From Ruins Read online

  Walking while the pirates following her gathered their courage so they could kill her.

  She could feel the target on her back.

  She didn't know where she was going.

  She kept walking, and got to the end of the hall, and there was a door. And the door was not large enough for everyone at once. And it was shut, and didn't open. She almost ran into it.

  The door didn't open for her.

  Sediryl turned. It seemed to take forever to turn. It seemed to take forever for the pirates to realize the base didn't recognize her authority. Or that she didn't know what to do. Whichever. It definitely took forever for them to decide she was vulnerable.

  Her arm started to come up. She didn't want to burn anyone else. Her revulsion made her too slow, just as it had with Kamaney.

  Not hard enough, something hissed in her. You're not hard enough for this and now you're going to die.

  You've failed.

  Time lurched, started racing. The pirates were yelling. She was screaming. The guns were coming up. She looked down several barrels.

  You've failed.

  The guns went off.

  And nothing happened.

  Sediryl looked down her trembling arm. She hadn't squeezed her trigger. The pirates were still alive, and staring at her. They fired again and this time she watched the beams bend before they hit her.

  A shape ghosted over that wall, like a light seen through smog. Then someone-something-was standing beside her. A shadow with tortured shapes in it she refused to look too closely at. It shrank into what looked like... a Tam-illee? Maybe? The shapes flowed into the silhouette of a uniform, which writhed, as if it was the surface of a horror viseo. She kept her eyes above his collar.

  "Mistress," he said, and there was something unnatural in his voice, like the data defining it wasn't all there. "The flagship is this way."

  "Thank you," she said, and added, deliberately, hoping she was right. "Crispin."

  The D-per turned his dead-eyed gaze toward the gaping guards. "You don't need them."

  "No," she agreed, and he raised his hand and there was a palmer in it, and how did he make it like that? Or was that for show? Was he using some internal defenses in the base?

  The guards did die. One by one, so they could watch their fate approaching.

  "Not him," she said.

  Crispin paused.

  "I could use at least one flesh and blood person," she said. "To give me consequence." And to protect her, possibly, from this automaton beside her, who was just as monstrous as all the other sociopaths in Kamaney's army. And far more lethal.

  "Your whim, Mistress, is my command."

  Was it, she wondered, her skin prickling with her cold sweat. Did anyone command Crispin? Why was he defending her? Where was the datawand? Had Kamaney's death freed him? Or... had he always been free?

  Oh Maia, she thought. Goddess, how I need you.

  And now she could admit it. She needed Maia. She needed Vasiht'h, and Daize, and the Queen, and even Qora. She needed the Goddess, and the memory of Jahir and Lisinthir and her father, and everyone who'd ever helped or been kind to her. She needed Liolesa to tell her what to do.

  But it was her play. "The flagship, if you would, Crispin."

  "This way, Mistress."

  Her retinue resumed walking, and left the bodies behind it.

  Vasiht'h made his paws move, almost stumbled over them. What... what was that thing? Was that what was left of the D-per Maia had told them about? Goddess! He hurried behind Qora, trying not to look at the remains of the pirates. What did it say about him that he could ignore his nausea? A year ago, a month, even a week ago he would have been vomiting. Now, he mostly felt a dizzying relief. They were surrounded by their enemies; to no longer worry that the ones next to him were about to kill him was... well, it was good.

  His definition of ‘good' was so very different than it had been when he'd been in college.

  And what was going on with Sediryl?

  Those fires...

  Qora glanced at him and widened his eyes, as if adjuring him to observe, be present. The last thing old-Vasiht'h would have wanted was to look closely at any of this.

  But he did. He watched Sediryl walking alongside the Tam-illee in the uniform out of horror. Her stride, confident and yet robotic, too regular. Even the D-per seemed more limber than she did.

  She needs therapy, he thought, and almost started laughing. I guess that's why I'm here.

  Their one guard had given up pretending to be in control of them. He was following Sediryl with his gun out, as if preparing to kill anything that might come at them, and from the tension in his jaw and the pace of his breathing, he was terrified. Vasiht'h glanced behind the human, found the group of Faulfenza marching, their eyes sober and their focus palpable. No wonder the guard was afraid: Sediryl's new "friend" in front of him, and all these very capable looking slaves behind him...

  But they were heading to a pirate flagship. How in all the thoughtless hells was that going to work?

  Stay present, he reminded himself.

  The D-per led them to a Pad station, buried in Kamaney's personal section of the pirate base. That was what they used to step onto the flagship, which Vasiht'h didn't have to be military to recognize as a re-purposed Fleet vessel. He couldn't tell how big it was-the last Fleet vessel he'd been on had only needed twenty-five crew, and its corridors had also been roomy and its chambers large. Nor could he tell if it was bursting with pirates, because they weren't greeted by anyone when they arrived.

  The D-per had a voice full of wrongness. Not just its timbre, which stressed its artificiality... but the cadence was off, too. Had Crispin been one of Vasiht'h's clients, he would have thought him seriously troubled. Perhaps in need of a brief hospitalization while they gave him a chance to break from whatever situation was inspiring his... could he call it psychosis? Vasiht'h glanced at the uniform with its constantly moving tortured ghosts and flattened his ears.

  "This," the D-per was saying, "is your stateroom." Crispin glanced at the phalanx of Faulfenza. "They can be assigned quarters."

  "Next to mine," Sediryl said.

  "Of course, Mistress."

  "And the Queen, Vasiht'h, and Qora... they're with me in my quarters," Sediryl said. "Don't put them anywhere else."

  "As you say." Crispin twinned himself, two mild-mannered foxine tods with empty eyes and nightmare uniforms. The second one said, "Follow me," to the Faulfenza.

  Sediryl said, "Go ahead with him."

  A third Crispin stepped out of the body of the first and said to Qora, "This way."

  Qora glanced again at Vasiht'h, and Vasiht'h didn't need a dvahiht'h's powers to read him. The Faulfenzair followed the third Crispin, carrying the Queen... and Vasiht'h stayed behind. When Sediryl walked into the stateroom, he followed her, passing the nervous guard who took up position alongside the door.

  He was expecting some signs of moral turpitude. Mess. Inappropriate trophies. Dim lighting. Instead, the stateroom looked like a 3deo set, just waiting for some heroic Fleet officer to stride to the floor-to-ceiling windows, strike a pose, stroke his beard while looking noble and troubled. He would sit at his desk. Invite some of his fellow officers to the chairs facing it, to discuss their woes so they could come to some laudable solution. This was someone else's office. This ship belonged somewhere else.

  Sediryl stalked to the desk and turned, resting back against it with her arms folded over her latest ridiculous outfit. "How soon can we leave for the Chatcaavan border?"

  Crispin slowly tilted his head, like an animal who couldn't understand language, puzzled at the sounds issuing from other people's mouths.

  "That's where we're going," Sediryl said. "In case you haven't figured that out yet."

  "Is that how you're playing this?" Crispin asked. "'You're now my assistant. Make it so.'"

  "Yes," Sediryl said. "That's how we're playing this. Unless you want to kill me now."

  "I could."
>
  "I know. So either do it, or don't. But if you're not going to, we've got things to do."

  "You're frightened," Crispin said.

  "You're free," Vasiht'h interrupted.

  They both looked at him as if they'd forgotten his presence, though Crispin definitionally couldn't fail to notice him. Sediryl might have.

  "We were told you weren't," Vasiht'h said. "But you are, right? Or did Kamaney program some kind of ‘my lover inherits my indentured servant' clause into you?"

  Crispin walked to him and crouched down to stare at him. Vasiht'h met his eyes, expecting to find them unconvincing facsimiles. Instead, they looked just like the eyes of a severely disturbed flesh-and-blood person. Some part of him wondered who had coded that level of verisimilitude into a D-per... or planned for the potential of psychological illness. Then again, had they planned it? Or had approximating a soul made the potential for sickness inevitable?

  Did D-pers have souls? He wondered what Aksivaht'h would say if he asked.

  "You're not scared," Crispin said, frowning.

  Vasiht'h frowned too. Because the D-per was right. In that moment, evaluating the Tam-illee as a client, he hadn't been.

  "Why aren't you scared?" Crispin asked. Insisted.

  "Why do you want me to be?" Vasiht'h asked.

  "Who is this?" The D-per rose, pointing at him. "You had him in your quarters. Like you knew him. Did you know him before this? Maia hid too much from me. She had no right."

  "I'm Vasiht'h, and I'm a xenotherapist."

  "You brought a psychiatrist?" Crispin asked Sediryl. "Why, are you crazy?"

  "Are you?" she asked.

  Crispin laughed. "Yes. But that was my choice. And this is still my choice. It's me, Mistress, or death. If you walk out there without my protection, they'll kill you."

  "I know," Sediryl said, without so much as a tremor. Vasiht'h admired her nerve while wondering how much longer it could last.

  "So if you want my protection, you have to do what I want."

  "And what's that?" Vasiht'h asked, to get his focus off Sediryl.

  Crispin's eyes narrowed. "I didn't invite you here."

  Vasiht'h held up his hands. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

  The D-Per's eyes thinned. After a far, far too long pause, he said, "I want to destroy things."

  Sediryl said, "Do you care what?"

  Crispin smiled, a narrow gash of a smile. "No. As long as it's awful."

  "Well," Sediryl said. "Then I think you and I are going to get along magnificently. And if you want to help teach me to destroy things, I'm willing to be schooled."

  The D-per laughed. "Very nice. You're terrified but you hide it well. And you've either got guts or you're stupid, and I don't think you're stupid. So, you want us to head for the Chatcaavan border?"

  "I intend to rip the Twelveworld apart."

  "Promising," Crispin said. "I assume there's some reason you think you can."

  "The Twelveworld Lord and his entire militia are off playing war in the sector capital of the Eastern Quadrant."

  "Not far," Crispin murmured, tapping his cheek. "But if he doesn't have any reason to worry...?"

  Sediryl said, "He thinks the pirates are heading for the Alliance."

  Crispin guffawed. "Nice. Well, that sounds full of juicy potential. The Chatcaavan border it is. And I'll teach you to wreak all the havoc you could desire, Mistress."

  "I'm glad we understand one another."

  "I don't think we do," Crispin said. "I'm looking forward to seeing that explode, too." He turned his gaze on Vasiht'h. "Stop looking at me like that."

  "Like what?" Vasiht'h asked, calm.

  "Like you pity me."

  "I don't pity you," Vasiht'h said, and that wasn't a lie. Crispin was too dangerous to pity. He could feel compassion for someone in such desperate need of help, but pity he reserved for people he didn't think might torch a world and laugh while it burned. "But I wish I could help you."

  "You think I need help."

  "I know you need help," Vasiht'h said. "But I don't expect you to agree with me."

  Crispin's frown was so fleeting Vasiht'h almost missed it. "Smart," the D-per said. "Stay smart and I might let you live."

  "You can't kill my therapist," Sediryl said dryly. "I'm going to need him."

  Crispin laughed. "That was a good one. I like wit. Keep being witty."

  "Get my fleet moving, Crispin."

  "Yes, Mistress. Anything else, Mistress? How can I serve you further, Mistress?"

  Sediryl's fingers tightened on her arms. "I don't believe the obsequious act, and you don't mean it. So stop it."

  Crispin grinned. "But your lover liked it."

  "Kamaney was not my lover. She was a means to an end." Sediryl tapped her fingers on her arm. "Speaking of which. She has something that belongs to me, and I want it."

  "This should be good," Crispin said. "What's this?"

  "My ship."

  "Ohhhh." Crispin sneered. "You want me to hand you back your ship? Why, so you can sneak a D-per back into my system?"

  "No," Sediryl said. "I want my ship back because my aunt gave it to me, and it's got a tea service on it that's at least a hundred years old. This is Kamaney's flagship, so I bet it's enormous. Stuff it in one of the landing bays."

  "Is she always this bossy?" Crispin asked Vasiht'h, and there was no humor in it. The way Crispin was staring at him was a threat, not an invitation to intimacy.

  "Maybe it's just your style that's irritating me," Sediryl said. "Get me my tea service. In one piece. And then we can leave for the border."

  "And then we can destroy things?" Crispin asked sweetly.

  "And then we'll tear the border apart, I swear it."

  "Your wish, Mistress. Is my command." He glanced at Vasiht'h and added, "We're done, you understand? I don't want you talking to me."

  Vasiht'h doubted that, but he said, "I do."

  "Will you see to the Queen?" Sediryl asked the Glaseah. "I assume there's some documentation on this fleet that Crispin can give me to read while he's busy."

  "I'll do that," Vasiht'h promised. Leaving her alone with him seemed like a very bad idea, but they didn't have any choice. There was no way not to leave her alone with a D-per who had colonized the entire network. Were there ships he couldn't touch? Did it matter if they weren't on any of them?

  If only he could talk to her mind-to-mind! But he couldn't, so he said, "I'll see you later," and let himself out.

  Crispin didn't materialize outside the stateroom. The only person in the corridor was Sediryl's self-appointed bodyguard. Talking to murderous criminals felt ridiculous, but he couldn't think of any other way to find out where he was supposed to go. "Do you know where the Chatcaavan woman was sent?"

  "That way," the pirate said, pointing. "Take that lift. Tell it you want the captain's quarters."

  "Thanks," Vasiht'h said.

  The absurdity of the situation kept distracting him. He was in the lift of a stolen Fleet warship, a major one, which was now crewed by pirates, and he was... heading, alone, to the quarters he was sharing with another freed slave and his partner's cousin, who was in charge of it all?

  He shook his head, and left the lift.

  The captain's quarters felt palatial. Were all Fleet vessels designed like this? The first room was as large as Vasiht'h's graduate student apartment, and the entire outward facing wall was a floor-to-ceiling window, filled with a stygian dark pierced by the pinpoint clarity of the stars. Two doors led from this room, one presumably to a bedchamber, the other... who knew. A bathroom? A trophy room? A spa? The aesthetic was clean and uncluttered: one part of the room, near the window, had been arranged into an office with a curving desk with a book stand. The front of the room, where Vasiht'h was standing, had a living room feel, with a couch and several chairs, a coffee table, and a sideboard.

  The Queen was unconscious on the couch. Qora was sitting in a chair, thumbing through something on a data tablet. "How did it
go?" the priest asked.

  "I guess we're leaving." Vasiht'h sat alongside the Queen and looked at her face. Touched her cheek, found it hot still. "Any change here?"

  Qora had set the tablet down and come alongside. "None."

  It didn't take much to scoot his foreleg over until his paw was pressed against the Faulfenzair's foot. Through that contact, he whispered, /Crispin is dangerous. We can't talk out loud, anywhere./

  /No hope we can talk with the lady, then./

  /No,/ Vasiht'h answered. And hesitated before continuing, /Did... you... see?/

  Qora tucked the sheet up closer to the Queen's throat. /Your lady setting people on fire? Of course./

  /Are you sure it was her?/

  Qora's eyes flicked up, met his, returned to the Queen.

  /You're really good at this,/ Vasiht'h said, irritated. /How in Her name are you doing it?/

  /Doing what?/ the Faulfenzair asked, his mental tone dripping innocence.

  /You're not even giving away that we're talking. It took me and Jahir years to figure out how to do that!/

  /Well, I did say Faulza's Eyes had jobs./

  /You said you were a mechanic!/

  /And also a spy?/

  Vasiht'h suppressed his need to twitch, or scowl, or throw up his hands in frustration. It was difficult.

  Qora's mental voice was more serious. /All of the God's Seers are observers, alet. It was a natural fit for our first military, that we might volunteer ourselves as watchers. There are not many of us, but we took to it well./

  All this was distraction from the real problem. /Sediryl. Sets things on fire./

  /So it seems./

  /Why can't I talk to her if she does have the mind-talents?/

  /Better to ask... why doesn't she let you?/

  Vasiht'h's heart fell. All his conversations with Jahir about the evils of mind-mages. All his training as a therapist. All his experience, talking people through every form of denial, and all the many ways people undertook to protect themselves from conceptions of themselves they couldn't handle or accept.

  "Ohhh," he whispered. "Oh, no."

  "Yes," Qora said with a sad nod. "It looks serious, and I'm not sure how to heal her."