In Nadir's Shadow Read online

"The attack begins on the assembly line!"

  "Want to do all you can? Volunteer for fleet service and take the fight to the enemy!"

  "Waste an hour, waste a life—floaters don't take breaks!"

  She was pretty sure they did. Kirill chased Smiley around underneath the chairs.

  The door to the examination room opened and Doctor Ermolei stepped out, followed by Shura's neighbor, Arina. Ermolei shook her hand with both of his as Arina smiled up at his smooth, strong-jawed face, absorbing his words: "Stop by again in four weeks and we'll see how she's doing."

  "Thank you, Ermo. I feel much better." Arina lingered another moment with nothing to say before departing, her daughter trailing from one hand like luggage. In passing, she gave Shura a look of utter disdain.

  Shura stared after Arina until the other woman turned the corner, stifling the words she wanted to throw after her. Those Transfer Analysis bitches were all the same, but there was no point in bickering. Fights drew attention.

  "Having fun down there? Whatcha doing, chasing floaters?" Ermolei stood bent over the chair Kirill had entwined himself in.

  Her son laughed. "No!" he said in a reproving tone. "There are no floaters here!"

  "Only if we keep it that way." The doctor straightened and smiled at her. "Hello, Shura. Ready?"

  His smile reached all the way into her belly. She mirrored it and nodded.

  "Come on in." He led the way through the door while Shura disentangled Kirill from the chair.

  Inside, she tried to pick up her son to put him on the table, but he resisted. "No, I can do it!"

  "How's work?" Ermo said as they watched Kirill hang from the table's edge and try to swing his leg over.

  "It's all right. System Defense Command issued a whole new set of upgrade orders for the cable network. We weren't even done with the last ones yet. I don't know what they're in such a hurry for; there wasn't that much wrong with the old network, as long as the data load was kept under control. They hardly use it anyway, it's more for production and services."

  "Maybe they anticipate a use for it soon."

  "You think?" She winced at her own tone and didn't meet Ermo's glance. Kirill made it to the top of the table and threw his fists into the air, providing a timely distraction.

  The basic health exam took only minutes and revealed him to be a perfectly healthy seven-year old. Before the doctor could begin the next round of tests, Shura shoved aside her hesitation: "Can I talk to you somewhere?"

  Ermo looked down at her. "Of course." He summoned an orderly from another room and followed Shura into the observation room next door. "What's on your mind?"

  She refused to make eye contact. "I'm not even sure."

  "Well, something's obviously bothering you."

  She sighed. "I got word this morning. Vikenti died."

  He waited, then said, "I'm really sorry."

  "I'm not. Not really." She finally met his kind eyes and saw the concern on his face. "You know? When he left us, I used to dread hearing about his death. And I guess I dreaded it so much that now that it happened, there's nothing left to feel. I don't even hate him anymore. I used to call him a coward—well, I still do. But I kind of understand. Maybe." Shura looked out the one-way window at Kirill talking to the orderly while she worked on him. "I can't hide him forever. And I don't know what I would do if he—" Her voice broke and twin tears welled up without warning to roll down her cheeks. She shook as she choked back a sob.

  Ermo took her in his arms and she grasped his coat with both hands, squeezing her eyes shut and grinding her teeth, trying to hold in the vast emptiness in her heart. She wanted to tell him about the five children she'd already lost to the war. She wanted to explain her despair when her youngest twins, Darya and Terenti, died fighting together on some hellish planet while she was pregnant, and she realized the same would one day happen to the son she carried. The words couldn't break through the rock in her throat, and eventually the pain withdrew, back to the knot in her stomach that never left.

  "We've kept him safe so far. He doesn't have to fight. By the time he's old enough for that, we'll figure something out."

  Embarrassed, she turned away and wiped her cheeks. "I wanted to ask you. For the last few months, he's had an imaginary friend. Smiley. He talks to him a lot, and even gets advice sometimes. Do you think—" She saw the look on Ermo's face. "What? Tell me!"

  He'd regained his composure too late. "It might be nothing."

  "Tell me."

  His eye twitched and he looked around. "When I told you that the prenatal tests showed an unacceptable defect and your pregnancy had to be terminated, you asked me what the defect was, and I refused to tell you more than the official line that he'd have certain weaknesses that would make him a liability. I still cannot, and will not, tell you precisely what that entails. You need to trust me, as you have so far, that I have your best interests at heart. I'm going to ask you to monitor Kirill's interaction with his friend, and tell me about the things he says and hears." He looked in her eyes. "Please understand. We haven't talked about this in a long time, but no one can ever find out about what we did. It would mean a suicide run for you and me, and Kirill would end up normalized, meaning he'd spend the rest of his days drugged to the gills and working an assembly line."

  She didn't look away. "His benchmark tests are coming up real soon. Now you tell me: are these "defects" going to show up? Is that going to be it for us?"

  He gave a small smile. "No. I'll be administering the tests."

  The rising wave of fear lost its edge. "Why do you help me, Ermo? I've asked you before, and you never answer me."

  His face went blank. "I killed my own unborn son. Because of an unacceptable defect. It destroyed my partner, and our union."

  It was her turn to embrace him, pressing her cheek against his chest. She heard the rumble of his voice as he continued, "I signed up for guard service after that, but it was too much for me. I broke down, and they sent me back here to be a community doctor. When I gave you the test results, I saw the look on your face and I couldn't do it again."

  She squeezed him, then let go. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

  "I don't regret it. He's a bright boy. He deserves to live."

  They both looked out the window to see the orderly putting away equipment and casting unsure glances in their direction while Kirill rolled around on the table. "It's hard for me to discipline him," she admitted. "I know it'll only be worse for him later, but every time he's hurt or sad, I just feel rotten. It wasn't like that with my other kids."

  He gave her another glance. "Pay attention to that, too. Tell me about it next time."

  She turned to him, suddenly desperate. "Can I see you before then?"

  "I'll call you. We can work something out." His smile was of a different kind now.

  *****

  Khariton, growth batch number 43554-15, stared at his display and tried to feel excited. He'd just laid out a solution to the most difficult strategic challenge he'd ever been assigned. His answer was controversial, and he'd looked forward to defending it right up to the moment he'd sent it out.

  He looked around. Lab-born analysts like himself, wearing the same grey jumpsuits beneath the same mess of dark hair, occupied the other two dozen work stations in the room. When he leaned forward, he could see the green light from the displays reflect off the bronze-colored faces of his closest colleagues, all with the same look of detached concentration. They hardly ever moved, yet the stale, sour reek of sweat never stopped competing with the smell of electronics.

  He leaned closer to his neighbor. "Gennadi."

  The other man blinked and looked around, as if barely woken from sleep, before facing Khariton. "What?"

  "I just cracked a Category Six."

  The confusion on Gennadi's face turned to disgust. "Good for you," he said, and turned back to his work.

  Stung back into apathy, Khariton opened up a batch of after-action reports from a recent skirmish an
d accessed the first one. He listened to a fragile male voice describing how his squadmates fell, the habitual longing ache in his gut flaring every time the guard's voice hitched over some deep emotion. If Khariton were to suddenly die, as unlikely as that was, no one would care like this man did for his comrades. His loss would be a temporary inconvenience, alleviated and forgotten as soon as the growth labs provided a replacement.

  A soft buzz deep inside his ear preceded a terse message: "Dash fifteen, report to unit director." Lethargy dragged at his limbs as he withdrew his hands from the control gloves and got up. He passed rows of motionless colleagues on his way to the only door in the room besides the exit. It slid open when he approached, the bright light from inside forcing his eyes to slits as he entered. The director's office was barely large enough for a built-in desk, two chairs, and enough room to walk around each.

  "Dash fifteen. Sit down."

  He did as instructed and sat across from the plain, black-haired man dressed in guard greens. No one liked talking to the director, but Khariton could deal with him better than most, not least because he'd solved more cases than any other analyst.

  The man's square face held no emotion as he spoke: "Your solution to the problem calls for as complete an evacuation of Marshal as can be managed before the enemy enters striking range. I'm telling you now, that even with this having passed the logic algorithms, I don't see how you expect to convince me it's even close to valid."

  To smile now would poison the discussion, and Khariton struggled to keep a neutral expression. "Yes, sir."

  "Why is evacuation preferable to any of the dozens of committed defense scenarios?"

  "Because we are not our homeworld. Our aim in this war has always been the decisive defeat and subjugation of the floaters, since this is the only way to preserve our species. If we tie our fortunes to the fate of any one asset, it invites an escalation until the majority of forces from both sides are committed. The enemy has more resources at their disposal than we do, so that situation would eventually result in catastrophic defeat."

  "You propose to reduce this problem to a mere equation? It's not fleets and armies that win battles, it's the manner of their deployment."

  "Yes, sir. Certainly the list of tactical options in this case is near endless. However, when available forces are insufficient to inflict critical losses on the enemy, tactics can achieve only one thing: delay. Time allows the deployment of additional forces, or a retreat in good order. In an all-out defense of Marshal, neither of these would be possible. The time we would gain would buy us nothing."

  The director leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingertips together. Khariton watched his breathing change and his brow tense. The director had never had such a strong reaction to one of his solutions before. "It's your job to pick holes in the conclusions you just presented me. Instead, you suggest we pack up and run."

  "Yes, sir. The problem doesn't lie with the conclusions. I was unable to identify a course of action that would offer a reasonable chance of decisively defeating the enemy invasion and retaining the homeworld. I feel confident that no one else will, either." That last sentence had gotten away from him. He saw the director draw breath for a blistering response and he hurried to add: "But we can sustain its loss and maintain our ability to survive and wage war effectively for the foreseeable future. Marshal's military value lies in its industry and its infrastructure. The former we can bring with us, and given enough time, we can recreate the latter."

  The director stared at him. Khariton shifted in his chair and blinked too often. There was a look on the other man's face he hadn't seen before.

  "Dash fifteen. Your solution meets the requirements set forth in the initial outline. It will be passed on for further evaluation." In a lower voice, full of spite, he continued, "It is my personal opinion that you only thought of this fairy tale because you are a tuber and you lack any connection to the Commonwealth or its people. No real human would ever contemplate abandoning their homeworld under any circumstance."

  "But that's what our forebears did," Khariton said quietly, blood draining from his face.

  The director stood abruptly. "Get out of my sight." Khariton fled the room.

  Khariton dove into the pool with a running start and pierced the water with hardly a splash. His momentum carried him close to the bottom, and almost clear to the other end. By the time he came up and cleared his eyes, his colleagues were barely making their own desultory entrances to the water.

  The hour of swimming was mandatory, but Khariton would gladly volunteer if it wasn't, and the fact that he was alone in his enthusiasm had ceased to dampen it long ago. While he darted back and forth under the surface or came out to dive back in, the other analysts did slow laps or treaded water as they stared at the white walls.

  Exercise softened the awful feeling the director had left him with, but couldn't erase it entirely. He wondered if it was true, that he lacked a fundamental connection with humanity, and that this was why he considered possibilities no natural human would. The thought pained him, but wouldn't that be a good thing in this case? Objectivity was the analyst's guiding principle, a concept Khariton had been taught to practice for as long as he could remember. He still couldn't understand why the director had been so angered by his solution, even though it was the only valid one. If survival of the species was at stake, then what did the director's feelings matter?

  Hiding in a corner, one of his colleagues swallowed a pill. Seconds later, she closed her eyes with a smile and drifted away on her back. Khariton flipped upside down and swam for the bottom.

  He heard a buzz in his ear, then a voice: "Dash fifteen, dry off and await an escort." He confirmed without thought before a tingle of worry started in his gut; the summons was likely related to the director's outburst.

  By the time he stood between the dryers, having the water blasted off his skin, a man in guard greens waited for him by the exit. He hurried into his clothes and went to meet him.

  The man had very little to say. "Follow me." He turned on his heels and marched away. Khariton lengthened his stride to keep up, trying to smooth his hair back.

  Chapter Two

  Azial watched the flame consume the dry flute tree leaf. The ink he'd used to draw his offering bubbled and boiled away into black tendrils of smoke, stinging his nose with the acrid smell. When the flame died and only ash remained on the blackwood tray, he took it outside and blew as hard as he could. The ashes rode the breeze into the sky and disappeared, escorted by approving murmurs from the waiting crowd.

  He ignored them and went back inside, to the gentle, grassy odor of palm oil. His wife sat on the dirt floor of the hut, mending his armor. "Your chestplate is complaining about you," she said without looking up as she rubbed oil into the wood with a rag. "It says you take too many risks."

  "Tell it I am lucky to have the protection of a strong and loyal chestplate. I honor its service."

  Pirisati snorted. "Now your armor is satisfied. What about me?"

  Azial kneeled before her and took her head in his hands. "I promise I will return safely." She looked up, and he studied her lined, brown face and her elegant, wide-set green eyes. Her hands put down their work and reached up to entwine behind his ears, brushing over the Vile talons tied into the braid she'd made for him. Their foreheads touched, and he felt her thick curls around his fingers as he breathed her smell.

  If he'd had a choice, he would have stayed there. Instead, he moved his hands down her shoulders to her arms and slowly straightened. "Will you help me prepare?"

  The thigh covers came first, four curved plates of boiled and treated blackwood bark that she tied front, back and either side to the belt that held up his breechcloth. The chest- and backplates hung from thick leather straps that looped over his shoulders to connect with his belt at the bottom. His shield, brand new after his last had snapped in half beneath a Vile's claws, hooked onto his backplate. Finally, she handed him his wrathblade, a forearm's length of cur
ved, dull grey metal.

  "Your son has news," Pirisati said as she tightened the straps. "Telal has chosen him to be apprenticed as a hunter."

  "I knew he would."

  "Musuri didn't." She straightened and looked him in the eyes. "He was worried, and now he is proud. Why aren't you?"

  Azial frowned, not quite ready to remind her how many times they'd had this conversation before. "He's too easily pleased. He cheers with every step he takes. Why should I be proud that he'll be doing his duty for the tribe?"

  "He has to cheer, because you won't," she insisted. "He wishes every day he'd been born as Sharyukin. He wants to be like you, and he knows he never will be. Now he's found a place, taken his first steps to becoming a man. When will you celebrate his success?"

  This time, he had an answer to satisfy her. "When he marries Tamzi, I'll make a grand offering to the Great Mother and Father. I'll hold a great celebration at the Sacred Circle, and invite all the tribes to witness their union."

  He saw her waver between reactions, and choose the milder one even as her voice tightened: "You're happy with their courtship."

  He'd given her an answer, and still she wasn't satisfied. "It's the greatest thing that could have happened. A sure sign of our ancestors' approval. Chief Balbasu would have objected by now if he saw a problem with their romance, and I intend to smooth the way any way I can when I see him at the summit."

  She turned away to collect his bow. "Do you think they'll listen this time?"

  He took it from her hand and braced it with his foot. With an effort, he grabbed the other end, and strung the bow with one fluid move. "I believe so." He hesitated, then took her hand and stood in front of her. "Their marriage will strengthen the bond between the Udaki and the Yahua. Balbasu will feel compelled to continue to support me, and that will matter to the other tribes. Our son will help protect the future of the Kith. That is truly worth celebrating."