Editor’s Note: Instead of two original science fiction short stories this month, we have for you a single novelette (presented in two parts) by A.L. Goldfuss, which is about twice the length of a regular Lightspeed story. So, although you are getting one original SF story instead of two this month, you’re still getting about the same amount of fiction. We hope you enjoy this minor deviation from our usual offerings, and rest assured we will return to our regularly scheduled programming next month. —eds
When the ship’s scanners first chirped in the dead of night, Sien figured it was another misfire: light reflecting off asteroid ice, solar radiation, space dust. But xe still slid from xir berth into the chilly, cramped cockpit, eyes bleary as xe ran the numbers again. And this was no misfire.
Metal alloys, glass, carbon. Ratios ripped from a history book. The unmistakable signature of an ancient Teshiarr pleasureship.
“Shit,” Sien whispered, rubbing xir shaved head as the report sped by. Xe flipped on a series of switches to warm up the engines and punched open a comms link overhead.
“Jaks, I found it,” xe said. “I found Thousand Dancing Beetles.”
Jaks was next door; that was, she was in the same solar system. Her Preservationist research vessel, with its twin decks, stocked library, and kitchen automatics, hung over the only planet orbiting the cold star. From there Jaks could study scraps of old ephemera on her beloved screens and coordinate search efforts without spilling a drop of tea. It was a cozy setup.
Sien’s ship was a different story.
Sien tapped chunky keys to bring up a two-tone display, squinting at the bright submenus in the dark. Xir ship was economical, sacrificing windows for storage, and Sien needed the long-range scanners to paint a picture of the wastelands outside. A flat triangle representing xir ship lit up on screen, surrounded by rotating squares of various sizes. Asteroids, some larger than the ship itself, all lazily spinning and razor sharp.
It’s dangerous, Jaks had said, pouring Sien another cup of tea. But it’s important.
“Sien?” The comms buzzed, and Sien smacked the speaker absent-mindedly until the sound cleared. “Sien, are you sure?” Jaks sounded tired, but she would. It was the middle of the night for her, too.
“Have I ever let you down?” Sien said, then sent along the scanner report to prevent an honest reply. “It looks like your ghost planet theory was right. The ship was hiding, right here, in the Narrows.”
The Narrows was an asteroid field stretched over half of the uninhabited Fatagana solar system, composed of billions, if not trillions of ice-glazed rock shards. Even on Jaks’ research scanners it showed as white static, preventing any sort of deeper visuals. But Jaks was brilliant, one of the best Preservationists the program had ever produced, and she had theorized the existence of a planet hidden within the noise. The perfect crash site for a Teshiarr legend.
And with the larger Preservationist vessel unable to navigate the Narrows’ corridors, Sien had volunteered to conduct reconnaissance alone. Had insisted on using xir single person skiff.
Sien zoomed in on what the scanner had found: a hole in the asteroids. The absence of squares in a large space. And within that void, enough metal alloys, glass, and carbon for a small city. Sien initiated the ship’s navigation algorithm to calculate a trajectory through the sharp, dead seas. Xe was wide awake now.
“I knew it.” Jaks crackled through the speaker. The distance delayed communications, meaning Jaks had started speaking as soon as the scans flashed across her screens. “There was a mistranslation in the Quenco collection of Vinnali’s final papers. ‘Our enemies shall be slain at the seat of divinity’ didn’t mean Vinnali’s throne, but an actual home of the gods; and according to Vinnali’s journal, the Narrows was a sacred place.” Sien pictured Jaks leaning back in her rig, a triumphant smile on her face as she recited her arguments. “And with rumors of a rebellion, of course Vinnali would seek solace in a religious pilgrimage.”
Sien rubbed warmth back into xir fingers and stared at the console. The void in the asteroids stared back.
“Naturally, such a pilgrimage would be perfect cover for a military rendezvous.” Jaks’ voice dipped into her trademark pedantry. “Vinnali indulged his priests’ occultism when needed, but he certainly wouldn’t share such preposterous beliefs. No doubt this system has ties to ancient trade routes or an auxiliary station. Although, the planet’s signature is odd—”
“Jaks, you did it.” Sien punched over her incoming stream. “Your big brain found Thousand Dancing Beetles, the lost pleasureship of the Teshiarr Empire. Let’s leave the details to the Society scientists and just enjoy this moment.” Usually Sien would be content listening to Jaks unwind every step in her victory, but xe triggered the overhead compartment lights, eager to start packing. “Why don’t you make some of the good tea—” Jaks loved tea “—and I’ll gather more data about the planet.”
Sien closed the link, unwrapped a celebratory fish cake, and slid a tape into the cockpit’s deck. Moments later, xir ship filled with the tinny strings of a historical melodrama overture, followed by the commanding tones of the story’s narrator.
The Teshiarr Empire once studded the galaxy, its influence a silk brocade stitched into the very fabric of space. Its glorious cities jeweled its many territories, and within their shining walls thrived scientists, scholars, poets, and merchants. The Empire boasted a dazzling fleet of pleasureships, each its own floating city, and the flagship of this fleet was Thousand Dancing Beetles. But when the Empire was threatened, with trouble at the galactic gates, its Empress boarded Thousand Dancing Beetles and never returned.
The music swelled to a soppy crescendo before opening onto a scene of Empress Vinnali and his favorite consort hiding behind a curtain. Teshiarr dramas always centered around Empress Vinnali and his consorts, advisors, attendants, generals, and loyal citizens. The stories were full of palace romance and supernatural intrigue and always, always about the uniting force of the Teshiarri people. Sien knew every inevitable betrayal, every warbling coronation stanza, and could almost taste the sips of perfumed broth shared in the bustling agora.
Sien floated around the small, poorly-lit cabin, unzipping pouches to rearrange their contents as xe packed xir landing bags. Sien’s ship had essentially four functions: cockpit, berth, toilet, and airlock. It was a model similarly used by long-haul pilots or smugglers, and Sien was always knocking xir shoulders into storage pouches and banging xir knees on the toilet door. Still, even when docked with Jaks’ comparatively palatial vessel, Sien slept here.
Meet me on the bridge of my finest ship, Vinnali’s voice actor whispered in the background. All is not lost.
Of course, Thousand Dancing Beetles never returned, and the Teshiarr Empire crumbled under the weight of its absent crown. Its people scattered into other cultures, its ruins became the rootbeds of new civilizations, and its tantalizing secrets were lost to time. Which was where the Preservationists came in. And Jaks.
The console dinged and Sien kicked over to where the simple navigation display presented a viable route through the asteroids. Xe initiated the route and opened comms as the small ship hummed with movement.
“I’m on my way. I’ll be there in four hours, Narrows willing.”
Sien concentrated on finishing xir fish cake and was swallowing the last salty-sweet mouthful when Jaks crackled over the speakers.
“By yourself? But I’ve already instructed the automatics team to meet at your coordinates. They have all the base camp equipment.” There was a soft clinking behind Jaks’ voice. Whenever she was uncomfortable, Jaks paced in her rig like a big, beautiful crab, her slender metal legs connecting with the polished floors. She would prefer to come herself, would do so later, but endless environmental data piped through an army of ever-watchful automatics would have to suffice for now.
The last thing Sien wanted was babysitters.
“Look, this is the find of the millennium. Who’s to say Pando isn’t hot on our trail, with the latest and greatest field ships? Time is never on our side, and we both know what’s at stake.” Xir last sentence hung heavy on the wire, and a flush shadowed xir face.
Thousand Dancing Beetles, the last lost Teshiarr pleasureship, had housed vast chambers, lush gardens, and a wondrous grand hall. And in that hall, a treasure clothed in myth, which could tip the modern scales of power.
The Eye, carved from pure teshiarrite.
“All right, Sien, you win. But please be careful.” Jaks sounded soft, as though she was leaning into the mic. “There are more important things than a dusty shipwreck.”
Jaks couldn’t really mean that, but it didn’t matter. Sien had to get there first. Alone.
“Don’t worry, Jaks,” xe replied, with genuine warmth.
• • • •
Behold! Our Empress Undying
He anchors the light with our breath
He anchors the light with our flesh
Together, together, together
Together, together, together!
• • • •
The ghost planet was a dwarf planet or maybe a protoplanet, Sien didn’t know or care. What mattered was it had its own gravity and, surprisingly, an atmosphere. Xe could have even breathed without a helmet, if there had been more of it. And if it hadn’t been inhospitably cold. Still, this meant xir oxygen tanks could refill without lugging around heavy filters, and that was a stroke of good luck.
Sien was guiding xir ship through the hazy shroud of condensation when the scanners started pinging off multiple forms a hundred meters up from the surface. They were so skinny the scanners didn’t register anything until the ship almost clipped a wing, and Sien had to retreat and tread air while confirming the readings.
Plants. Very tall plants.
Sien had insisted on using xir ship for this work, so Jaks had insisted on some upgrades: solar panels for orbital charging, autonav for instant home routing, and an aftermarket catch-and-release beam. Sien rode the latter down to the surface, bundled in a refurbished Pando Industries vivosuit (a touching concession from Jaks) and carrying two bags of equipment. Here and there a plant would slice through the mist—thick, dark stalks—then swerve away again.
The ghost planet’s surface was hard beneath Sien’s boots and hidden by wisps of fog. Visibility wasn’t terrible—Sien had scouted through forest fires before—but the world was softened, a pane of frosted glass. Around xem rose the singular plant stalks, disappearing into the dark sky, and coupled with the mist they gave the distinct impression of being at the bottom of an ocean in a prehistoric kelp forest.
Xe drove a homing marker into the ground and activated it. The device would route xir communications back to Jaks and also anchor the ship to this location for retrieval. Useful for all sorts of spelunking. Sien clicked open comms.
“Established base. This place is like that Saturna graveyard with the outpost catacombs. You’d love it.” Xe flipped open a suit panel on xir forearm to examine the Teshiarr ship’s signature, timing the comms delay in xir head.
Finally, Jaks’ voice rang out inside Sien’s helmet. “The cemetery with the tall columns? Didn’t that place have booby traps? You almost lost a foot.” Jaks sounded calmer and more awake, although Sien doubted she had been able to go back to bed. Maybe some tea and breakfast. Sien liked that for her.
“Almost doesn’t count. I’ve got a lock on Thousand Dancing Beetles about five kilometers away. Check in later.” The beacon confirmed successful transmission, and Sien didn’t wait for a reply.
There was enough light from the distant pale sun to make out the smudge of a mountain on the horizon. The materials signature also came from that direction, so Sien used it as a visual guide and headed out.
Sien had been voidborn, grown to work on long-haul freighters with a small crew. Xe could choose three things: xir name (the color of soil in the kitchen herb garden), xir pronouns (same as the medic, a wetborn dreamer who wanted to see the stars), and xir bunk position (there was only one free). Ideally the freighter crew would have become xir family unit over time; but two cycles into xir contract the small freighter fleet had been bought out by Pando and everyone but the pilot replaced with automatics. So it was at a backwater station bar, half into a bottle of PanJu, that Sien first met Jaks.
Jaks rolled up beside Sien’s table—hands folded on a blanket across her lap, prissy brooch on her sweater, hair perfect—and nodded at Sien’s physique. “Freelance deckhand? I’m in need of some hired help.”
Sien, less than three cycles out of the tube and raw with emotions xe didn’t understand, responded: “Oh? Can’t reach the top shelf?” Followed quickly by “Ow! Fuck!” as Jaks ran over Sien’s toes with the edge of her chair’s tread.
“The bartender says you’ve been in this seat for almost two weeks, drinking and moping. A voidborn deckhand whose contract was bought out by Pando and now doesn’t have a bunk or purpose. But I have a purpose for you.” She patted the arm of her chair with a smooth, dark brown hand. Sien’s own hands were a scuffed beige, the color of cargo holds. “I’m a scholar whose time is best spent in study, not lugging heavy equipment through the mud. And you seem well-suited to lugging.”
Sien wiggled xir toes in xir boot; nothing was broken. “I can lug, carry, stack, chop, heft, fix, punch, and run. And I’ve got better things to do than be your butler. Tomorrow a new freighter rolls in, and I’ll be heading out on it.”
Jaks’ hand shot out past Sien’s bottle and snatched the tape case off the table, nonplussed by Sien’s grunt of surprise. “Looks like you’re well-equipped for a freighter ride. Book Twelve of The Teshiarrite Moon? Isn’t that the one with the three-part opera? You must be really desperate for escape.”
“Give it back.”
“All those stories of community bonding probably fill a certain gap, don’t they? You picture yourself wandering the annexation gardens, uncovering palace secrets, and reporting to join like a good citizen?”
“Give. It. Back.”
“I think we can help each other.” Jaks set the case back on the table and tapped it with a polished nail. “I’m part of the Preservationist Society, and I’m recovering Teshiarr artifacts before Pando Industries claims them. I’ll teach you everything I know about the Teshiarr Empire: language, customs, history. The real Empress Vinnali. I just need a deckhand to make the work go faster, so we can beat Pando to the artifact sites.” She drew her finger across the table as though checking for dust. “Besides, there can be truth in myth, and having someone familiar with those provincial stories may prove useful.”
Sien retrieved the case and tucked it in xir jacket pocket. Speaking to this woman was like taking a face full of barbs, but it was also the most conversation Sien had enjoyed in days. “Preservationist Society? You mean those pompous anarchists raising a fuss about Pando’s expansion?” Pando had started inserting public service announcements about the group during melodrama breaks. “Pando has the best ships, the best tech, the best routes. They even have something like this—” xe nudged Jaks’ chair tread with xir boot “—but better. So why not make your life easier?”
Jaks’ eyes were steady, but something worked at the corner of her mouth. “I like my chair. I designed it. I programmed it. It was made by a wonderful craftsman to my specifications. Pando could never match it.”
She straightened on her throne and stared Sien down as xe forced xemself to take a casual sip of the thick, sour PanJu. There was something about this woman, an elegant confidence, that pulled Sien toward her event horizon.
“So, why do you need me? Can’t your Society give you a full crew to go search through the trash?”
Jaks glanced at the table—a small hint of vulnerability—then raised her steady gaze again. “Pando’s reach has caused the Society to consider a new direction, and they are looking to partner with the corporation in exchange for research time with certain artifacts. They are giving me some support, but nothing official. I’m on my own.”
Now that was a predicament Sien could understand, even though xe had nothing in common with this scholar and her effortless poise. Sien dug a nail under the PanJu bottle wrapper and kept xir voice light.
“So, you want to rope a stooge into a race around the galaxy to try and beat an industrial powerhouse at its own game? When your own people only feed you scraps? Good luck with that.” Sien steered xir eyes away to pretend anything in the noisy station bar was more interesting than the woman at xir table, but the deception failed. Jaks smirked and leaned in.
“Empress Vinnali’s thirty-first consort kept a diary of their trysts. I have a copy.” She backed her chair away from the table, but turned around to add: “Dock sixteen. Gate A. See you in the morning.”
On the ghost planet, the comms link clicked on with a rasp of static.
“Don’t get cocky down there.” Jaks said. “Send environmental readings to the automatics team when you get back from reconnaissance. And Sien, take pictures. For me.”
Sien had several sassy replies, but said none of them. The communication delay meant they had to converse in chunks, and anything could be potentially recorded for posterity. Best to wait until xe had something official to report.
Sien paced xemself, alternating bags between shoulders and pausing now and then to relax xir knees. Xe tried to stay in shape, but resistance band training in a closet of a ship could only do so much. The ghost planet’s low gravity was doing most of the work.
The alien kelp stalks stretched up into the fog like unlit lamp posts, and the mountain ahead seemed bigger than xe remembered. Or perhaps the ghost planet was smaller than xe had realized and the proportions were off. Either way, it loomed through the mist, a sharp scrape of gray.
Sien sucked cool water through a tube by xir chin, the bitter edge of vitamins coating xir tongue. It was a cocktail of electrolytes measured out to xir exact needs, like everything else with the vivosuit. The vivosuit cooled some muscles, warmed others, massaged others still. It was constantly measuring, evaluating, and mediating, and Sien did xir best not to think of it as a writhing organism encasing xir body. It was wholly mechanical, but there was something distinctly organic in its rhythmic pulsations.
The vivosuit, as with the catch-and-release beam and the bank of scanners Jaks refused to use, were all proprietary patents of Pando Industries. The shipping company had been nothing special, one of many available options, until about seventy cycles ago, when it started churning out innovative equipment. First the designs supported Pando Industries exclusively, then it sold last-cycle’s models to competitors, then it bought the competitors. Now it was a galactic behemoth.
Jaks despised Pando and was constantly listing its sins, such as cutting off low population areas to streamline trade routes or discontinuing a specific type of meat substitute so consumers had to adjust. Sien was sympathetic; but, having been grown to work on freighters xemself, xe couldn’t really fault Pando for following the money. Besides, Pando was also leading a revival in Teshiarr aesthetics and had published all the melodramas in Sien’s collection. Hard to stay mad in the long run.
The panel on Sien’s arm pinged and vibrated with an increasing frenzy. Data flew up the embedded screen: composition percentages, estimated age, depth, height. An alien wind rustled away the curtain of mist, and Sien stopped in xir tracks.
The mountain rose above xem. It wasn’t a mountain at all.
“Vinnali’s gilded foot,” xe swore.
The colossal ship slashed through the sky in sweeps of gunmetal black, a tangle of impossible angles that had gouged a scar through the rocky ground stretching back to the horizon. The ship’s exterior still shone with a polished gleam, right down to where the hull disappeared into the ghost planet’s surface and a craggy pile of debris marked the point of impact. And where the cold sun touched the void of metal, spidery designs flowed, silvery and thin. Recognizable patterns and motifs from Jaks’ endless lecture slides.
Thousand Dancing Beetles slept in its silent grave.
A gentle alarm sounded in Sien’s ear signaling xir heart rate had increased, and a fan on xir back started to whirr to speed up oxygen processing. If xir readings reached a critical level, the vivosuit would notify the research vessel.
Sien steadied xir breath and got to work. Xe dropped another beacon into the ground as a retrieval mark for xir ship and activated it while consulting aerial reports. The panel scanner indicated the Teshiarr ship was so large that an external inspection on foot would take well over a day, time Sien didn’t have. But there was an area by the debris pile that was blacker than black, and xe carefully climbed the small boulders, pulling the Preservationist labeled bags in xir wake.
The impact had split the smooth hull into a jagged mouth, its lips softened by swirls of fog. The mouth curved around the bow in a grin longer than Sien’s ship and tall enough that xe only had to crouch slightly to step inside. Which xe did, after resting xir hand on the smooth metal to pause for breath but not thoughts.
Sien had joined Jaks’ expedition for the money, intending to hop onto the next real crew whenever Jaks stopped for supplies. That had been over ten cycles ago, and in that time the pair had explored lost Teshiarr ruins sleeping under bustling cities, camped in cave systems tracking down a rumor, and split many packets of soup while waiting for the next Preservationist ration drop. Jaks had filled every slow moment with lectures about Empress Vinnali, the linguistic spread of the Teshiarr diaspora, and the endless mistakes in Sien’s beloved melodramas. Somehow, the freighter crew calls had always appeared halfway through a lecture thread, and Sien had always missed the next ship-out.
Now xe stood on the bridge of Thousand Dancing Beetles, the showpiece of the Teshiarr pleasure fleet. The cavernous chamber bubbled overhead into windows not visible from the outside, letting in weak daylight onto the criss-crossed levels of skyways stretched across the open space. Everything, including the skyways, was a polished black, like lashings of volcanic glass, but a closer look revealed flush panels and gossamer circuits.
It was the largest room Sien had ever been in, larger than any cargo hold or shipping dock, all surfaces seamless and alien smooth. Sien’s life was a clunky hodgepodge of claustrophobic shuttles, second hand parts, and rusted right angles, and the sheer height of the bridge’s ceiling threatened xir surefooting. Every curve and eddy of the glossy walls shocked the senses, disorienting and impossible.
The mist had thinned inside, but still nipped at Sien’s heels and made the thought of crossing the expanse treacherous. Xe retrieved a small fan from the bags. Usually meant to clear away dust from entombed artifacts, it made excellent work of carving a path through the fog as xir bootsteps echoed off the curved walls.
Small holes dotted the sides of the great room, and Sien’s eyes slid over them several times before xe realized what they were. Most dramas called them joining stations, but Tears of the Empress called them soul alcoves, which Sien preferred. They were a fixture of Teshiarr society, both in Sien’s dramas and Jaks’ historical texts. Teshiarr citizens used soul alcoves at least once a day as part of a communal ritual, although specifics had been lost to time. Still, any decent drama would have a scene where Empress Vinnali shared an alcove with his closest advisor and learned they were secretly in love with him.
Sien stood in the center of the bridge chamber and snapped photos with the camera interface inside xir helmet. When this ship had been a living, breathing city, these skyways would have teemed with citizens taking in the sights or waiting their turn in the alcoves. How wonderful it must have been to walk among them, to be a citizen, to have a place. Now it was only Sien, alone.
Sien exhaled and the vivosuit ate xir steam. Jaks was a strident frump who insisted on archaic academic software for all their equipment and paid twice as much for tea and vacuum seals to avoid Pando partners. She never pronounced Teshiarr terms the same as Sien’s dramas and always used years instead of Pando Standard Cycles. She was an acquired taste, astringent on any palate. And right now, more than anything, Sien wished she was beside xem on this beautiful bridge.
Sien sent the photos and moved on.
• • • •
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION]
Purple-black stone measuring 3 cm square. It is perfectly smooth on its surface with no evidence of tool marks.
[IMAGE CAPTION]
Teshiarrite chip recovered from Teshiarr mural during storage vault remodel on Dratuk Second. Spectroscopic analysis of chip resulted in unexpected backscatter. After several weeks of experimentation, it seems the stone holds data sequences that can be reverse engineered into digital media. Linguistics is researching the cipher used in the recovered text, but the illustration appears to be some sort of environmental suit.
Pando Industries, secure archives
• • • •
The ship’s belly was a sleeping volcano, all shiny black tunnels yawning into large bubbled chambers, slick as spilled ink. And everywhere the walkways, winding up and down, with no railings to stop Sien from tumbling over the side. The ship had landed blessedly level, leaving few pockets where Sien had to lean into the grip of xir boots. But it would be downright treacherous for Jaks, her rig legs slipping on the glassy floors, and a stab of guilt zinged through Sien whenever xe transmitted more photos. Hopefully Jaks was still enthralled.
Sien trudged through the ship, pit sweat lapped up by the vivosuit lining. Past the bridge chamber the fog had dissipated, so xe had exchanged xir fan for flares that xe tossed into the darkness to paint the pristine ruins red. Here was perhaps a mass sleeping chamber and over there perhaps a public bath. There was no map on file for Thousand Dancing Beetles, but the archives had diagrams for other Teshiarr ships, and Sien occasionally overlaid them onto xir visor to judge xir route to the grand hall. Xe would have a long trek back with xir prize.
The conservatory appeared roughly halfway to xir destination, right as Sien was gritting xir teeth against the rusty red pain in xir knees. Xe dumped the duffel bags at the entrance with a small groan and leaned on the wall for a moment to take in the whole room.
Gardens had been a focal point in Teshiarr ships, for practical and aesthetic reasons. The greenery supplemented oxygen recycling while providing refuge from a long day of pleasure. Hundred Laughing Foxes reportedly had a conservatory five times as large, used for competitive hunts, and Sixty Weeping Turtles had installed an actual swimming pool. Even Screaming Shrew, the military shuttle from Tears of the Empress, had a room with some potted ferns. Jaks had told Sien there was no shuttle on record with that name, but that didn’t matter. It existed in Sien.
(And Jaks had only mildly protested the limp seedlings Sien brought back from traders to arrange in Jaks’ study. Had only complained the first few times Sien interrupted her reading to water one pot and rotate another. Had used it as a springboard for her lecture titled Teshiarr Assimilation via Botanical Cultivation, one of Sien’s all-time favorites.)
The conservatory was a welcome shock of pale floor and straight lines. Long ceramic tiles plated paths wandering through what were once raised flower beds, open green spaces, and shaded nooks. Now anything living was long-dead, freeze-dried and petrified. Sien had expected everything to be piles of dust, gone to the ages, but something in the combination of frigid atmosphere and alien bacteria (or lack thereof) had slowed decomposition. Everything was dead, yes, but it was still possible to pick out the black, emaciated trunks of trees and the dried-out snakes of vines on the ground.
Sien had a mission—the Eye slept deeper in the ship—yet xe couldn’t help a brief detour through the winding paths. At one point, this garden would have been subtropical and lush, with greenery so thick it blocked visitors from seeing around the next corner. Even now it had a sculptural beauty, like an art installation or old colonial cemetery.
As Sien explored, xir visor caught the Teshiarr glyphs on conservatory signage and translated them before xir eyes. “Crimson Fan Shrub” claimed a lump of twisted branches. “Shimmering Fern from the Waterfall” was a puff of brown lace. Everyone knew Empress Vinnali had hailed from a failing, barren outpost, which meant every plant in here was a prize of annexation. It had been Teshiarr tradition to let the prevailing military commander rename their favorite finds once they returned home in glory.
At the center of the conservatory curled sweeping white walls with person-sized scoops bitten out of them. Soul alcoves. Sien placed a hand above one of the egg-shaped impressions and leaned in for a better look. There was a shelf two-thirds down to sit upon and what was perhaps an indentation for a head above. Swirls of filaments in that odd script glinted dull against the pale wall.
No one knew exactly how Teshiarr joining had worked. It was present in every level of recovered literature—poems, songs, coronations—but had never been recreated. Preservationists knew the Teshiarr lived to join, did so at least once a day, but the actual mechanism and benefit remained a mystery.
But a chair was a chair, and Sien needed a rest.
Xe ducked into the immaculate alcove and sat on the flat seat with a grunt of relief. A tube in the vivosuit delivered berry-sweet sludge to xir waiting tongue, while hidden rollers worked on aching thighs and cooled swollen joints.
The state of the vegetation really was a marvel, down to the brown, curling petals of a complicated flower (“Sun Station Lily”). What leaves remained were completely intact, with nothing marred by alien bug bites or winds. Even the seed puffs dangling from elegant stalks retained their wisps of fluff. Which highlighted a glaring omission.
Sien opened a comms link.
Closed it.
Flipped open the panel on xir arm and typed in a query. Narrowed xir eyes.
Thousand Dancing Beetles had a passenger manifest of one hundred thirty-one thousand. Records from the time indicated a collection of priests, palace attendants, and various civilians aboard during the ship’s last voyage. Yet, despite an obvious collision on a distant planet, there were no corpses. No cairns of bones lining the pristine hallways. No piles of clothing or long-dried stains.
Alarming thoughts flickered in and out of focus, but Sien had trained for deep space stress. True, there were irregularities, but that was a puzzle for Jaks to untangle. For now, Sien needed to lean back into the strangely ergonomic alcove and rest a moment. The sweet nutrient sludge was already at work buttressing cartilage and tendons, absorbing lactic acid, and supplying much-needed protein. Xe would be headed to the Eye soon. Xe would be back on track.
The alcove seat cradled Sien’s body, and xir eyes fluttered once, twice, then closed.
• • • •
The Terkal subsystem had been a spit spray of somewhat habitable planets where one could find a type of rock useful for polishing industrial parts. The mining outpost had kept the subsystem on extended shipping maps up until the overworked miners drilled too deep and unleashed toxic gas into the settlement, which had to be abandoned. The noxious gas still hung on the air, requiring an env suit to even touch down, and had eaten away at the town buildings’ smooth exteriors.
So, of course Jaks had them pressing into the sloping cave systems at the height of storm season.
“One of the survivors described unusual patterns on the stone right before they hit the gas reservoir. Mind you, no one was asking about Teshiarr ruins two-hundred years ago, so the insurance report stops there.” Jaks spoke over the comms link in Sien’s helmet, and the lack of echo from the cave walls made the whole scene feel flat and unreal. “It’s a small note, and this place is tucked so far away that I doubt Pando has been here yet.”
“Lucky us.”
“Lucky I enjoy reading administrivia from folded business ventures.”
Jaks was in front, picking her way down the stone tunnel in her new rig. Her beloved chair—the one she had once glided over Sien’s toes—had finally sighed beyond repair, and the artisan who made it had closed shop. So Sien had carted home a Pando model after it mysteriously tumbled off the back of a cargo ship into a pile of rugs. It was light and dexterous, the very latest in Pando mobility technology, and Jaks hated it.
Sien wasn’t sure what was worse about this expedition: the vacant domiciles above with their pitted doors and dusty plates, or the endless rock tunnels below illuminated through overhead shafts as a constant reminder of how deep down they’d gone.
“How far do you want to scout today, boss?”
“As far as we can. And don’t call me ‘boss.’”
“Doc.”
“Deckhand.”
“Doctor Ephendra Jaks.”
“Sien?”
“Ma’am?”
“How many times—” A beeping on Jaks’ arm panel cut her off. She flipped it open and paused, silhouetted by a beam of overhead sunlight. “Ship says there’s an electrical storm coming. Fast.”
“Isn’t that a feature of this place?”
“It’s a feature that will disrupt our link to the surface, possibly fry our env suits, and cause a cave-in if it hits the sun shafts with the right resonance.”
“Right. Where to then?”
“Deeper. The first checkpoint is up ahead.”
They picked up the pace, Jaks scurrying on her many metal legs and Sien humping the equipment bags fast as xe could. Preservationist env suits were dead things, no preternatural comfort systems to cool and massage. They were basically bags of warm air, so Sien was sweaty and breathless by the time they reached the old encampment.
“We’ll ride it out here,” Jaks said, flipping on her headlamp. The light shafts ended as the tunnel widened into a hollow filled with the shambling remnants of mining carts, pulleys, drills, and sleeping tents. Tucked at the edges of the shadows lay the desiccated lumps of the miners left to rest forever.
“Cozy.”
“It’s not ideal. Put down those bags before you keel over.”
Sien turned to comply when the cavern filled with a mournful sound, the low moaning of high speed winds whipping across the many light shafts piercing the tunnels beyond. The cave groaned, heaved, and whistled as the giant hollow breathed through cracked ribs.
“Two Groaning Bovines.” Sien settled in among the bags. “Remember that one? From Sacrifice of the Empress?” Jaks didn’t answer, but Sien was used to her moods. Xe broke out xir best melodrama narrator voice. “Vinnali Teshiarr, Empress of the Glorious Tapestry, slid down the side of the great mountain. His skin was bloodied and his fingernails broken, yet still he climbed. Suddenly, a voice called out from the ether. ‘Little Empress!’ it said. ‘I am Two Groaning Bovines. A god in another realm. I can carry you in my mighty arms to the very summit that you seek, if only you bring me forth. I need flesh to house me and spirit to anchor me. Then I am at your command.’ Vinnali considered the god’s words, and—”
“Likely an allegory for geothermal activity.” Jaks was inspecting the cavern around them.
“Right, of course. And Twelve Sprinting Salamanders is an allegory for noodle slurping.” Sien mimed slurping down a big bowl of salamanders, which would have earned an exaggerated eye roll and reluctant smirk across the dinner table. But Jaks was focused on a stack of safety harnesses and the shriveled corpse beside it.
“They’re myths, Sien. Tall tales the Empress allowed to exist because they suited his purposes and provided a united cultural touchstone. There are no god-guardian sentinels haunting the hidden corners of space.”
“Yes, yes, I know. I mean, Empress Vinnali didn’t actually kill—”
“How do you know?” Jaks looked at xem. Then, after a moment: “Sometimes, Sien, you care too much.”
Jaks’ tone was terse and strained, more so than usual on expeditions. She paced in the dark on her many slender legs, a mesmerizing display that also signaled worry.
“How long do you think the storm will last?” she asked, and it clicked. Sien had plopped out of xir pod twelve cycles ago, teenaged body ready to work, blank mind ready to comply. Jaks was wetborn and had spent over forty years touching her own skin whenever she chose. She didn’t want to be stuck down here all night in an env suit.
“Probably not long. So, what do you think we’ll find down here? Fully-functional soul alcoves? Vinnali’s secret throne? A note from Pando saying, ‘We give up. Enjoy the old shit.’?” Prompting Jaks into a lecture was the best way to steer her from worry. But instead she kept tapping her legs, and Sien’s headlamp cast their shadows into a giant spider web on the stone wall.
Jaks stopped pacing. “I think Pando is getting its invention designs from teshiarrite artifacts. I think they discovered a cache seventy years ago—or longer—of blueprints stored in the teshiarrite chips. And that’s why they suddenly have vivosuits and catch-and-release beams and suspension pods that don’t leave you catatonic. That’s why they’re suddenly digging for artifacts not even the Preservationists cared about. They’re rebuilding Teshiarr technology piece by piece, and it’s made them rich.”
Jaks’ visor lights didn’t offer much definition, basically a mouth and two black holes for eyes, but she was worried and dead serious. Sien wasn’t sure where to begin.
“Well, that’s—I mean—why would you think that?”
Jaks tilted her helmet with the same confidence that had drawn Sien toward her back in that station bar. “Because I’ve done it myself. Two days ago.”
“What! Jaks, that’s amazing! You have to tell the Society.”
“I have. They don’t care.”
“How can they not care? Don’t they understand how much money—”
“We’re Preservationists, Sien. We preserve. We don’t exploit.”
The cold cave floor numbed Sien’s butt through the env suit. “Then let them worry about it. Jaks, we’re in a hole in the ground surrounded by corpses. For what? The hope of finding some chunk of teshiarrite full of . . . soup recipes? Dance moves? Is this really how you want to spend your life?”
“Of course not!” Jaks threw up her hands, and the front two legs of her rig copied the motion. “I was top of my class, promised a full staff and an office in the central stacks! The universe is endless, life is finite, and there is so much to know. But what Pando is doing with these artifacts . . . it’s too much unchecked power in one place. Nothing good ever comes from that. So we must beat Pando at this game, because it’s the right thing to do.”
Jaks tucked her hands back onto her lap as though she had a blanket there, and for several minutes there was nothing but the crying of the storm outside. Preservationist env suits were awkward, bulbous outfits, but Jaks had never looked so small. Sien wanted to scoop her into a hug, but also not impose, but also leave her here and go punch every Preservationist in the face, so xe did nothing.
Jaks straightened in her rig. “Sien, we’re going to wait out this storm. We’re going to go back to the ship. And I’m going to show you what I’ve been working on in the Quenco translation of Vinnali’s final papers. Because, if I’m right, it will be the most important thing we’ll ever do.” Her visor light outlined the determination in her jaw. “I need you with me, Sien.”
The event horizon again. Sien gave the only answer xe could.
“I’m with you, Jaks.”
• • • •
A white-hot thread shot between Sien’s ears, and xe flailed out of the alcove back into the sepulchral conservatory chamber. The dizzying pain gave everything auras, and even the joining station appeared to glow with an ethereal purple light. But after a moment xir head cleared, and the soul alcove was once again a dark hollow.
Sien had been thinking about—something—important and sad. But it eluded xem now, a crumpled span of cassette tape. Xe had sat down in the alcove and must have dozed off before a hypnic jerk woke xem up. And xe had never been good at holding onto dreams.
Sien paused in the silence, flexing xir fingers and toes, waiting for xir oxygen tank fans to settle, then broke away from the soul alcoves and strode through the other side of the garden toward an odd gloom beyond the petrified trees.
Nothing made sense on this wreck. The jewel of the Empress’s pleasureships stocks itself with occultists, priests, and riffraff for a voyage to the Narrows? There had been no Teshiarr outpost here, no city known to any Preservationist accounting. The only mention of this star system was in fringe religious texts, as a land of sentinels. A land of gods. One of the many sacred points in the galaxy.
Despite Jaks’ best efforts, all Sien really cared about was the folklore behind xir many melodramas. A certain Teshiarr sect had believed in mysterious god-guardians dwelling in an invisible layer of space. At least, that was what Preservationist scholars could piece together from myths and decayed rhymes. Even by Teshiarr standards it was an ancient belief, the annexation of a culture older than even Empress Vinnali himself. But it had a mysterious ring to it that the opulent Teshiarr empress had loved, and the names of those sentinels had bled into common curses, fabric colors, and even ships. Their designs had been stitched into shawls, laid into murals, and painted over doorways. Hundred Slashing Stars. Twelve Choking Raccoons. Thousand Dancing Beetles.
Why had this ship crashed?
Sien slipped in something and lurched awkwardly, grasping at air until xir hands found the powdery branches of a petrified tree. It burst into dust at the assault but broke xir fall enough that xe merely stumbled, vivosuit intact.
Xe whirled around to inspect the slick section of floor. It was coated with a dark substance, simultaneously dry yet greasy under xir boot. The mobile spectrometer in xir helmet scanned and threw up its best guess—odd percentages and readouts—but definitely organic. Tree sap? No—
Blood. A large puddle of blood.
A chill slid down Sien’s spine, and xir oxygen tank fans whined gently. Xe wasn’t a stranger to death; it came hand-in-hand with exploring ruins and excavating accident sites. But those deaths usually made sense, such as the miners in Terkal or the cartographer in the decommissioned subway. People who were in the wrong place at the wrong time and died more or less in one piece. But a puddle of blood stretching across a courtyard was different. It seemed intentional.
And then there was what lurked behind xem. The wrongness through the trees.
This side of the conservatory, with its tiered garden plots and constructed streambed, vanished into a massive crater in the floor.
Sien tapped the sharp edge with the toe of xir boot. It wasn’t crash damage. The floor dipped downwards into the chasm, not upwards from impact with the ghost planet. Something had struck from within the conservatory—within the ship—and left deep gouges in the tiles and wall on its way through the hole.
And on the wall, marred by whatever could scratch Teshiarr metal, something written in torso-high glyphs.
Sien snapped an image, cleared xir throat, and clicked on comms.
“Jaks, I’m sending you a photo of some writing. The auto-scribe can’t figure it out; guess Pando’s language libraries could use a patch. If it’s Vinnali’s long-lost love poems, don’t forget I found it first.”
Xe clicked off comms and the silence clung to xir fingertips. The conservatory stretched out with the twisted graves of forgotten annexations, the floor bruised by piles of bark dust. It was cold in a way not even the vivosuit could fully mollify and swiped at Sien’s elbows and toes. The only warm place in the universe was Jaks’ study, with the rescued plants and cups of tea.
Sien turned back toward xir duffel bags to find an alternate route to the Eye.
Xe had a job to do.
Fuck this place.
• • • •
Meet me on the bridge of my finest ship. Our enemies shall be slain at the seat of divinity, where the god-knives tread, and I will deliver the sacrifice by my own hand. Gather the loyal, the devout, the desperate, the abandoned, and let them repay the Empire for its kindness . . .
[End of Part 1 — Read Part 2]
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