Empire of Bones (31 page)

"What?" Anarres whispered.

/
have a great interest in experimental gardening, and I have long been of the opinion that the
carnivorous domes are a vital part of any healthy ecosystem. We have managed to grow such a
dome from spores found in the Naturals' Quarter, mingled with genes from the Core's own seed
ban'ts. The results have been most inter-esting. You are sitting in one of them now. It will eat
anything that (remains in it, and it was last fed yesterday. So I'm afraid I shall not be staying long,
but rest assured, your corpse will not be wasted. It will provide valuable nutrients for our latest
project. I'm sure that

you won't begrudge the dome your body
—
after all, we irRas do love our gardens, don't we
?

Then, with a flurry of robes, he was gone through the wall. Her head pounding, her mouth dry with fright, Anarres lay back on the floor and tried to think of a plan.

22 varanasi

Perched precariously on the edge of an elephant that was, in fact, a mammoth-resurrect, Ir Yth stared down at the scene below with carefully disguised trepidation. The
ralfsasa
had never been so close to so large a creature before, unless one counted certain of the inhabitants of the inner Core Marginals, and she did not like it. She did not like the smell of old hide and meat, and neither did she care for the hairy tex-ture or the filthiness of the wool that was clutched in all four of her plump hands. The mammoth swayed and jolted as it made its laborious progress across the square.

Ir Yth's latest ally was balanced on its neck, just in front of the canopy in which Ir Yth herself sat.

Kharishma's head was thrown back, her jasmine-scented hair partly concealed by a hel-met of antique design. She seemed to be talking to herself, mur-muring soothingly beneath her breath, and Ir Yth was starting to have serious doubts about her chosen course of action. It was becoming evident even to an outworlder that Kharishma's be-havior went a little further than eccentricity warranted.

Ir Yth had asked that Kharishma take her immediately to the authorities, so that she could make it plain to the govern-ment that Sirru represented a threat and must be neutralized. Kharishma had been reassuring. Certainly they'd go to the government, in the morning, and tell them everything. It had taken Ir Yth no more than an hour to realize that Kharishma had lied to her, and she was furious with herself for not hav-ing detected the lie. Then again, perhaps Kharishma herself had believed it.

But Kharishma, mad though she might be, also had power of a kind: money and connections and people who, it ap-peared, were willing to go into battle for her. It had dawned on Ir Yth only moments ago that Kharishma's troops had nothing to do with the regular military. She asked Kharishma where they came from, and the woman said with a strange smile, "They're just extras."

Ir Yth did not know what this meant. Kharishma contin-ued, "Not the helicopter, though. That's for real.

Media. Channel Nine." She gave Ir Yth a coquettish glance from be-neath her long lashes. "Aren't I clever?" Ir Yth could not bring herself to agree. She had definitely chosen the wrong ally, Second Body or not. AH this Jaya-stock seemed to be ei-ther contrary, argumentative, or downright mad.

Ir Yth comforted herself with the thought that at least this bizarre attack upon Jaya's temenos was likely to accomplish its object in the long run: that of generating confusion and mess, discrediting
desqusai
involvement in interplanetary affairs, and providing the justification for tlie
kfiaithoi
to put forward evidence that the
desqusai
caste as a whole should be termi-nated. Once that was done,
desqusai
holdings would become
'thaithoi
holdings—assimilated as per tradition by the next caste up—and
hhaithoi
prestige would correspondingly in-crease. She allowed herself a moment of admiration for EsRavesh, who had, after all, been the person responsible for developing the radical new meme that allowed
khaithoi
to start questioning the commands of the Core for the first time in their history, permitting them—literally—to begin think-ing the unthinkable.

Cheered by these happy heresies, Ir Yth gripped the mam-moth more tightly as it lurched forward.

Troops were pouring in through the gate, scattering briefly as an aircraft with unfa-miliar markings shot low across the square. Kharishma glanced up, grimacing.

"Oh, fuck.
That's
the military."

She nudged the mammoth behind one large ear with a cat-tle prod and the beast rumbled forward through the temple gate. There was very little to show for the onslaught. Kharishma's followers milled about, occasionally firing stolen machine guns into the sky, but the courtyard was almost de-serted—almost, but not quite, for along the outer parapet of the temple gathered a group of twenty or so monkeys. They sat in silence, in a long row, and stared down at tüe intruders with bright, animated eyes. Slowly, their heads turned, as though they were a single creature. With a sudden burst of rage, Ir Yth realized what Sirru had done. She plucked at Kharishma's sari. Irritated, the would-be liberator of Earth turned.

"What?" Then, evidently realizing that she was addressing a goddess, she added perfunctorily, "Forgive me."

The
hiroi.
See
?

"I don't understand—"

Ir Yth pointed to the monkeys.
Those creatures. They carry a
—
a plague. They must be
exterminated
.

Kharishma looked doubtfully at her new mentor. She said, "Are you sure? They're sacred animals; they've always lived here in the temple. Besides, they look healthy enough to me."

Ir Yth sent a pheromonal warning—just a small one, but sufficient to cause a quiver to run through Kharishma's slen-der frame, like a stone cast into a pond. She was easier to influ-ence than the original Jaya; that much was clear to Ir Yth. Maybe Jaya had grown used to pain.

Plague. They must be hilled. Or everything is lost
. Had Sirru managed to infect anything else? The
hiroi
were bad enough, Ir Yth thought, but even though they might be closely related to humans (which presumably was why Sirru had selected them for his accursed experiments), they were not sufficiently sentient to relay a message. The human
desqusai
, on the other hand, were another matter entirely. If a communication virus should enter human beings… But surely they would still not be powerful enough to contact a depth ship, relay information about Ir Yth's betrayal, and ask for help and rescue. Or would they? Jaya was a Receiver and had spoken to a ship, but the ship had been in close orbit. To contact a depth ship over a greater distance, any message would have to be amplified by a relay station, and Sirru did not have access to such a thing.

And then Ir Yth was struck by a terrible thought, which caused her to sway dangerously on the back of the mammoth. Jaya had link-bonded with the ship; their genes had merged to create a being that would, under the proper conditions, be-come a ship itself one day. And Sirru had told her that the bonding had been successful; indeed, it had been this piece of information that had precipitated Ir Yth's own act of sabotage. She had assumed that the seed had died with the ship, but what if she was wrong? What if Sirru had brought it to Tekhei, in its early, dormant state? If the seed was allowed to grow, in a suitably cold place, then it could act as the amplifier Ir Yth feared.

Darkness filled the air, and for a brief moment the sun be-came a black circle of eclipse, fractured by stars… Ir Yth re-flected proudly that her expressives at times verged on the poetic. But then the
raksasa
turned to find that someone was staring at her.

The newcomer, a tall man, was standing in the back of one of the military vehicles. There was a calculated insolence in his stare, but beneath it she could sense a strong current of fear. Ir Yth sent the same reproving expressive that she had most recently deployed against Kharishma, and had the satis-faction of seeing the pale eyes widen.

Kharishma leaned down from the back of the mammoth and cried excitedly, "Amir! Over
here
, darling!"—as if she were not already the most visible thing in the vicinity. A spark appeared in the man's cold gaze.

"Kharishma! What do you think you're
doing}
I've just had the commandant on my mobile, asking what the fuck's going on. Didn't I tell you I have no authority anymore?" His voice was seared with a bitterness that Ir Yth could palpably feel. "Stop this playacting immediately! Who«r

Kharishma sagged back against Ir Yth, radiating frustra-tion and astonishment.

"Well,
you
couldn't seem do anything about her," she said, in a small, injured voice, "And that other one, the other alien—you don't know what he's planning to do…" She drew herself upright. "I just want what's best for humanity!"

"Oh, for God's sake. You can't tell reality from fantasy, Kharishma. Get down off that thing and tell diese people to go home before you get arrested."

Ir Yth was suddenly overtaken by a wave of fury. A hatred of this hot, dusty, primitive little world, of its peculiar and ar-rogant inhabitants—and of all the mad
desqusai
—rose up to choke her. She longed for the stifling silences of the Core Marginals, for the peace and the darkness and the comforting presence of others like herself. She wanted to go home, stay with her clade in the Marginals and never set sense on
desqusai
again.

"You don't understand!" Kharishma cried plaintively, and spurred the mammoth forward into a lumbering trot. They had reached the main door of the temple. This was barred against them, but Kharishma (with a glance at the media heli-copter circling above) smoothed back her hair and raised a de-cisive arm. One of her men hefted a rocket launcher to his shoulder.

"
Kharishma
!" Amir Anand shouted. "Where did you get that thing?" There was a deafeningly soft crunch as the door was blasted off its hinges. Victoriously, Kharishma prodded the mammoth on into the temple.

Wait! What if it's a trap? This is foolish
! Ir Yth was making her feelings plain, but her new ally was riding on a wave of adrenaline and vengeance for old, imagined slights, and for once Ir Yth's wishes were no more than the dust.

The temple monkeys, terrified by the rocket, broke ranks and ran. Their flight was curiously choreographed—they poured down from the parapet and bolted to every direction of the compass, over the walls and through the gate. Soon, they were gone. Ir Yth gave a hiss of annoyance. Sirrubennin EsMoyshekhal had been cleverer, and swifter to act, than she imagined. If
desqusai
could deceive
hhaithoi
, their elders and betters, it was high time for the caste to be terminated.

Kharishma slid down from the mammoth's back and ran into the temple, leaving Ir Yth perched miserably in the sad-dle. Ir Yth glanced down. The ground seemed a very long way away. It had been a long time since the
raksasa
had felt fear, but she felt it now. She did not like heights, nor unpre-dictable alien
hiroi
.

What if the beast took it into its head to run off?

"Goddess?" a voice said from the other side of the mam-moth. Ir Yth turned to see the tall, pale-eyed stranger. He had spoken the word with the faintest, subtlest trace of irony, but then he bowed. She could still sense a raw fear in him, but he had conquered it enough to address her, and Ir Yth allowed herself a moment of admiration. Reaching up, he held out his arms and said reassuringly, "Come on. Slide down. I won't let you fall."

Ir Yth did not want to show weakness in front of this
desqusai
stranger, and she hated the undignified manner in which she was compelled to turn in the saddle, hitching her robe up over her bare ankles. Such immodesty… But she was desperate to get away from the huge creature, so she obeyed the stranger's instructions. He caught her easily, then stepped back and allowed her to rearrange her robes and her dignity. She could still feel his fright: a fear of difference, a fear of infe-riority…

Than't you.

"You're welcome. I am Prince Amir Anand."

/
have heard of you. Where is Kharishma
?

"Enjoying the fruits of her display, I would imagine." The stranger stared at Ir Yth. "You've made a curious choice of ally."

I_____________________________I

/
believed the woman to be something she is not
, Ir Yth said, rather stiffly.

"That's not uncommon with Kharishma," the stranger said, unhappily.
He's in love with the woman
, Ir Yth realized. She could feel it burning inside him. He went on, "You want contacts, don't you? People of power."

That is correct. My Receiver has proved ineffective.

"Your—? Well, never mind. I believe I might know some-one who can assist you," Amir Anand said soothingly. "A man named Naran Tokai."

23.
't4ranasi

Sirru's eyes, adapted to the lower light levels of Rasasatra, did not have too much difficulty in picking out the details of his path. He observed the carvings along the wall with interest, noting familiarity of form: some of the oldest variations of irRas castes. Many phenotypes had sprung from the original Hundred Castes of ancient legend, and now there must have been several thousand different forms, scattered across an equal number of worlds. Only the Core knew for sure just how many types there were; everyone else had long ago lost count.

Perhaps these carvings were a legacy of earlier visits from Rasasatra. Though infrequent, an impression would undoubt-edly have been made upon the locals. Some castes, like the
khaithoi
, were still extant; others (serpent-limbed;
hiroi-
headed) had long since been discontinued. Under the present circumstances, that was an uncomfortable thought.

The packed earth of the passage felt moist beneath the pads of Sirru's bare feet, cool and not unpleasant, but he was look-ing forward to getting back out into the air. He could see the sky through the eyes of the
hiroi
, a starry indigo bowl vaster than anything else they knew, but the information was scat-tered and fragmented. He had a sudden, disconcerting image of Ir Yth looking utterly monstrous, and for a brief jarring in-stant, he felt the
hiroi's
terror. Then they were gone, in all di-rections at once, and the connection became meaningless.