we do, he’ll go to the librarian with you? He’ll keep it secret?

I don’t know. The swarm moves chemoreceptors to the edge of its skin, tasting the air between them. Dafyd’s uncertainty is like the flavor of tin.

What if he just sees it as another alien? the swarm asks. You’re not comfortable with it, and we’re us.

Dafyd starts to object. It can actually see his tongue move as the words form and then fail him. It sees the storm of activity across his brain as he struggles with his choice. The swarm sees him more deeply than Ameer or Else have ever seen their lovers, and it makes them both look. It forces them to understand him. When it kisses him this time, there is no conflict within it. No shame. No judgment. Even Ameer, who is not attracted to him, now feels the affection and the sorrow.

We can’t tell him, Dafyd says. We have to, and we can’t.

There are other problems, and he would know that if he stopped and considered. But all his feelings have become knotted around this one idea: that Jessyn will be crushed by her brother’s death, and Dafyd will be responsible. It’s not a rational position, and a rational argument cannot dislodge it. Not without time, and they have no time.

Is that the price? the swarm asks.

What?

If I promise you that Jellit will play along, will you go to the librarian? Say that Jellit came to you because he was afraid the others would know if he went himself. Say that he’ll share everything he knows, only he wants to be spared.

He won’t.

If I promise he will, will you go? Would that be enough?

Dafyd struggles. I know it’s the right thing to do. I know, but it’s so hard.

We can’t save everyone, it says. That was never an option. But we can save the people it is possible to save. We can do the best that we can do.

He is silent. Still. It can feel the turmoil in his brain and his body like it is sitting beside a fire. The sorrow like acid in his soul. Else’s heart aches for him. Even Ameer loves him a little in that moment.

All right, he says, and relief washes through the swarm. Relief and anticipation and grief. Dafyd kisses the back of its hand. Not a sexual gesture, but an intimate one. Would you lie to me about it?

Do you want me to?

No, I mean… The spy, it already stood by while millions of people died on Anjiin. We’re talking about feeding dozens more to the Carryx. Telling me a lie to make it happen… It’s not the worst thing you’ll have done, is it? Would you lie to me about this, if that’s what it took to convince me to do it?

Else Annalise Yannin’s heart breaks. Ameer feels her new affection for Dafyd growing a little. The swarm wonders if it may have misjudged how clearly he can see past the storms in his own heart. Dafyd Alkhor is an easy man to underestimate. That is part of why it loves him. Oh, you love him now? Ameer’s contempt is visceral. We do love him, Else answers for them both, sadly. Dafyd is staring into their eyes.

Would you lie to me?

If the swarm says no, he will recognize the falsehood.

Yes. I would, the swarm answers, but I won’t.

Dafyd thought there should have been a limit. The universe could only change so many times, could only reveal so many unexpected, inconceivable aspects of itself before he got used to it. It could only ask so much of him before he became strong enough to do what was required of him.

Outside the window, dawn threatened. It was one of the odd days that his physical schedule and the astronomic realities of the Carryx homeworld fell into sync. Soon, the librarian would be active and in its office. It wasn’t a long walk. He’d made it any number of times before this. It only felt like an overwhelming journey because of the context. Because of the conversation waiting for him at the end.

The grid that surrounded the world prison like a net holding a marble caught the light first. Then high clouds brightened, going from gray to pink and gold to a blinding white. Something dark moved in the sky. If they’d had a telescope, he’d have been able to see what it was. A ship or an animal or some alien artifact that didn’t fit his understanding of how things worked.

There is a plan among some of the humans to kill the Carryx. To kill you. Jellit asked me to come and warn you about a plan among the humans to kill you. Jellit wanted me to ask for your help.

A door opened in the hall. One of the bedrooms. Campar strolled out. He was wearing the same pants that the Carryx had given them since they’d come, but instead of a shirt, he had a towel slung across his shoulders.

“Good morning, young master Alkhor,” he said. “I don’t suppose the spirit has moved you to start brewing the sad pisswater that passes for tea these days?”

“What? Oh. No, sorry.”

“The burdens we suffer,” Campar said lightly as he found a pan and poured water into it. “A senior researcher such as myself forced to boil my own water. The indignity of it.”

A spike of rage flowed up through Dafyd, starting in his gut and rising up, thickening his chest and neck, clamping down his jaw. It was gone as quickly as it came.

In the kitchen, Campar made a small, interrogative grunt. Then, a moment later, “Is something the matter?”

“Every day I wake up knowing I might be killed and probably won’t even know why. And you’re always making a joke.”

Campar put a mug on the counter, then took another and lifted it toward Dafyd. Do you want some? Dafyd nodded as he stood.

“This is what I do instead of curl up on the floor weeping. I mean, except for the times when I curl up on the floor weeping. I think we all remember that. When I can’t make fun of it, I can’t do anything at all,” Campar said. “If you’d rather I didn’t talk right now…”

“Your constant joking is annoying and exhausting and I don’t want you to ever stop.”

“Mixing the message a bit.”

“I don’t want to lose you people,” Dafyd said. He hadn’t put the words to the feeling until he’d already spoken them. “You and Rickar. Jessyn. Synnia. Even Tonner. I don’t want to lose anything that I haven’t lost already.”

The water in the pan muttered. Campar took a tin of wilted greens from the cabinet. It clanked when he opened it.

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it,” he said. The humor was gone from his voice. “The first thing our captors took from us was all of our choices.”

Except that I still have one, Dafyd thought, and then felt the answering realization like a weight being placed on his back. Except that I really don’t.

Another door slammed open. Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Tonner Freis stormed into the main room. His hair was a gray halo, defying gravity in its wildness.

“Pen,” he said. His clothes looked like they’d been slept in. His eyes were bloodshot and angry. He snapped his fingers with impatience. “Pen. Pen!”

Dafyd scooped one of the metal styluses off the centrifuge along with a nub of gummy ink in a waxy wrapper. Tonner was at the little dining table, throwing paper aside. When Dafyd got close enough, Tonner snatched the pen and ink out of his hands and began scratching what looked like a molecular diagram onto a blank page. Campar met Dafyd’s eyes, and shrugged as he dropped half a tin of minty-smelling leaves into the boiling water.

“Do you need anything else?” Dafyd asked.

He might as well have been in another room. Tonner ripped the page aside, took a fresh sheet, and started drawing on it. Half a minute later, one diagram in either hand, Tonner marched to the window. He put one page over the other, pressing them against the glass so that the light of the rising sun shone through them, superimposing his diagrams over each other.

He let out a low, growling obscenity. When he turned to Dafyd and Campar, his face was a mixture of rage and triumph.

“I know how to feed the fucking turtle.”