Dust

20 Primogeniture

"You're the rightful Commodore," Rien said, the words as sensible to Perceval as washers hurled against a window. "Or at least the rightful Commodore's rightful heir."

"I don't understand you." They were in the room they had briefly shared, Gavin perched atop the monitor, watching them pack with his ever-closed eyes. There wasn't much to take, and Perceval occupied herself picking things up and putting them back down again. She tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that she was going home, to imagine her mother's arms around her, her own bed, her own clothes.

It made her sick. She brought the enemy with her, merged with her colony. She was possessed, and her traitor wings embraced her.

She should go off, into the wilds, and take Pinion with her, away from everything she loved. But she did not think she was strong enough to do so.

Perceval turned a carved piece of apple wood in her hands. She smoothed her thumb across its goblin face. Hand-carved, lovingly sanded and polished. Precious material, primitively handled. The contrast pleased her. Rien spoke again.

"You know about your mother—"

"I live with my mother," Perceval said. "In Engine. What does she have to do with anything?"

"She's Alasdair's daughter," Rien said, bouncing on her toes, as excited as if Perceval might not know this. "She's oldest. Older than Benedick or Tristen. Which means with Alasdair dead, she's Commodore. And if she doesn't want the job, you are. Not Ariane. Not even Tristen."

"Primogeniture is a stupid way to run a starship," Perceval said, sulking. "Anyway, Tristen wants the job. I don't."

"That's not important," Rien said. "Do you see? It explains why—"

"Everybody and his uncle wants to force me to marry." Perceval thumped down on the bed, her hands and the carving resting in her lap. "Space."

"Well, not our uncle." Rien sat beside her. They leaned together shoulder to shoulder, sharing warmth. "Tristen wouldn't do that to you."

"Tristen's quite convinced of the power of his own arm," Perceval said. "And his claim is better than Ariane's, which is all that matters. Him, though, I could marry, if I had to."

It was a wrong thing to say. Rien stiffened, and began to rise.

"Come on, Rien. I wouldn't have sex with him."

Rien laughed and settled back, but the ease was gone. Perceval closed her eyes; they would have to sort this out somehow, and she was afraid it wasn't her work to do. She wanted to save Rien from any hurt, but there were some hurts you could rescue no one from.

After a silence, Rien spoke hesitantly. "It doesn't bother you that your parents are siblings?"

"Half-siblings."

"Like us."

And there was the pain again. Perceval draped a wing around Rien's shoulder, remembering too late that it was not her own. "They're Exalt," she said. "They can't have damaged children ... now, anyway."

Rien knew she was thinking of Tristen. But when he was born the technology had not been as advanced as it had become. She said, "So neither would you and Tristen."

"Tristen doesn't want to marry me." And he might be the only one. A dark, unworthy thought. She found and squeezed Rien's hand in apology, even if Rien might never know why.

And Rien squeezed her hand back, and let her off the hook. A gesture of generosity. "Besides," Perceval said, trying to make her sister laugh, "primogeniture is a—"

"—stupid way to run a starship." It did get a laugh. A chuckle, anyway. "So if primogeniture is stupid, how do you do it in Engine? Your mother is somebody important, right?"

"Chief Engineer." Perceval chewed her lower lip. "Like Hero Ng was. She was an acolyte of Susabo, but that angel's been dead a long time. Since before we were born. She's very practical." Like someone else I know. "You'll like her."

"I can't wait to meet her," Rien said. "Are you packed?"

"Yes," Perceval said. "Are you?"

Really, they'd just been fussing. There was nothing in their packs but a change of clothes and some medical supplies. The rest of the space would be taken up with food.

It was a long walk to Engine.

"Yes." Rien stood. She drew Perceval up by that still-clasped hand. Gavin fluttered, but did not take to the air. "Let's go find something decent to eat before we have to leave, shall we?"

It was a long walk, but at least they started it merrily. To Rien's infinite relief, Benedick had left his resurrectee militia behind, so it was only the five of them: two men, two girls, and Gavin.

And Pinion, she supposed, but if Perceval didn't bring that up, Rien wasn't going to.

The bulk of the first day passed uneventfully. They traveled mostly in corridors, crossing one holde that might have been a heaven but now was withered and sere, each step raising a puff of taupe dust from desiccated earth. The irrigation must have failed.

They did not camp the night there, but in the tube beyond. It was one of the inspection arches, a bow rising above the agglomerate, interconnected surface of the world. It was wide enough across for Perceval to spread her wings, and entirely transparent.

Rien stopped as the lock sealed behind her, overcome with vertigo for seconds before her symbiont compensated. Gavin flapped on her shoulder, talons clutching. "Oh."

Perceval stepped back beside her and caught her elbow, bracing her under the heavy pack. Ahead, the men stopped and waited, turning over their shoulders. "Okay?" Tristen said.

"When we were outside, before—" Rien leaned gratefully on Perceval's strength. "I didn't have time to look."

Perceval said nothing, just held her arm and gave her that time. Rien made herself breathe slowly, calmly, and inspect her surroundings one element at a time.

They were in a kind of tunnel-corridor, a transparent tube that lifted away from the dead holde and soared out, reaching on a graceful arc. The world itself hung below, starkly lit; they were above the shadow panels, and Rien could see the photocell surfaces as they turned to the suns.

From here, she could observe the structure of the Jacob's Ladder. She'd had a confused idea of lattices and bulbous habitats, of corridors threading asymmetrically over the surfaces of anchores and domaines. Of gray metal and patchy paint. Now she saw the world in all its incomprehensible vastness, like a grandly rotating three-dimensional spiderweb, and the complexity bewildered her. "How did they ever move this thing?"

"How are we going to move it, you mean?"

Rien swallowed, and tried not to succumb to Hero Ng's despair or her own awe. "It's huge."

"It's the world," Perceval said. Her parasite wings were bronze in the sunlight, translucent but glittering. She'd let Rien help her shave her head again before they left their father's house, and her scalp was starting, slowly, to match the rest of her in color. "It'll take us five days to walk across. How big did you think it was?"

Rien shook her head and shaded her eyes from the suns. When she peeped at them—quickly, because even with her symbiont's assistance, the glare was far too bright to stare into—she couldn't tell if they were brighter, or closer, or anything. The light that poured over her was austere, the shadows edged like chips of volcanic glass.

There wasn't anything to say. There weren't any words. The urge to say anything, to fill up the silence, welled up in Rien, but she knew it for a petty thing and swallowed it. You could try to speak, try to make your mark on this. But it would only make you look ridiculous and weak.

"Thank you," Rien said when she had looked her fill. The soaring sensation in her belly made her think of when Perceval dived from the air lock holding onto her, and she breathed deeply because she could, and because it felt right. "I can't see the end."

"We have to save this," Perceval said, hushed. Rien thought she didn't need to speak for Perceval to know she agreed.

"Come on," Tristen said, when both girls proved reluctant to break the spell. "Let's find a place to sleep."

They walked in near-silence after that, Gavin clucking to himself occasionally and Perceval maintaining her grip on Rien. As they came down the far side of the arch, she leaned close and said in Rien's ear, "I'm glad you saved me."

Sometimes people said an obvious thing, and what they meant by it wasn't obvious at all. "I'm glad, too."

And then Perceval grabbed her by the arm with both hands and flung her away.

The gravity in the corridor was slight, but definite. Rien half slid, half catapulted into Benedick, who was already turning to catch her. She landed in his arms and he did not fall backward. If he staggered a step, Tristen caught him.

"Stay back." Perceval stood some meters up the arch of the tube, her hands knotted in fists by her thighs, Pinion flaring, bladed, from her shoulders. Between them, Gavin beat wings slowly, hovering in the light gravity like a moth. "Please." "Perceval—"

"Stay back!" Her head dropped, the tendons of her neck ridging as if she strained at some impossible burden. "It's the wings."

Rien might have charged forward, but Benedick's hand was on her shoulder. He pulled her back, clutching, dragging her toward the lock at the bottom of the arch. She fought him, after a moment of shock, trying to reach Perceval.

It never happened.

Pinion flexed. The parasite wings convulsed, Perceval's clenched fists opened as she reached spastically forward, caught at the heart of a brazen, shadowy blur.

An instant later, Gavin's spread wings and tail and talons telescoped, slamming into the sides of the inspection tube. A spiderwork of fine threads grew between them like crystals racing through a supersaturated solution. The tube beyond him shattered. Whatever Perceval might have shouted was lost in the rush of escaping air.

Benedick curled around Rien as they were blown off their feet. He folded her tight, shielded her with his body, and as they tumbled toward the webwork with Gavin spread-eagled at its heart, Rien saw Perceval fall into the embrace of the Enemy, wings dividing and flailing, the fragments all around her full of refracted sun like shattered crystal.