Mother Death

8

For Xo, there was no compelling sense of failure. No self-pity tugged at him, and in a strange fashion, there wasn’t so much as a breath of remorse. The truth was clear-cut: No combination of skill and luck could have beaten the Chamberlain. This situation was born hopeless, and he was blameless. Free of his obligations, Xo could halfway relax. Inside himself, in secret, he nearly smiled. Then he made an effort to adapt to his new circumstances—as a prisoner, as a hostage—watching events but knowing that he had no role but to witness these momentous, inevitable deeds.

With an soft, almost pissy voice, Ord announced, “Now, finally, I’m going to visit my sister.”

The words saturated every channel, public and Family, then trailed off into a screaming white hiss that frustrated every other attempt to speak.

The Papago woman said, “Finally! It’s about time!”

Ord clothed himself in gray trousers and a bulky gray shirt, but he left his body young and his chin injured by Ravleen, still dripping its illusionary blood.

Avram was still holding Xo. He had a relentless grip and a nervous, loud voice. “What do you want from me?” he inquired.

“Stay with Buteo,” Ord replied. “While I’m gone, help her hold the Sanchex.”

Ravleen was too dangerous to be left with just one of them. Xo would agree, if anyone bothered to ask him.

“What about this one?” Avram asked, giving Xo a hard shake. “What do you want done with him?”

Ord’s eyes were distant. Unreadable.

Eventually he said, “The Nuyen will stay with me.”

Xo found himself freed, sporting two functioning arms again.

“I want you to watch,” Ord promised. “Everything. Then you’ll tell your big brothers and sisters that I meant it. I came to talk to Alice. And everything else that’s happened was their fault. No one else’s.”

The last few steps were exactly that. Steps.

The two of them had already passed through plastic rock and collapsing defenses, an army left scattered above them. Temporarily blind; utterly lost. Xo found himself inside an infinite hallway lined with an infinite number of identical doors, armored and mined. It was a powerful escher. He took two steps, then looked over his shoulder. Ord was standing before one door. His face seemed empty, his bare feet frozen to the slick white floor. Reaching for the coded pad, he slowly changed his hand to match the jailer’s.

Then, he hesitated.

“Is she there?” Xo asked.

“Yes.”

Ord spoke in a whisper, fearful and abrupt.

Xo heard himself ask, “Are you scared?”

“For every imaginable reason,” the Chamberlain confessed.

“Don’t be,” Xo advised. He laughed for a moment, then explained, “Alice has been locked up for so long, and treated so badly by so many people… honestly, I doubt if she’ll remember much more than her name.”

The Chamberlain nodded, then touched the pad, and pushed.

Alice was in the middle of her tiny cell, walking away from them: Step, and step, and then at the tiny white toilet, the smooth turn. For a slippery instant, she seemed oblivious to her guests. Soft blue eyes stared through them, and she took another step, then paused gradually, ignoring her brother but staring hard at the Nuyen.

She was exceptionally pretty. That’s what took Xo by surprise.

Ageless and well-rested, Alice looked as clean as her surroundings. She wore a simple prison gown, and her long hair was braided into little red ropes that she had artfully tied together and draped over a half-bare, milky shoulder. She didn’t look so lovely on the real-time feeds. The feeds had to be doctored. Xo realized that her jailers wanted audiences to see an unkempt prisoner, suffering and disreputable. They didn’t want a simple, contented creature. They certainly didn’t want someone who would smile with an easy charm, and bow, saying, “I’m glad to see you, master. As always.”

She took Xo’s hand, kissing his knuckles one after another.

Xo pulled back, in disgust.

“Alice?” said Ord. “He’s not here to torture you.”

The beautiful face grinned, turning toward the voice. “Because he’s already had his fun with you, by the looks of it.”

Ord’s face was still oozing, the blood probably mixing with more elusive fluids.

Alice turned back to the Nuyen. “Is he really the Baby? Or has this been one of your little tricks?”

“It’s him,” Xo maintained.

She preferred doubt.

Ord took her hand, placing it against his face. Fingers vanished into the gore, and Alice flinched, gave a little moan, then flinched again. Then she yanked her hand free and wiped it clean against her gown.

“It is him!” she conceded. Her voice was excited and suspicious, and beneath everything, it was angry. “How terribly lovely! You’ve taken an incalculable risk, Ord… just so you could accomplish… what…?”

“I want help.” Ord grabbed her by the shoulder, then her forehead. “The Core is obhterated. The rest of the galaxy is in shambles. My intuition—your old intuition—tells me that total war is inevitable. I’ve tried to defend the Peace. Just as you told me to, I’ve tried. But I’m alone, Alice. Alone. And things are worse than you could have guessed—”

“Help you?” she interrupted. “Help you how?”

“I’m not sure,” Ord confessed. “I’ve searched every memory you gave me, and something’s missing. Something you didn’t quite tell me. I think.”

Alice laughed lightly. Almost flippantly. She was the Baby now. Her long incarceration had left her stupid and unworldly, and in an unexpected way, blessed with a strange innocence. She seemed at a loss about what to tell her brother, but she tried dredging up answers. Ancient memories began to emerge, but without coordination. There was nonsense about her childhood and early education, then she rambled on about the Core. How hard she worked with its worlds, making them live. How lovely everything had been in its prime. “So many stars,” she sang, “I wish you could have seen it, Ord—!”

“Why me?” he blurted. Plainly angry.

Alice flinched, wounded. “Because you must have fit the duty, I would imagine.”

“How can I do this duty?”

A soft, little girl laugh fell into the word, “Think.”

Ord looked frustrated, incapable of real thought.

“Think,” she repeated. “Why’s the galaxy in turmoil? Because people can’t find enough homes and peace. But that’s the curse of a universe where life is common, like ours. It always becomes crowded. Always.”

“Sure,” said her brother.

Looking at Xo for a moment, her smile turning poisonous. Then she gradually returned her attentions to Ord, saying, “You need help that I can’t give you. But where can you go to find help?”

Silence.

Without warning, she asked, “How did I try to save our little universe?”

Xo answered for Ord, half-shouting, “You built a new one—”

“And it was beautiful! Spectacular and glorious!” She wouldn’t look at the Nuyen again. With eyes focused on her brother, she said, “Think,” twice. “Think. We had the umbilical pried open long enough for it grow unstable, and that’s when the new universe exploded out into our realm—!”

Ord made a low, inarticulate sound.

“What?” Xo muttered. “What is it?”

He shook his head, saying, “That’s what happened. One of you… someone from the Families… crossed over into that new universe. Is that it?”

She didn’t answer him directly. But grinning with an incandescent pride, she asked, “Do you know how difficult it’s been to keep that delicious secret all to myself?”

Xo shuddered.

Ord touched his chin, then played with the blood between his fingertips. Finally, summoning the courage, he asked, “Who crossed over? What are they doing—?”

With a whisper, Alice said, “Closer.”

Her brother obeyed, dipping his head until his ear rested against her pretty mouth. Alice kissed the ear, running her bright pink tongue over the embarrassed lobes, and with an inaudible voice, for a moment or two, she spoke to him.

Then Ord raised up again, his face pale, and simple, and stunned.

He was reacting to what Alice had told him. That was Xo’s first guess, and perhaps he was right. Perhaps. But then the prison cell shook and shuddered, and the air grew warmer, and a look of horror came over him. Ord stared at the white ceiling, lifting his arms, screaming, “No!”

And he was gone.

Alice seemed oblivious to any problem. Yet when she looked at Xo, she wore a strange smile. Pulling his head down, she kissed his mouth. She had no odor. No flavor. She was as pure as medical technology could insure, her saliva like water from a mountain brook, her tongue feeling wondrous against his dirty tongue.

“I won’t have the pleasure of your company again, I think.”

She was speaking to all the Nuyens.

Then, as Ord reached down to reclaim Xo, she said mildly, “Oh, Mr. Nuyen. What do you believe is the best way for someone to have her revenge?”