Every Teshiarr metropolis, town, and hamlet had featured an agora, the community centerpiece for shopping, conversing, and joining. It was where one received their daily meals, heard news from leaders, and reported to communal soul alcoves. In each throne city, the agora had been a grand bazaar at the foot of the palace spire. On Hundred Singing Eels it had been the public baths and on Seven Darting Hawks the wrestling arena. On Thousand Dancing Beetles, it was the grand hall.
Sien stepped onto a balcony and thought for a moment xe had stepped outside. Overhead was the pale gray of the planet’s sky, fringed with streaks of kelp stalks like the lashes of a giant eye. But it was an illusion: the entire hall was domed in the same polarized glass material as the windows on the bridge. The effect was impressive. In space it would have seemed as though you could skip too high and drift away into the nearest nebula.
The hall was vast and felt as though one could fit the rest of the ship inside it. Each side had an arched doorway topped with a fanned balcony and walkways draping down to the floor. Framing the center ballroom ran gleaming columns, stretching from floor to tall ceiling and demarcating the many market stalls lining the agora. In one hollow ran dozens of counters for serving the daily meals. In another rested the petrified remains of sofas and chairs for lounging and conducting business. Still another held more soul alcoves matching those dotting the bridge chamber on the other side of the ship. Everything perfectly preserved, not even a crack in the glassy column faces, as though the agora, ceiling, and ship itself were held together by unseen hands.
But Sien had climbed this high for the view.
Thousand Dancing Beetles beckoned. The dazzling mosaic stretched the full width of the ballroom floor, rendering the image of the ship’s namesake in millions of colored tiles the size of Sien’s thumb. The ballroom floor was cream but the god-guardian’s visage was a thick blue-black, peering up through the shadows. It was a beast of many legs, disjointed angles, far-reaching grasp, and an odd, segmented quality in its form, as though pixelated or abstract.
And it didn’t resemble any beetle Sien knew. But that didn’t matter. What mattered lay in the center of the mosaic, the belly of the beast, and it glinted in the dim light with an unnatural shine.
The comms clicked on with a short bark of static.
“Did you reach the grand hall?” Jaks asked. “Can you see the Eye?”
The Eye stared up to the heavens, glossy as an oil spill, a pool of liquid gunmetal. It was solid teshiarrite, the most famous of Teshiarr creations, known in original texts as Vinnali’s Blood. The Teshiarr had bedecked themselves with teshiarrite jewelry, embedded chips of it into their mosaics, and spun it around decorations during high holidays, but a mass of this proportion had never been found.
Sien skidded down the glassy ramp dripping from the balcony to the ballroom floor and marched toward the center.
Jaks had isolated some of the chemical compounds of teshiarrite, had theorized, in fact, that it was organic in origin like a fossil. She had shown Sien flecks under microscopes and demonstrated her dizzying discovery that certain electrical currents could prompt a data burst in response. Jaks thought any sort of power—from electrical charges to physical force—could trigger a data release.
Sien was more familiar with the popular associations of teshiarrite, such as the glittering ornaments embedded in dusty murals. The belabored comparisons in sapphic poetry: your teshiarrite heart. And, of course, all the storylines in the various period dramas. Sien had a considerable collection of tapes for long haul stints, and roughly half included recovering the Empress’s teshiarrite crown.
But none of those productions captured the color quite right. Even though Sien knew the disk was solid material, it still rippled with ribbons of iridescent blue and ultraviolet black, miniature nebulas spinning out next to xir feet. Sien set xir bags on either side of the Eye to admire its size—roughly the width of xir torso—and how perfectly it played its part in the unwinking face of the ancient god. It would have watched the stars streak past while passengers strolled to shops during the day and waltzed in balls at night.
Jaks believed teshiarrite was a storage method, an eternal data cache used by Teshiarr citizens. She hadn’t fully deciphered the snippets she had recovered, but she had scraped images of jewelry receipts, suit schematics, and floral arrangements. She thought Pando had discovered the same, only they had an entire team of Jakses and had reverse-engineered whole blueprints. Any teshiarrite still left to be found would be worth a fortune. And anything stored in a cache the size of the Eye must be the most important find in the universe.
Sien unzipped one of the duffel bags and withdrew a battered pack, the only pouch not bearing a Preservationist mark.
Xe sighed, hefting the pouch in xir hands.
The Pando bigwig had been easy to spot in the usual station riffraff: ridiculous jacket, greasy hair, and a nose permanently squished from sticking it where it didn’t belong. He had crooked a finger at Sien like he was ordering a drink and stretched his arms along the back of the booth as xe slid into the other side.
“What’s your poison? I never do business sober. Actually, do voidborn even—”
“Here are the terms.” Sien folded xir hands in xir lap. “Jaks gets a VP title and an entire independent research department. State of the art equipment, three field ships, as much tea as she wants to drink, and round-the-clock unfettered access to Pando archives. Also, Pando will fund a custom chair buildout to her specifications. I will get you the name of the artisan.”
The Pando rep—Raxler was his name—held up his hands. “Yes, yes, I already agreed to all this. Whatever you want. If you can deliver.”
“Jaks hasn’t been wrong once. I will get you the Eye.”
Sien stood to leave, and he reached for xir elbow. “Betraying your boss to get her a cushy position. What’s in it for you?”
Across the crowd a dock worker had unloaded three wilted plants onto the bar. Sien had shaken xir arm free from the man’s sweaty grasp. “I have everything I need.”
Everything I need, the mosaic taunted under xir feet. Everything I need.
Sien knelt and opened a comms link.
“Bad news, Jaks,” Sien said, spiking charges into the tile around the Eye. “Someone else got here first. The Eye is gone.” Teshiarrite was harder than diamond and stronger than steel. It wouldn’t be scratched by some surveying charges, but the blast should knock it free from its socket. Sien attached a detonator and strolled to the nearest market stall to crouch behind a decorated bread stand.
Overhead, the final rays of weak sunlight kissed the dome’s edge. The grand hall stood silent as darkness tucked it in.
“I’m sorry,” xe whispered to no one there and pressed the detonator button.
The blast sang through the thin air, pealing off the mathematically perfect ceiling and vibrating inside the glassy walls. A cloud of dust followed, showering Sien’s helmet with microscopic pings and forcing xir oxygen recycling fans to pause. The debris settled quickly, coating every surface with a fine layer of mural.
Sien emerged, trailing dust like a tree shedding pollen.
Where there had been an Eye there was now a mouth, lips parted in the ballroom floor. It wasn’t too wide, about the length of a tall corpse, but inside was pitch black and still. The blue-black mosaic tiles now appeared matte gray compared to the depth of coal blackness underneath. And somewhere below, difficult to say how far, the impossible wink of the Eye.
Sien secured a rope to one of the market stall columns and clipped carabiners to the hooks on xir suit, so that combined they made a sturdy harness. Those Teshiarr designers had really thought of everything, and Pando Industries had spared no expense. Sien selected an edge of the hole with the least amount of jagged points and began xir descent into the black.
Sien had done solo spelunking before when mapping buried aqueducts for the automatics team, and xe knew how far a vivosuit headlamp should reach. But the blackness consumed it greedily, until xe was several body lengths under the ballroom floor and could no longer see xir boots. Xe flipped the headlamp off to conserve battery, and focused on the friction of the rope in the vivosuit gloves as xe released and gripped, released and gripped, down, down, down.
Xir boots made contact with solid ground, and Sien sighed into xir bent knees, leaning into the taut rope for a breather.
The ground down here was odd, lumpy and dense with some give. It shifted beneath xir boots in a way Sien associated with thick rubber maintenance tubing and something else on the tip of xir tongue. And beneath the softness there was also something hard, like metal rods or tree branches. It was likely a pile of garbage from the smashed cargo hold, combined with dirt and debris swept in through some hull breach. The inky blackness and sense of endless, unexplored space made Sien uncomfortable in a way xe didn’t want to acknowledge. Xe wasn’t going to waste time inspecting ancient trash.
The Eye rested a few steps away, the only source of texture in the void. It was as though it suctioned every spare micron of light into its glinting facets, giving Sien just enough guidance to find it. Xe hefted it in xir hands and examined its oil spill face, the treasure of the ages, Jaks’ ticket to a real life.
Attaching it to the vivosuit took a moment. Sien fumbled in the darkness, patting around for spare hooks and fastening a clumsy rope cradle for the Eye before lashing it to xir chest. It stuck out a bit farther than xir rib cage, but xe could still move xir arms enough to climb back up the rope, vivosuit massaging and cooling xir aggrieved limbs.
The top lip took some tricky maneuvering, but after several attempts Sien was able to pull xemself over the edge on xir belly, keeping both legs bent to avoid tearing the vivosuit on the threatening hole. Xe yanked xemself forward hand over hand, until xe was far enough away from danger that xir brain waved a white flag, and Sien collapsed into a puddle on the dusty tiles.
Jaks interrupted immediately.
• • • •
Indira,
Here’s the blueprints the lab extracted from the latest teshiarrite chip. Check out the photos the field team took of the mural before demolition. It’s one of those god images we keep seeing, Spiders Something, but it’s given me an idea. Tons of legs with some sort of mass in the middle . . . could be a mobility rig? I bet we could whip it up on our own. Send it to R&D and tell them I want a prototype by the next expo.
Unito Raxler
Chief of Acquisitions, Pando Industries
• • • •
“What do you mean, ‘gone’? Are you sure? What’s the state of the hall? Maybe the Eye fell below due to impact damage. Send me a full sweep.” The barrage bounced around Sien’s helmet with an urgency that dripped sour guilt into xir stomach. On the other side of the Narrows, Jaks was facing her worst nightmare, and the antidote was strapped to Sien’s chest. Xe almost couldn’t bear it, almost came clean right there.
Then Jaks said: “I’m en route. We’ll search together.”
Shit.
Sien rolled over and scuttled to xir feet, Eye throwing off xir balance on the wider movements. How long had xe been down there? When did Jaks embark? Hidden in the floor of Sien’s ship was a specially-constructed compartment, Eye-sized and shielded, waiting for its cargo. Xe had to get back before Jaks landed or got in range to use the really fancy scanners.
First things first: Sien flipped open xir arm panel and called xir ship to the beacon right outside the crash site mouth. It would take multiple hours to make it out of here, but at least xe would have a ride waiting. Then Sien repacked the duffel bags, lumbering with the awkward weight of the Eye, xir suit feeling three times as wide. Jaks was likely waiting for scans and photos, but xe could think of an excuse later, when the prize was safely stored under xir berth. Now it was a matter of balancing one bag on xir shoulder against the Eye on xir chest as xe bent over to heft the remaining equipment pack.
Underneath the bags lay a section of not-dirty floor, and here one could get a better look at the intricate tilework. From afar the design had seemed pixelated and lumpy, but up close that clarified into delineated forms within the overall design. At close inspection, the god-guardian mural consisted of thousands of small, separate links.
Sien unclipped the rope at xir waist and headed to the end still tied around the column, scraping dust off the mosaic with xir boot to see how far the linked design went. The comms channel clicked on.
“By the way, I finally translated that writing. It was a challenge, given the unique slang observed within different ship’s crews and the lack of detailed lingual ciphers—” The mosaic design wasn’t links like in a chain. They had their own offshoots, four on each, like limbs. Tiny arms and legs. Which would make those small, rounded tiles the heads. “—wouldn’t pass muster on a Preservationist dissertation defense, but it essentially says: We anchor the light from the heavens.”
Something poured out of the hole.
It bubbled up, black as tar, and spilled across the floor at a steady pace. Overhead the fresh night rose, veiling the teeming mass as it wriggled and clattered on the tiles. Sien froze, vivosuit monitors blaring a warning, as the mass swelled and stacked like an ant colony working in tandem.
The pieces were irregular and moved independently, some breaking apart and rippling open or closed to fit together into other hollows. There a bundle of femurs twisted into a pointed foot. Here some mandibles acted as a joint. Elsewhere chains of spines and ulnas rolled into a carapace, descended into legs. It grew past the second level of the grand hall, throwing a deep shadow over its likeness below, all blackened, freeze-dried flesh and shocking strips of white bone.
Thousand Dancing Beetles awoke.
The vivosuit monitors screamed in Sien’s ear as the recycling fans blared. Xe swallowed dry air and withdrew a string of surveying charges from the duffel bag.
The many-legged crab god shivered and tested its countless sharpened points on the ruined mosaic; the sound of knives on concrete. It flexed its many knees and bent over, carapace tipping up in back, to focus its attention on the trespasser with the giant jewel strapped to xir chest. The quivering maw—phalanges and patellas and ribs—opened wide enough to swallow five shuttles whole and roared with a chorus of mummified vocal chords.
Sien skipped the charges across the floor, ducked behind a column, and slammed the detonator.
The blast knocked xem backward into a countertop, bags spilling onto the floor, and a new tone of alarm sounded in xir helmet. But xe could still breathe and xe could still move, so xe rolled off and began to run, weaving in and out of the shop chambers and columns.
If Sien had paused, even for a moment, xe may have noticed three things. The first being a low hum in the room, as though something large and electrical had booted up. The second being the Eye on xir chest blooming with a pale purple light. And the third being an invisible connection, a doorway to another world, rooting in the back of xir head.
But xe ran, driving xir boots into the tiles like jackhammers. The low gravity was now an obstacle, making every step more like a bounce, stripping momentum off xir heels. Xe was part balloon, and the Eye was an anvil weighing xem down; but still Sien pounded ahead, clawing at the walls to push xemself forward as the damaged oxygen fans fought to keep up.
Another roar sounded, a chorus of voices dying, victims pushed off a ledge. The ground shuddered as legs the size of trees turned after Sien, who knew better than to look back.
This time xe noticed the hum in the air and the light on the floor as the curlicue circuits and designs lit up under xir feet, painting a path to the main doorway beneath the balcony xe had entered through. Sien followed the trail, abandoning xir duck-and-weave maneuver to run out in the open, across the legendary hall xe had been the last person alive to see intact.
The doorway loomed tall and opulent, curved upwards like a cathedral, and xe skidded through it into the dark.
On the other side was a short hallway, a throat opening into a swallowing abyss of glossy pathways. Xe stumbled at the edge, almost falling in, and the light followed swiftly to illuminate the walkways and curved walls.
A voice rang out in the empty space of the room, a voice outside xir head. It sounded recorded, automated, and its inflection implied a question Sien didn’t understand.
Behind xem, the low bass explosions of the god-guardian’s feet shattered tiles with each heavy step. It was closer to the doorway now, its carapace hidden by the peaked entrance.
The recorded voice repeated its question. Sien knew that tone. It was a customer service tone.
The Eye pulsed a purple flash, and the doorway inside Sien’s head opened a crack, letting something slip through.
Xe stepped out onto a thin, glassy walkway, avoiding the cavernous drop below.
Another gargantuan footstep. Dust falling from above.
The question, again.
But this time, Sien understood it.
“Get me out of here!” Xe shouted in a language xe did not speak. “The bridge! Take me to the bridge!”
“Complying,” responded the walkway and melted beneath xir boots.
Sien cried out as xe dropped, but xir boots only sank three fingers into the liquid glass before it hardened around xir heels with a snug fit. The walkway thrummed through the thick vivosuit boots as it pulled xem forward, melting and hardening instantaneously, so xe glided across the chasm on black ice.
A rushing, crushing sound echoed into the chamber, and xe twisted in place to check behind. The god had disassembled and was pouring through the doorway like sand through a keyhole, bones and sinew globbing back together on the other side. Out of the pulsing pile rose spindly legs and sharp knees, sticking out at all angles like cowlicks until the shielded carapace re-knitted and locked everything together again.
It moved like Jaks. Only bad.
The beast spilled out over the edge, skyscraper legs skidding down the smooth sides of the room just as Sien whooshed through a door on the other side.
The walkway whipped xem through a hall the size of a shuttle hangar full of other walkways, some headed up and others down, some meeting at junctions hanging mid-air. The doorways had the same arch as the soul alcoves dotting the walls, giving the space the aesthetic of a massive, black bee hive.
And occupying those alcoves and strolling onto walkways and rising out of the black glass all around Sien—chatting and laughing and adjusting their luxurious robes—glimmered the purple silhouettes of people. A guttural cacophony bubbled out of the shimmering people’s mouths, strange sounds refining into clear conversation:
Can’t believe I won a ticket to a pleasureship.
I hear the Empress himself may be aboard.
Papa, I want to go on the carousel!
I always need a nap after paying my tithe.
The alcoves here really pack a punch.
The priests are gathering in the gardens?
Sien skated through rooms large and small, each lighting up a breath before xe entered with the shimmering people, revealing religious mosaics and triggering long-silent contraptions to whir into movement. A dining hall of endless long tables and crystalline constellations unfamiliar to Sien etched into the floor. A stadium with some sort of athletic field and three teams of purple outlines scrimmaging for the ball. A vaulted room with a massive ring, its interior lined with person-shaped depressions. Public baths, lounge areas, corners with scenic window views.
Then a new voice, dripping with authority, rang out against the domed halls.
Empress Vinnali requires all citizens to sync immediately. The ship is having engine difficulties. Please report at once.
The people on the walkways dissolved and reappeared in the alcoves on the walls, sparkling up and down the vast expanse until Sien flew through a purple galaxy of souls.
But I already paid my tithe today.
If the Empress commands it, it must be necessary.
Did the priest just cut himself? Stars, he’s writing on the wall—
Papa, it burns—
My head, my HEAD—
The outlines writhed and shrieked in the dark, and the Eye on Sien’s chest brightened with interest, sniffing blood in the air. The tortured silhouettes wailed into an agonizing crescendo before silencing as one throat, and the lifeless forms slipped out of the alcoves, down the walls, and out of sight until Sien reached—
—the conservatory.
Time—or perhaps the walkway—slowed as the scene played out beneath xem. Still the same twisted black copses and flowerbeds, but now a group of purple outlines with tall hats stood in a ring by the wall and recited prayers in a sacred tongue.
Flesh, breath, worthy anchors.
We sacrifice for glory!
And as they beckoned, the people arrived, bodies dragging along the floor in disturbing angles and splitting into pieces as they reached the center of the ring and an unseen locus of power.
The ghost of Thousand Dancing Beetles rose from the sacrifice, a scintillating behemoth that flexed its many legs in a familiar fashion before devouring the very priests who worshiped it and battering its sparkling carapace into the floor where the jagged hole resided. It disappeared into the lower decks, taking the purple light with it, and shrouding the conservatory and Sien in darkness with only the low violet throb of the Eye.
The real Thousand Dancing Beetles took its place.
Sien let out a sound that was both a cough and a scream, jostling xir bruised ribs into misaligned muscle rollers, and reality sped up again. The walkway slammed xem across the conservatory and out the other side through the ship that stretched out beyond the edge of memory, as though the first breath xe had ever taken had been under the ballroom, standing on a mass grave.
That mass grave now hunted xem—three screams behind, but getting ever closer. It slid through passageways with ease, stretching and hardening while hardly breaking stride. Its maw was a thresher of sharpened femurs, lined with metacarpals, and draped with tattered skin. And every foot of it was a person, had been a person, and now those people lived inside Sien’s head.
I’ll never see my mother again.
Hold my hand, darling, I’m here with you.
They were going to marry me, I know it.
Who will water my garden now?
I can’t see. I can’t see!
Thousand Dancing Beetles roared, and the Eye surged like a lightbulb about to burst. Sien wrapped xir arms around it as though that would remove xem from the sentinel’s radar, interrupt this call-and-response. The god roared again—now right behind xem, in another open room of walkways and junctions—and xe gripped the sides of xir helmet, wishing xe could cover xir ears.
The Eye flared, blinding xem, and the voices twisted together in mass inosculation.
Stay.
Stay with us.
Come back, clever anchor.
Pay your tithe again.
STAY.
The walkway shuddered and lurched as the god landed a pounce and fought for purchase on the slick sides. It dug its drillpoint legs into the glasswork, shattering the lit panels, and clawed its way toward its prey. Sien was still locked into place, feet encased in black concrete.
It was a shuttle-width away, pushing xem forward with the pressure of its howl.
Sien shut xir eyes, pictured a study with verdant ferns and two steaming cups of tea.
“Arrived,” chimed the walkway and released xem.
Sien stumbled forward, almost tripping flat onto xir visor. The walkway had pushed xem back up, hardened, and turned off, along with every activated swirl on its panels. The thundering herd of bones vanished. The voices choked. Xe stood in the center of the silent, dead, bridge chamber, one hundred meters from freedom. And right behind xem, perched off to the side at a joining walkway, stood Jaks.
• • • •
CONSORT GENESFRE
My Lord! The palace has fallen, and the enemy has the Teshiarrite Key. We must get you to safety.
EMPRESS VINNALI
All is not lost. Meet me on the bridge of my finest ship. There, we shall join at last.
CONSORT GENESFRE
After all these lifetimes together, why speak of joining now? For power? For glory?
EMPRESS VINNALI
For love.
• • • •
“Did you just glide here on that skyway?” Jaks asked, face incredulous through her own visor. She sat strapped into her rig, its slender legs hugging the icy path. “How did you do that? Do it again.”
Sien hyperventilated into xir helmet, head swimming, as the vivosuit sucked in the air and defogged the glass. Xe flexed xir hands, stiff in their gloves, and expanded xir lungs as far as they’d go.
“Run!” Sien cried and took off for the exit.
Sien bounded along the narrow path, propelled by adrenaline and tunnel vision, never pausing to consider the sharp and sudden drop. The walkway squeaked under xir heels and haggard sobs clogged xir ears as xe approached the serrated mouth leading out into a hazy night.
Behind xem followed the needlepoint tings of Jaks’ rig as she navigated the sophisticated terrain.
“Sien, wait! What’s the matter?”
Sien paused at the exit, one hand grasping the rippled edge, grip threatening to tear xir vacuum seal. The needle tings slowed as Jaks reached xem.
“Sien, are you all right? What happened?”
Sien turned, urgency in xir throat—
“What is that?”
Xe froze.
Jaks pointed at xir chest, somehow conveying authority and poise through a dozen layers of nylon. The Eye hung dark, no longer thrumming with the disembodied voices of the sacrificed, but still very large, heavy, and glorious.
“Is that what I think it is? You said it was gone.”
Sien’s mind was a shuttle crash. Panic spiked in xir veins, but underneath lay the strewn wreckage of xir sanity and the sheer exhaustion of xir limbs. Xe was drained, emotions frayed, heart stuttering in xir chest. The empty bridge chamber played games with xir senses, mocking Sien with its banal, misty quiet, until xe no longer trusted xir own memories.
And before xem was Jaks, who read Teshiarr poetry aloud while Sien unpacked ration containers and watched politely when Sien re-enacted the throne room battle from Vinnali’s Sword using a mop and stack of broken chairs. Who kept an extra room made-up for Sien at all times and didn’t press when Sien left for xir ship’s berth instead.
Sien flipped open a comms link, realizing it had been closed this whole time.
“I’m sorry.” Xir eyes pickled with tears. “I’m so sorry, Jaks. I was just trying to do something good for you, to repay you for all you’ve done for me. I wasn’t supposed to live this large, you know? But you’ve always—you didn’t have to—” Gentle fans spun up inside xir helmet, drying stiff salt tracks onto xir cheeks. “You’re all I have, Jaks.”
Sien had been voidborn, grown to shut up and work, valued for xir sturdy back, unflappable constitution, and lack of complaint. Sien knew xir heritage and always hurried to lift the heaviest box and sleep on the hardest patch of ground. And whenever Jaks had waxed on about cartography over twin bowls of noodles, Sien had thought xe took the place of a mannequin or pet. Something to speak at, not to speak with. But Jaks had an entire society of scholars at her fingertips for deep conversations. And she had chosen Sien’s company every time.
“Sien,” Jaks said. “I think you’d better give that to me. We can figure out the rest together.”
Sien nodded, tongue thick and dry, and fumbled at the straps with numb hands. Xe snapped open clasps and unscrewed carbineers, until the Eye released into xir arms with the heft of a tombstone. The dark nebulas swirled within its facets, mysteries xe had no right to know.
The comms link crackled in xir helmet, a brief, grating sound that caught xir attention with its sudden depth.
“I said, it means: We anchor the light from the heavens. Did you hear me? Or did something shiny distract you? And why is your respiration rate going off the charts?”
The link clicked off, and Sien swore it echoed in the silence. Before xem, Jaks waited, arms open to receive the Eye.
“Something the matter?” she said, but her voice was muted, as though underwater. Her rig legs flexed in a swaying, hypnotic rhythm. A motion Sien hadn’t seen before.
“Jaks,” Sien said. “You’re moving wrong.”
The room shifted with the same motion and certainty as a new slide clicking forward in a lecture. One moment Jaks waited before xem, elegant eyes full of pity, the next she was gone. In her stead towered the puzzle block mass of corpse pieces, molded into spiky legs, broad carapace, shaking mandibles. And staring right at Sien was an eye, or rather eyes. Thousands of human eyes packed together like seeds in a sunflower, some fluttering in place, others sagging out of their sockets. They regarded Sien in concert, pupils dilated in the dark, and xe briefly wondered where xir own would fit among the gobs of jelly.
The maw—lined with reaching skeletal hands—gaped wide before xem.
Sien leaned against the wall, legs finally giving out, and tumbled backwards through the gash in the hull.
Xe twisted as xe fell, using the Eye as a sled to slide down the pile of debris. The hard ground slammed into xir helmet, clacking xir teeth together and bloodying xir nose on the sturdy visor; and Sien clutched the Eye at the bottom of the pile as though the blanket of fog would protect xem.
Through the soupy murk, mere hands away, blinked a soothing green light. The retrieval beacon.
“Up,” Sien whispered to xemself. The oxygen fans let out one final whine before breaking down. “Up. Up.”
But up to where? The ground trembled beneath xem as Thousand Dancing Beetles began emerging from its metal cocoon. Even if Sien started running, it would easily catch xem on open ground.
The Eye pressed into xir aching ribs, vibrating through the vivosuit as bone hit rock.
“Up,” xe commanded. “Up. UP.”
A familiar chirp answered in Sien’s ear—the cheerful sound of xir ship—and xe lifted off the ground. The ship had entered the lower atmosphere and deployed the catch-and-release beam.
Sien rose steadily through the air, hugging the Eye close, as the sentinel gushed out of the hull to an empty spot of dirt. The sight of it scrabbling below filled xir helmet with hoarse, dark laughter.
“Up up, you bony bitch!” xe said. “You rotting rat bastard! You calcified cow—ah!”
The Eye blazed with purple fire, slashing through xir polarized visor and blinding xem with its rays. Ropes of electricity sped down xir arms and locked them in place around the hard edges of the Eye right as an invisible force squeezed xir body and yanked xem back toward the ground. Below xem the dark and broken mass of the guardian quickly congealed once more, and the eye of many eyes stared up at Sien from the pile of rot.
Sien screamed, both from the pain in xir arms and the unbearable tension of the beam pulling xem up as the sentinel wrenched xem down. The vivosuit sprang into action, digging malfunctioning fingers into fresh, deep bruises and belching protein sludge all over xir chin. Xe kicked and writhed mid-air as spots bloomed in xir vision, and the door in the back of xir head slammed wide open.
Searing claws hooked into the furrows of Sien’s brain and dragged xem back, back into the black—away from the Eye and the pain and the god and the ship and the world—until xe arrived, standing and shaking in xir thermals, before a bustling crowd.
Dual suns shone upon a gathering of elegant people, clothed in garments of bewitching fabric that seemed to shift in color and texture as Sien’s eyes jumped from robe to robe. They strolled around a large bazaar punctuated with massive floral displays and shaded groves in every twisty corner. Street stands grew out of the mosaic tiling, some minded by shopkeepers but others filled with incredible automatics that fried fish and stoked bowls of hot broth along winding assembly serving lines. Swoops of buildings and skyways fanned out along the edges of the bazaar. And overhead, attempting to scratch the sky, what must be Kessine Spire. One of Empress Vinnali’s thrones.
A Teshiarr agora. Filled with Teshiarri.
Sien’s arms were empty yet leaden as xe touched xir lips in wonder, freed from the crush of the vivosuit and enrobed in the magic of the scene. Cycles upon cycles spent with xir eyes closed as Pando-produced dramas described these sights, and here xe was at last. No more cramped cockpits and powdered soups, but an airy city filled with noble beings, all smiling warmly at xem as they strolled by.
“Greetings, Citizen,” one said as they passed Sien.
“Report to sync, Citizen,” said another on the other side.
“Must pay your tithe to the Empress, Citizen,” still another.
“Time to sync, Citizen,” more.
Citizen. The word danced along Sien’s skin and fluttered around xir heart. It was hallowed and honeyed, dipped in welcome and dusted with purpose. Citizen. Xe knew every Teshiarr poem, every warbling coronation stanza, every herb steeped into the bowls of perfumed broth. And now, at last, it was time to slide into silken robes, pick pastel flowers, and join the dazzling agora crowd.
Sien sighed off a long winter as the Teshiarri continued strolling by, greeting and instructing.
“Find an alcove, Citizen.”
“You must sync, Citizen.”
Over and over came the polite command, until clockwork patterns emerged in the crowd. Teshiarri stuck in the same choreographed routes, caught in an endless loop. Never stopping to eat or pick a flower. Only walking in intricate circles to whisper in Sien’s ear.
“Pay your tithe.”
“Go and sync.”
“Stay with us.”
“Citizen.”
The scene pulled focus until it was defined not by wonder but by absence. No warmth from the bright dual suns. No umami scent of the fried fish and broth. No floral softness from the flowers. No music from the string players. No laughter. No throat-clearing. No footsteps, yet the people walked on and on and on.
“Citizen, have you synced tod—” they stopped as Sien grabbed their arm. It was cool and hollow.
“This isn’t real,” Sien said sadly. “You’re dead.”
The Teshiarri—long hair pinned up in an elaborate display, twinkling implants arched over one brow—shuddered at the words like a machine breaking down. Their skin began to flake away into the ether, and underneath pulsed a violet sorrow streaked with vibrant green. As the green veins fattened, the person’s left arm and entire waist decayed away into nothing.
“Thank you,” they said with the remains of their mouth and evaporated, leaving a green shadow on the mosaic underneath.
Sien croaked an apology, hand still extended, lips twisted in regret. Xe had meant to do more—offer an explanation or expression of gratitude—but something in xir words and touch had run through the citizen and changed them from the inside out. Now they were gone, a smudge of green on the polished tiled ground. A death, however accidental.
Sien steeled xemself and caught a person at random—a Teshiarri with broad shoulders and a feathered brooch. Again the words (“You’re dead”) and again the creeping green, the whispered thanks, the dissipation. Not easier than the first, but a confirmation of what xe must do. Sien turned toward the bustling crowd of immortal anchors.
Teshiarrite was a data storage device. And data could be erased.
One by one, Sien buried the dead. Xe observed each farewell with grace, bearing witness to shivering fingers, crumbling legs, and eyes turned up to the heavens. One hundred thirty-one thousand deaths awaited xem; a lifetime of reaping borne in a place without life or time. Scientists, scholars, poets, and merchants. Never a consort; never the Empress. Only his victims, who outlived him in the end.
Once the first thousand citizens had gone, the edges of certain stalls began to blur and far-off buildings faded away. The agora, city, and spire were all memories from thousands of eyes, and the edifices flaked and vanished along with their stewards. Sien paused here, wavering on the threshold. This place, however false, was the last Teshiarr city. Each citizen’s burial also buried the crystalline skyways and intricate automatics and extinct patches of flowers. The citizens anchored the god-guardian, but releasing them also meant releasing everything they knew. They deserved to be remembered.
So, Sien became a Preservationist. Xe took breaks from the message, the fading, and the grief to walk the annexation gardens and the long, empty halls of the spire. Xe studied each mosaic tile and memorized each scrap of graffiti tucked into courtyard walls. The endless stacks of the palace library. The gilded market canals. Music festival posters. Robe patterns. Shopping lists. Repair manuals. Medical journals. Love letters. Graves.
Sien witnessed and remembered it all, rewriting the stories from the melodrama tapes and setting the record straight. Soon, xe would be alone in this place, with an eternity of new stories inside xem.
The last Teshiarri was a child—cropped hair, basket of flowers—and Sien knelt to hug them with weary arms as xe uttered the final words.
But as those words fell and the child disappeared, the void around Sien sputtered and shook in a violent upheaval, rejecting xem from the world xe had sought for so long. Xe fell back with a howl, hurled through a gash in the sky as the world folded and caved—
Sien slammed back into xir body, much older in spirit but alive and screaming in flesh. The Eye blazed pure green now, the color of rescued seedlings gathered in a quiet study. Sien had wiped the data cache clean, put one-hundred thousand souls to eternal rest, and replaced them with a firm silence. If Pando ever captured the Eye, all it would find was static.
And below, still trampling the ground of the ghost planet—seething and grasping and waiting—churned the dead god, its invisible feelers still pricking at xir brain.
Sien shoved the claws out of xir mind and the Eye out of xir arms. It tumbled down with its payload into the black whirlpool of decay, and Thousand Dancing Beetles rose to meet it. But at contact the sentinel recoiled, a ripple racing through its writhing mass. Mandibles fumbled with the Eye, disintegrating as the jewel grazed them, and tossed the prize to legs that sloughed off into piles of bones onto the cold ground. The carapace crumbled, the maw rotted away, and the eye of eyes slid off the quivering face. The god convulsed and roared, decomposing at last, until it collapsed into a mountain with the Eye at its summit, releasing its invisible grip on Sien.
Sien shot up through the sky, lungs full of broken glass, nosebleed lacquering xir lips. The ship, sentinel, and Eye disappeared under a blanket of mist and towering kelp, and the ordeal was already half a daydream when xe slid into the airlock.
Except—“Sien? Sien?” Jaks’ voice in xir ear, even as xe fell into the dark womb of xir ship. “What was that transmission just now? You’re sorry about what? Sien, please respond. I’m still four hours away. Please.” And, quieter: “You’re all I have, too.”
Jaks. The real Jaks, more concerned and tender than ever before.
Sien dragged xemself the short length of xir ship, body heavy and numb as petrified wood. The vivosuit helmet sputtered in xir mouth and muffled all connection to the world until xe wrenched it off and sent it flying across the narrow space. It clattered off a line of inset drawers and rolled into a corner, visor staring back at the lost person with a mind of mulched memories and a crooked grin.
“One Manic Jackal, at your service,” Sien whispered.
Xe cackled at xir joke, gulping breaths of stale air and massaging xir face with gloved hands, marveling at the texture. There were tears coming, too, but not before xe did something right. Xe needed to do one thing right.
Sien hoisted xir torso into the pilot seat and slammed open comms.
“Turn back,” xe rasped. “Forget this place, Jaks. I’m coming home.”
Xe stared at the crude console screen as though it would show xir warning weaving between the Narrows, evading the grasp of the ancient god and making it safely to Jaks. Soon it would be in Jaks’ ear, and Jaks was very smart. Jaks was the smartest person Sien knew.
Sien punched buttons at random until the homing route activated and slid to the floor as thrusters hummed beneath xem. The small ship rumbled, swaddling Sien with a promise of safety and deliverance. Xe was going home. Xe was going to Jaks.
A distinctive clink echoed in the cramped quarters, followed by the soft whirr of a tape starting to turn.
All is not lost. Meet me on the bridge of my finest ship. There, we shall join at last.
Sien’s lip trembled and hot tears splashed onto the cold metal deck.
Join with me. For love. For love.
Empire crooned into Sien’s ear as xe curled up on one side, sobs crackling in xir throat, xir wet eyes staring up, up, to the heavens.
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