Mother Death

6

Xo would never admit it, but he felt a genuine pity for Ravleen.

When the Sanchexes were disbanded, Ravleen was still the Baby, still living at home and largely unmodified. Ordinary life wouldn’t have been a wrenching change for her. Not like it was for her older, more talented siblings. Yet to be ordinary wasn’t an option. Ord had just vanished, taking Alice’s talents with him. The good Families were panicking. Even before the Sanchexes could officially surrender, a delegation of high-ranking Nuyens was dispatched, sweeping into the pyramid as if they owned it, pushing past hundreds of embittered souls. Xo wasn’t there, and for good reasons, no visual record was made. But the moment had acquired a legendary status inside his Family. From the stories told, he could imagine his brothers and sisters moving en masse. He could taste the vivid, bilious tensions swirling around them. And the tensions only grew when they reached the young woman’s quarters, entering after a cursory knock, and with a single booming voice, announcing, “We have come to ask for your help.”

Ravleen was a beautiful woman. Black hair and arching black eyes gave her a feral quality, and in those days she would amplify her looks with infections of benign, radiant bacteria. The Nuyens’ eternal curse was to feel lust for the Sanchexes, and fear, and despite the rank and power of her guests, Ravleen knew how to toy with those emotions. She sat on her bed, wearing only a sablecat robe, and using a single finger, she opened the robe, calmly fondling her left breast as she smiled, coldly amused, pointing out to them:

ЭYou don’t sound as if you’re asking.”

The Nuyens laughed. They sounded like men and women in perfect control, their little worries buried deep.

“Let me guess,” Ravleen continued. “This is about Ord, isn’t it? You think I can help you just because I grew up with him. Right?”

Sober faces nodded.

Every voice said, “Naturally.”

She stood suddenly, letting her robe slip and tumble to the floor. Brothers and sisters stared at her legs, at the strong full curve of her ass, and at that famous smile, winsome and predatory in the same bewitching moment.

“I’ve heard Xo’s helping you.” Telling it, she admitted to knowing at least one minor secret. “You’re grooming that turd. Feeding him advanced talents. Intellects. Propagandas. And he’ll be invulnerable to attack—”

“Any reasonable attack, yes.”

Ravleen scratched herself in one place, then another. Then she inquired, “So am I getting the same deal?”

They told her, “No.”

Then they laughed, perhaps trying too hard to seem in command.

“You’ll be given talents, but of a narrow sort,” they warned. Then they reminded her, “You’re just a Sanchex. You’ll be lucky to have one talent. Since, according to the new laws, we aren’t entitled to give you shit.”

She said nothing for a long while, black eyes fixed on her sablecat robe, watching as it crawled toward its burrow-closet.

Then she took a deep breath, and said, “All right. What do I get?”

The package included a Xo-type invulnerability. They explained that and her other powers, then cautioned there would be no added intellects, except for the instincts needed to control the talents. In essence, Ravleen would be a functioning moron, incapable of million-tongue language skills or nonhnear modeling or even the cherished ability to use private, intraFamily channels.

“That should keep me under control,” she observed.

The highest-ranking Nuyen agreed, then said, “And we’ll take other precautions. You’ll wear restraints until we choose to remove them. And even when your manacles aren’t in place, implants will ride inside your mind. Some will coax you into hating the Chamberlains, particularly Ord—”

“As if I need help,” she interrupted.

“And the other implants will be waiting for a word from us. Waiting to kill your very tiny, very fragile mind…!”

The young woman passed from a shameless tease to simply naked. Exposed, and painfully helpless.

She caught her robe and put it on again.

“Xo’s job is to reason with the boy,” said the Nuyens, “and if he doesn’t succeed—”

“I get to kill him.”

No one responded.

Quietly and soberly, Ravleen promised her audience, “I’ll do this thing for me. Not for you.”

Every Nuyen broke into a huge and honest smile.

“I could live a long time,” their new ally ventured, “waiting for a little vengeance.”

It was early evening when two figures slipped out of the forest. They wore archaic bodies and the simple magenta robes common to diplomats, and they moved with a steady purpose, their talents following after them—Xo’s intellects meant to appeal to the boy-god’s better nature, and Ravleen’s weapons still in their manacles, but straining, eager for the chance to attack.

As always, Xo felt sorry for his extraordinary companion. And as always, he pushed his sorrow and pity off into other, more profitable directions.

With a steady, practiced voice, he said, “Ord? Isn’t it time to talk?”

Nothing happened.

They paused at the mansion’s main entrance. Xo made no attempt to look inside. He didn’t believe that he could see much, and besides, it was important to appear polite. To seem patient. To be exactly the kind of person Ord would accept, and with whom he could agree on terms.

Ravleen enjoyed a different attitude. Storming up to the coral door, she gave it a kick with her bare foot. “You might as well talk to us,” she sang, “because we’re damn well not leaving!”

Nothing.

She groaned and made a fist, taking aim.

Xo grabbed her by the wrist.

Even manacled, she was full of white-hot energies. But she didn’t resist him, relaxing suddenly, a strange little smile hiding in her eyes and the expression telling the world, “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

From the forest, from a dozen hiding places, came a chorus of wails.

In better days, the Chamberlains kept bear-dogs as pets. When their estate was abandoned, the pack went wild, and these were their descendants. Xo made sure of it. But as he studied the animals, in that instant of split attentions, Ord emerged, coming from no particular direction to stand before them with his hands open, his palms up.

“It’s nice to have old friends drop by,” he said.

To Ravleen, he said, “You were inside the pyramid. Weren’t you?” And he began to laugh, admitting, “I felt something. An incandescent rage. And I thought: If they’re using Xo, they must be using Ravleen, too. In service of the Nuyens…!”

Energies surged, diminished.

Then the beautiful Sanchex face was smiling, the eyes filled with mischief, and she let her tongue play along her top lip, then slide back against its mate.

Xo spoke, asking and begging and cajoling Ord to open up a dialogue.

The Chamberlain responded with a steely glance, then gave fair warning. “They made a bad choice. I’ve never liked you.”

“You don’t know me,” Xo growled. Then, “What do you think? That you’re the only one of us who’s better than he used to be?”

Silence.

With his simplest mouth, Xo said, “We have to talk. Without Ravleen.”

They were somewhere else. They were suddenly inside the penthouse, and others were watching. Xo examined the silent associates. And Ord touched him, a firm hand on the shoulder as a matching voice told him, “Try to convince me. And then, when it’s my turn, I’ll try to convince you.”

Xo spoke, disgorging a hundred practiced speeches and as many impromptu pleadings. He sang about the great purpose of the Families. He roared knowledgeably about service and sacrifice, moral principles and immoral pitfalls. He gave cold technical estimates of Ord’s position and the Earth’s weaponry, showing that the situation was hopeless. And he knitted together words of understanding and compassion that proved how even the hopeless could, when the time came, expect mercy.

Then, on a whim, Xo pulled live feeds from across the solar system:

A new mother on Pluto; a dozen winged humans perched on one of Saturn’s cloud continents; an Amish community on Ceres; an ancient, revered poet floating on Mars’ northern sea. Each of them was visible, and terrified. They were concentrating on the news feeds. They were praying, each in his own fashion. Praying that this visitor—this mutilated Chamber-lain—wouldn’t make a tragic blunder, obliterating all of them.

The final view was from a surveillance AI. A refugee family, recently arrived on the Earth, sat holding hands, their tails tied into a communal knot. The father and mother were more depressed than ever, obviously waiting to die, while their son kept smiling, chattering on and on about the astonishing coincidence… that they were just inside the mansion, and wasn’t it something… they must have just missed the arrival of that crazy Chamberlain…!

Crazy or not, Ord was moved.

Was weakened.

With empathic talents proven in the lab and in field tests, Xo could sense his opponent’s resolve beginning to falter, if only a little—

Then they suddenly were outside again, standing in the same positions. Barely a moment had passed. Ravleen wasn’t even aware of their absence.

“Fair warning!” she wailed. “I’m going to butcher you and fuck every one of your body parts, you fucking shit!”

Ord stared at her.

Out of curiosity, or some misguided sense of compassion, he opened his right hand and offered it to Ravleen.

She grabbed the hand and shoved it into her mouth and neatly bit off two fingers, the sharp crunch of the bones lingering. Then she spat the fingers to the ground and stomped on them, cursing without breath or the smallest pause.

Later, replaying events for his siblings, Xo defended Ravleen. The criminal wouldn’t have surrendered. He felt sure. And Ravleen was just being herself, which probably did some good, lending the moment a sense of enormous danger.

If there was blame, it was his. Xo had spent his life preparing, and the magic hadn’t worked, and he seriously doubted he would have another chance.

The eldest Nuyen touched him lightly, fondly.

A cool feminine voice flowed over him, saying, “When Ravleen’s tantrum was finished, what did Ord say?”

“ ‘I only came here to talk to Alice,’ ” Xo replied, mimicking the voice and the pale boyish face. “ ‘Bring her here and let me see her, in private. Then I’ll leave again. I won’t hurt anyone, and I promise, I won’t take her with me.’ ”

The Nuyens fell silent, contemplating those simple words.

Allowing himself a dose of self-pity, Xo whispered, “I failed my Family. And my species. I’m sorry that I let you down—”

“But you didn’t,” the ancient woman replied. Not to comfort, just to inform. “Honestly, we never expected your success.”

No?

Then she touched him again, saying, “Again, please. Tell us about the people you saw with him in the penthouse—”