Dust

12 the opposite of dying

Love does not help to understand

The logic of the bursting shell.

—EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

In comparison to what had come before their interlude in the Heaven, the next stage of their journey was almost pleasant. Which said more for the hardships of plunging directly from captivity to space and from space into a running gun battle than for any luxury of the current situation, because when Mallory had offered them a guide and a map, nothing had been mentioned of the first kilometer-and-a-half of the journey being a crawl through abandoned access tunnels.

Perceval sheathed herself in her parasite wings— deployed, they were bulky and awkward in the confined space—and pulled herself onward doggedly on her elbows behind Rien and the basilisk. Rien had it better: she was shorter, and could scoot forward on her hands and knees, although trying to avoid crushing Gavin's tail looked like a challenge.

The shafts had not been designed for long-distance travel, and frankly, had only been meant to be entered by human agents in catastrophic emergencies. In the moving time, the ancestors of evolved nanotools like Gavin would have performed the bulk of the maintenance.

Now, the tunnel was a dark, irregular tube, its sides laced with bruising protrusions under the colonies of pale parasitical bromeliads that grew from the pressed and extruded walls. It was impossible to move without breaking the waxy leaves of the plants. They popped and snapped under Perceval's hands and feet, releasing a clear, slightly gelatinous fluid with the green smell of aloe. Small things scuttled or hopped away, startled by the noise of their passage, or the blue radiance shed by Gavin and by Pinion, which allowed the travelers to see.

"Isn't it odd," Rien said, when they had been alternately climbing and crawling for a while, "that things have evolved to take advantage of every niche in the world? It didn't happen like that back on Earth, did it?"

Perceval bit her lip when she would have hushed Rien. Of course, Rien was not an Engineer. Earth was nothing to her but a name, something she might have been taught about in ecology. She didn't know how close to the heresy of the Go-backs she trod. "They were helped," Perceval said. "Camael and the bioengineers gave some colonies a special program, when they still could. Before Metatron died. It force-mutates. Not humans, of course—"

"Funny you should mention Metatron." Rien spoke between small grunts of effort as she levered herself over a humped obstacle. It was impossible, under a layer of ridged tree-ears, to tell what the shape might once have been. But now, it was covered with rather more edges than it had once been. "Mallory did, too."

"Your brain is optimized for pattern-sensing," Gavin commented. "And chatter."

Whether the basilisk meant her to or not, Perceval laughed. And after a moment, Rien—unsulky—laughed as well. Perceval reached forward and patted her sister's ankle in praise, surprised when Rien pulled it forward quickly. Perhaps her feet were ticklish.

"What were you in the before?" Rien asked—obviously of Gavin, not Perceval, who had not been born then. "A welder?"

"Laser-cutting torch," Gavin replied, fluttering his wings as he hop-flapped to the top of the next obstacle. "Ah. There's the halfway point, fair maidens."

Perceval groaned. "Gavin, I don't mean to complain. But why are we going this way?"

"Because I was instructed by the necromancer to lead you astray, exhaust you, and then gnaw your bones," he answered, hopping down the other side of the bulge he'd been perched on. "Unfortunately, I only have a beak, which makes it hard to gnaw, so I'm trying to scrape you to death, and in the meantime wasting power so you can see where you're going. Why do you think we're going this way?"

"Direct route," Rien said, promptly.

"And cannibals," Gavin said. "Socially irresponsible, but there you have it. This is the best way around their levels, and as far as I know there's oxygen and gravity the whole way."

"I could do with a little less gravity," Rien said.

Perceval laughed again, feeling better. At least she wasn't the only one whining.

This time, Rien tried to kick her.

By the time Gavin popped open a hatch with a clever twist of his beak and led them blinking out of the stuffy, musty access tube, both Perceval and Rien had come to the conclusion that it was better to save their breath. They clambered into a small compartment gratefully, and Perceval spent the next several minutes attempting to un-kink her spine. Gritting her teeth, she unfolded Pinion and allowed it a slow stretch, which did more for her abused shoulder muscles than all the twisting she'd done before.

There was no justice.

"Where to now?" Rien asked, while Perceval checked her display for the next twist in the map Mallory had uploaded.

"Twenty-minute lunch break. Praise Zakkiel, Angel of Electricity," Gavin said, and plugged himself into the wall.

Rien wasn't certain if she was grateful or disappointed that Mallory had not packed them any of the orchard fruit. She still had the plum, however, tucked inside the vest Mallory had given her, and she slid her fingers into the concealed pocket and touched its body-warmed surface. After the peach, she wasn't sure she'd taste it before it rotted, whatever Mallory said about only that one tree growing the dead.

The plum comforted her; she imagined she could smell it on her skin, like Mallory. She pulled her hand from her pocket and accepted the bread, soy cheese, and onion jam Perceval offered.

While they ate, and Gavin recharged, Rien studied the maps in her head. It seemed like where they were going wasn't far—some kilometers, if they could take the gangways instead of crawling through warrens. "We could be there tonight," she said.

Perceval looked at her in surprise, and spoke through a mouthful of bread. "How do you know?"

"Look at the map," Rien said. "I think there used to be a side corridor ..."

"There's nothing on the map," Perceval said, and then turned completely around, not just her head. "How would you know where a side corridor used to be, Rien?"

But Rien had pressed one hand to the side of her head, feeling the hair escape between her fingers. "Ng knew," she said. Then Perceval was staring at her, and for all she could tell Gavin might have been, too, except he never opened his eyes.

She set the bread carefully on the decking beside her and buried her face between her knees. She covered her mouth with her hands, but couldn't stop hyperventilating, and couldn't even begin to express why.

Perceval put a hand on her shoulder. "Rien, what's wrong?"

He just wanted to die, Rien wanted to say. He just wanted to die and now he's in me, and Mallory won't let him die. That could happen to anyone.

Anyone? Or just anyone Exalt? Maybe it was the symbiont that did it.

She chewed on a mouthful of snot, stuffed the side of her fist into her mouth, and folded tighter. Stop it, ordered her lingering rational urges. She wasn't going to let anyone make her cry. Not Mallory, and not some dead Engineer. She bit her hand and forced control. "Orphans dream of being secret princesses," she said.

Perceval must not have heard her, because she made one of those indistinct encouraging noises that people make, and massaged Rien's shoulders. After a moment, Rien managed to lift her head and repeat herself: "Orphans. Dream of being secret princesses."

Perceval's thumbs made firm circles in Rien's muscles. "And so?" she said. "You are."

A peculiar emotion swept over Rien. She was furious— not specifically with Perceval, but Perceval got caught in the edge of it. But Rien did not want Perceval to stop touching her.

It seemed unfair to ask to be held while you yelled at someone, so Rien swallowed it down. And said instead, "Oh, yeah, a princess with a belly full of bugs and a sister out of nowhere and a dead man in her head." She sniffled and hugged her knees, not crying. Gavin seemed not to have moved at all since the drama started; he might have been a statue of a basilisk. Rien didn't look at him.

She said, "I never had these problems before I met you."

That made Perceval laugh, and hand her the discarded snack.

"Eat," Perceval said. "Don't waste food. You'll need it eventually."

And Rien supposed that was right. If Perceval could eat while being fed in chains, Rien could eat now. She put the bread in her mouth, bit down, and chewed. The onions were pungent and sweet and soft; the cheese sharp, but tasty. It made her sniffle again. "Perceval," she said, when she had swallowed the mouthful, "why did you challenge Ariane?"

"Because she needed to be challenged," Perceval answered. Rien thought she didn't notice that Pinion flexed when she spoke, a gesture halfway between a falcon mantling its prey, and a cringe. "We met—I was on errantry. She was behaving villainously. I thought I was stronger than she. What do you mean you have a dead man in your head?"

"Mallory gave me a peach," Rien answered. She chewed more bread to buy time, but had to wash it down with a mouthful of water. "It had an Engineer's memories in it."

Perceval's face lit up. "Which Engineer? You said Ng?"

Rien nodded.

"Hero Ng." There was reverence in Perceval's voice. It startled Rien. "You have his memories?"

"I don't know. Some. I remember him dying"— Perceval flinched in sympathy—"and I remember that there should be a side corridor here"—Rien sketched a map quickly in skin-oil on the floor—"that's not on our map. Are there cannibals there?"

"I don't know," Gavin said, flicking himself loose from the wall plug with a flourish. "It's not in my memory banks either. Shall we try it and see if they eat us, then?"

Once they got the door open—easy, after they found it beneath the overgrowth; the keypad code hadn't been changed since Ng's day—they were greeted by a stench like tannin and ammonia. "Space." Perceval pinched her nose shut. "I can see why it's not on the map."

"At least we have boots now," Rien said, flexing her toes in the shoes Mallory had given them. Something fluttered inside the corridor, a rustling like the nighttime gnawing of thousands of mice, and there were sounds, squeaks so high she felt rather than heard them: a bone-conduction vibration.

"Bats," Gavin said. With heavy wingbeats, he flapped into the air, and wobbled toward Rien.

"Hey!" She ducked aside, but his great dry feet clutched her shoulder. She expected the grip and stab of talons, but they scarcely pricked, and then he was balancing on her shoulder as lightly as on a branch, his tail slipped once around her neck, heavy and leathery and warm. And far more pleasant than she would have expected.

"I'm not dragging my tail through that." Primly, with a flip of his long, crossed primary feathers. "You wanted to go this way. We're going this way. And you can carry me."

"Oh, whatever." But Rien didn't push him off her shoulder. "It's dark in there."

"I know," Gavin said. "You're going to expect me to light your way again, aren't you?"

"Well," Rien said, "if I could see in the dark, I wouldn't."

Perceval, a step behind, cleared her throat. "By now you should be able to."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The dark. You should be able to see in it. Not total dark, of course, but—"

"Oh," Rien said. "Of course. The symbiont."

"Sorry," Perceval said, her voice all small and almost

lost under the distressing sounds of the bats.

"It's all right." And squaring her shoulders, Rien

walked forward. "I invited myself."

It was awful. Gavin did shed some light—just barely enough. And Rien could have done with less.

The guano sucked at her boots. She sank into it, and it fell all around them like a chunky, whispering rain, and bats disturbed by the glow swooped down to investigate. Whether they were dazzled or angry, some of them flew into Rien. After one such collision, Gavin shifted abruptly on her shoulder, and she heard a flutter and a crunch.

And then more crunching.

She did not turn to look. "You're not."

"Not what?"

"You're a machine," she said. "You don't eat."

"Oh, very well." He must have discarded the bat with a cranelike flick of his serpentine neck. Rien was glad she couldn't see it. In fact, she told herself, she might as well be blind in that eye. There was nothing to see.

Until something as big as a large dog lunged out and scooped up the discarded bat before vanishing again, back into the unrelieved dark.

Rien bloodied her lip between her teeth, but managed somehow not to scream. Behind her, Pinion's agitated flapping did them no favors with the bats; Rien shielded her head with both arms and half crouched, eyes squinched nearly shut. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

"Only to the ankles," Gavin observed. "It hasn't even pulled your shoes off yet."

"Gavin," Perceval said, with steely calm, "what was that?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Scavenger? It was humanoid."

"That's reassuring." Rien felt Perceval fold her parasite wings around them both, although Pinion was invisible in the darkness when Perceval damped its luminescence. They were still warmer than ambient, and Rien had no idea how that worked.

She took a breath. "Hey," she called out. "Stranger—"

No answer. But somewhere in the darkness, she heard a sound she recognized from Head's kitchen; the sound of flesh stripped back from bone. And then there was crunching, and Rien gagged on the remnants of her own ' frugal luncheon.

"Space," Perceval said, and then, "Poor creature."

Rien tried for human charity, but couldn't seem to get past nausea. "How long do you think it's been trapped here?"

"Long enough," Perceval said. "We have to help."

"He'll probably give you rabies," Rien said, although there was no rabies in the world and never had been. They still learned about it in biology, though; some of its elements had been used to splice the inducer viruses.

Those were illegal now. In Rule, anyway. Not that Rien thought it would have any effect on the Conns if they decided to use them.

Beyond the border of the light, Rien heard gnawing.

"It's errantry," Perceval said. "You go where it takes you, and mend what you find that needs mending."

Before Rien could remind her that they were on a quest a little more direct that errantry, Perceval had pushed past her. Cold air stroked Rien's arms where the wings had cupped. They floated over Perceval's back, now faintly luminescent and incredibly visible.

"Fuck," Rien muttered under her breath, and—to the basilisk's apparent wing-flapping chagrin—picked her way over the moldy mounds of guano to take Perceval's hand.

Perceval spoke low, her voice humming on harmonics Rien found soothing. She blinked furiously, and would have shaken her head to clear it except whoever that was off in the darkness could see her, limned by Pinion's light.

She realized that she hadn't consciously processed a single word Perceval said. And Gavin, bizarrely, was huddled against her neck like a worried parrot, compacted down to half his previously apparent size. Whether he was collapsing his form or just sleeking himself down like a bird, Rien didn't know, but the implication that she was meant to protect him concerned her.

She concentrated on her eyes and let Perceval lead her forward across the sucking mess of the floor. It was warm and humid, the reek of ammonia unrelenting. Guano dripped in her hair, warm and sticky.

So much for clean clothes.

"Who the hell puts bats on a spaceship?" she muttered, expecting it to be lost under Perceval's chanted buzz.

"Insect control," Gavin said against her ear. "Eventual terraforming. And bat guano is excellent for hydroponics and traditional agriculture." He was warm, which she wouldn't expect of a machine, and he fit just under the curve of her jaw.

And how does a hand tool that thinks it's a mythical animal know that? she almost asked, but decided against it as long as his talons pricked the hollow over her collarbone. At least he was keeping the bat shit off one shoulder.

Perceval moved forward slowly and Rien went with her. Now she saw the pale spidery shape crouched against the wall; it was hard, because he was streaked—coated— with the same filth that crusted every object. It served admirably as camouflage.

Other than a coat of guano, he was naked, and he held both hands folded before his mouth, streaked with blood up to the elbows. His hair, if it was hair, was a spiked, matted, dreadlocked mass gray with guano and stiff about his shoulders. His irises reflected Pinion's light, two flat glowing discs floating in the darkness.

He dropped the carcass of the bat, and Rien saw he had something else in his hand. Something short and flat, the part that was not enfolded in his grip about the size of Perceval's palm. "Perceval, watch—"

The wild man lunged.

Perceval might have caught him, and Pinion might have stopped him. Perceval dropped Rien's hand and stepped half in front, and the wings darted forward on either side of her—but Gavin had already sprung off Rien's shoulder, two heavy wingbeats carrying him aloft.

The guano a few steps in front of the charging man sizzled, smoked, and exploded. Rien jumped back, skidded in shit, and managed to catch her balance by windmilling her arms at the cost of a strained inner thigh.

But she was looking at Gavin, his eyes open, glaring torch-blue in the darkness with the internal radiance of his colony. There was smoke and the stench of burnt ammonia, worse than the unburned guano—like boiling piss on the stove, Rien thought, gagging, as every bat in the world shot off the roof for the passage and the air was wheeling with pin-scratching, squeaking, sight-defeating animals.

"Laser-cutting torch," she said.

The wild man had stopped. And as the bats cleared, Rien could see that he stood in the light, on the other side of the blasted patch, his right hand still upraised with what was now revealed as a broken blade clutched in it. Gavin hovered, his wingbeats stirring the air in the passage, his tail writhing behind him.

"I want to help you," Perceval said, and this time Rien heard her clearly.

The man with the broken sword put his hands on his knees and doubled over, gasping.