Tiamat's Wrath

Chapter Forty-Three: Elvi

If she could have, Elvi would have moved her work someplace else. A lab of her own would have been best, her rooms with Fayez a damned close second. But the data was at the university and the Pen, so that was where she went. And at first, she resented it. The breakthrough came when she could finally put aside Cortázar’s work on changing Duarte and get back to her own data.

Her reports from the dead systems felt like letters from a past life. The breathlessness she’d felt upon realizing that there were literally rains of glass on the one semihabitable planet in Charon seemed almost childish now. She looked back at it and saw her own wide-eyed wonder, and even felt an echo of it. The massive crystal flower with filaments running though the petals like vacuum channels, gathering the energy of Charon system’s wildly fluctuating radiation and magnetic fields like daisies collected sunlight, if daisies had been thousands of kilometers wide. She still thought the crystal flowers could be a kind of naturally occurring interstellar life. And the massive green diamond …

She looked at that one for a long time before she understood what she was really thinking. Then she took a tablet with the readouts and data to Cortázar’s private lab. She hated being in the room with him, hated having him at her back, but she didn’t have an alternative.

“Yes,” Cara said, when she looked at it with her flat, black eyes. “I know about that.”

Xan was sleeping. Or resting with his eyes closed, which was probably the same thing from where Elvi sat. Cortázar, at his desk, scowled at the two of them—Cara and Elvi, leaning against different sides of the clear plastic cage like girls comparing lunches at university. He went back to eating a sandwich with an air of disapproval.

“Is there anything you can tell me about it?”

Cara frowned. Even that had a moment of extra processing that went into it. Like the girl, or the thing that had been a girl, needed to remember how to make movement first. Or maybe it was more like a kind of gross motor stutter. Elvi really needed to get back to that line of research at some point …

“It does … record?” Cara said. “That’s not the right word. It’s not like memory, exactly. It’s more like everything all at once? Like the way a film is all the pictures that tell the story, and they’re all there even when you only see one at a time? I’m not explaining this right.”

“A gestalt,” Elvi said.

“I don’t know that word,” the girl said.

Her hand terminal chimed at the same moment that Cortázar’s system threw an alert on his monitor. Trejo informing them of an emergency meeting in his offices in half an hour.

“Problem?” Cara asked.

“Too many masters, not enough time,” Elvi said. “I’ll be back when I can.”

Cortázar was already heading for the door. She had to trot to catch up. A driver waited for them outside, managing to look obsequious and impatient at the same time. A cold wind was blowing in from the east, stinging Elvi’s earlobes. It was her first winter on Laconia, and she understood it was likely to get a lot colder for a very long time before the warmth came back.

In the back of the car, Cortázar folded his arms and scowled out the window. The city was glittering, and there were banners up for some kind of cultural celebration. Elvi didn’t know what it was. The streets they passed had people rushing down them in thick coats. A pair of young men ran alongside their car for a moment, hand in hand and laughing, before a security guard in Laconian blue waved them off.

It was hard for her to remember that a whole population—millions of people—was spread across the planet, living lives in a new environment while she tired her head in reams of data. In that, it felt a lot like pretty much every other city she’d spent time near.

“I heard you talking to the older subject,” Cortázar said.

“Right?” Elvi said. “This is awesome.” She lowered her voice, roughened it, and put on a fake Martian accent. “We thought it was two cases, but it’s been the same case all along.” Then, when Cortázar didn’t respond. “Like Inspector Bilguun? How he and Dorothy were always on different investigations, and it turned out they were related?”

“I never watched those,” Cortázar said. “I’m concerned about how you’re treating the subjects.”

“Cara and Xan?”

“You treat them like they’re people,” Cortázar said. “They aren’t.”

“They aren’t rats. I’ve worked with rats. They’re very different.” Again, he didn’t get the joke. Or didn’t think it was funny.

“They are mechanisms created from the corpses of children. They do some things that the children did because those are the parts that the repair drones had to work with. Eros was only different in scale. The nature of the protomolecule and all the technology related to it has the same logic. On Eros, when it wanted a pump, it co-opted a heart. When it needed tools to manipulate something, it repurposed a hand. This isn’t different. Cara and Alexander died, and the drones made something out of the dead flesh. When you talk to that girl, she isn’t there. Something is, maybe. And it’s made from parts of a human, the way I could stitch together a model catapult from chicken bones. You’re anthropomorphizing them.”

“Is it a problem?”

“It’s inaccurate,” Cortázar said. “That’s all.”

At the State Building, an escort led them to a conference room where Trejo and Ilich were already sitting. Ilich looked worse than usual, and the way things were, that was saying something. Trejo, on the other hand, seemed almost at ease. He gestured at the chairs, and Elvi and Cortázar sat. A display on the wall showed a map of the system—sun, planets, moons, and ships—like a virtual orrery. It seemed to her like it had a lot of ships in it.

“The research?” Trejo asked curtly. “Where do we stand?”

“Making progress. Steady progress,” Cortázar said.

“Do you concur, Major Okoye?”

“We’re finding new connections,” she said. “You don’t really know what’s critical and what’s just nifty until after the fact, but sure. Progress.”

“We’ve had a development,” Trejo said.

“What’s up?” Elvi asked.

That was how she learned that the underground had launched a full-scale invasion. Trejo brought them up to speed as quickly as he could, then opened the floor to comment.

“The thing I care about,” Ilich said, “is what they know that we don’t. That’s why this is a problem.”

“I understand your concern,” Trejo said, one palm up as if to say, Please stop whining.

“First, they all saw the Tempest stand up to their fleet. They knew what it was capable of. And we saw them destroy the same unkillable ship. We don’t know what else they’re capable of.”

“The readings from Sol are consistent with the full complement of antimatter resupply we sent having been used,” Cortázar said.

“And there isn’t any more missing,” Trejo said. “All that still exists is either being isolated on the construction platforms or was shipped to bomb ships in other systems. It’s possible that they’ve been appropriated by the enemy since the loss of the Typhoon, but we haven’t heard of any that have gone missing.”

“So if it’s not that,” Ilich said, “then what is up their sleeve that they’re willing to throw three hundred—”

“Four hundred,” Trejo said. “More came through.”

“Four hundred ships at us? Because unless they’ve all suddenly become suicidal, we have to assume they know something.”

Elvi tended to agree with Ilich’s point, if not with his tone. She also understood why Trejo seemed more at ease. After all the alien strangeness and political intrigue, a nice simple shooting war was a move back into his comfort zone. Not into hers, though.

“You let me worry about that,” Trejo said. “I’ve already been in touch with Admiral Gujarat. The Whirlwind’s still not at a hundred percent readiness, but she’s comfortable taking it out so long as it stays in-system. I have no interest in putting our last Magnetar through the gates anyway. We’re ready for this. What we aren’t ready for is the high consul’s silence.”

“Would seem strange,” Cortázar said.

“Leading a secret task force focused on the things that killed Medina is plausible,” Trejo said. “Reassuring, even. Staying silent in the face of an invasion is not. We need his face on this. No options.”

“I’m not sure how we do that,” Elvi said. “He hasn’t had a really lucid moment since—”

“We make it,” Trejo said. “I understand that this is a little below your collective pay grade, but I’m not interested in bringing a media team into the fold. We’ll scan the high consul, get recordings of his voice, and generate a message to enemy and empire. You have some experience with imaging, yes?”

“I’ve run a bunch of animals through sampling pouches,” Elvi said. “It’s not really the same thing.”

“We can make it work,” Ilich said.

“Good,” Trejo said, and stood. For a moment, Elvi thought the meeting was adjourned and started to head for the door herself. “Dr. Okoye. We’re not waiting on this. We’re doing it now.”

The scanning device wasn’t particularly bulky, but Duarte’s room wasn’t built for it. Kelly had dressed the high consul in his formal uniform and was helping him to his chair. The thought, as Elvi understood it, was that if they scanned the uniform into the same profile as the man, creating the false version would be simpler.

“There are going to be forensic traces,” Cortázar said. “There always are.”

“We have very good imaging programs,” Trejo said as he tried to fit the lighting stick into its base.

“Other people do too,” Cortázar said. “I’m not objecting to the plan. Just be prepared to discredit the people who say it’s faked.”

“Already on that,” Trejo said, and stood. The lighting stick cycled through its spectrum, getting ready to catch the subtleties of Winston Duarte’s skin and hair. He’d grown thinner since the break. His eyes still had an intelligence to them if not a focus, but his cheekbones had become more prominent. Elvi felt like she could see the skull beneath the skin, and she didn’t remember thinking that before. Kelly brushed his hair, trying to put it into place the way he probably had before other addresses and announcements. Only Duarte wouldn’t keep still. His hands were thinner, gray and dusty-looking, and he moved them constantly. His eyes rolled in his head like he was following butterflies no one else could see.

“Is there any way to make him sit still for a minute?” Trejo asked.

“He does sometimes,” Kelly said. “Having people around agitates him. Give him a little time to settle.”

Trejo muttered something but didn’t object. Elvi waited with the others, watching the man who had, however briefly, been the god-king of a galactic empire. All she saw now was a lost man. She remembered feeling the force of his personality the first time they’d met. The sense of being in the presence of something vital and irresistible. She saw something in the way his jaw fit against his neck that reminded her of Teresa. It was easy to forget that they were also people. Father and daughter. The same complicated, fraught relationship that human beings had been navigating since they’d developed language. Before that, probably.

Without really knowing why, Elvi stepped forward and took Duarte’s hand. He considered it like it was a pleasant surprise. She knelt, smiling gently, and his gaze swam through whatever dark waters he lived in now until he found her.

“We just need to scan you, sir,” she said. “It won’t hurt.”

His smile was gentle and filled with an unspeakable love. He squeezed her fingers gently and let them go. She stood back, getting out of the light and the scanning radius. Duarte looked around the room like a beneficent king in his dying hours until his attention landed on Cortázar.

“All right,” Trejo said. “Let’s get this done before—”

Duarte stood, his head tilted at an angle like he was remembering something half-forgotten. He stepped away from his chair. Ilich made a small, frustrated hiss.

“All right,” Trejo said. “It’s okay. Let’s just get him back in position and try this again.”

Duarte stepped over to stand before Cortázar. His attention seemed as focused as Elvi had seen since his fall. Cortázar smiled and bowed his head like it was something he knew he was supposed to do. Duarte’s jaw worked, his mouth opening and closing, but the only sound he made was a small oh. He moved his hand in a soft gesture, like he was fanning away smoke, and Cortázar’s chest bloomed out at the back. It was so slow, so gentle, that Elvi couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Not at first.

It was as if Cortázar were an image projected on mist, and the mist was being blown away. Nothingness swirled through his chest, his face. And behind him, floating on the air, spirals of red and pink, gray and white, as ornate and beautiful as ink dropped into water. The air filled with the smell of iron. Of blood. Cortázar sat on the floor, his legs folding under him, and then slumped to the side with a long, wet exhalation. The left half of his head was missing from the jaw to the crown. His heart was still trying to beat in the open theater of his ribs, but the man was gone.

They were silent and perfectly still. Duarte looked up, his attention caught by something that made him smile like a child seeing a dragonfly, and his hands rose aimlessly. Trejo put the scanner down on the bed, turned, and walked quietly out of the room, pulling Elvi along with him. Ilich followed, and then Kelly, shutting the door behind them. They were all pale. The State Building was shaking under them, tremors that matched Elvi’s heartbeat. She fought to breathe.

“All right,” Ilich said. “Okay. That happened. That just happened.”

“Major Okoye?” Trejo said. His normally dark face was pale and gray.

“I have never fucking seen anything like that. Ever,” she said. “Holy fucking shit.”

“I agree,” Trejo said.

“He knew,” Elvi said. “That’s what this was. He knew about Teresa. Did you tell him?”

“What about Teresa?” Ilich asked. “What did he know about Teresa? What did she have to do with this?”

“Let’s not lose focus here, people,” Trejo said, leaning against the wall. “Mr. Kelly, would you escort the high consul to fresh quarters until we can get these cleaned?”

Kelly looked like Trejo had just asked him to put his hand in a meat grinder to see if it was running. For a moment, Elvi thought the man would refuse, but Laconians were a breed apart. Kelly nodded and walked stiffly away.

“We can do an announcement without him,” Trejo said. “I can do it. As his … acting military commander. Pleased to accept the position. Thank him for his faith in me. Like that.”

“We need to shoot him,” Ilich said. “Whatever that thing in there is? That’s not the high consul. I don’t know what the hell it is, but the only sane thing any of us can do right now is put a bullet in its brain.”

Trejo drew his sidearm, took it by its barrel, and held it out toward Ilich. “If you’re sure that’ll kill him, be my guest.”

Ilich hesitated, then looked away. Trejo holstered his pistol. “Major Okoye.”

“I know,” she said. “Another top priority. I’ll get right on it. But …”

“But?”

“I know you told Cortázar to give me full access. I’ve never been entirely certain he did.”

Trejo considered it. From the far side of the door, something rattled. A thump, like a piece of equipment had been bumped into, knocked over. If it had been a sound of violence, it would almost have been better. Trejo pulled out his hand terminal, thumbed in a code, and adjusted something she couldn’t see.

“Major Okoye, you are Paolo Cortázar. You want to go through his room and check his underwear, you go right ahead. See what he’s been eating. Check his medical records for sexual diseases. Read his letters to his God damn mother, I don’t care. That man’s life is an open book to you starting now. Find something useful in it.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Elvi said.

“And Major? I know you were a civilian before you were appointed. You didn’t come up like the rest of us, so I’m going to make this clear for you. If you say one more word about surrendering the empire? I will have you before a court-martial, and then I will have you shot. This is a war now. The rules have changed.”

“Understood,” Elvi said. “They’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

“Ain’t that the God damn truth,” Trejo said. Then, “Colonel Ilich, you’re with me. Let’s draft this announcement.”

Elvi walked out of the State Building like she was in a bad dream. Even the bite of the wind felt less real to her. Shock, she thought. I’m in emotional shock. That happens when people die in front of you.

At the lab, Dr. Ochida waved to her as she passed, and then looked concerned when she didn’t wave back. She knew that she should have stopped and talked to him, but she didn’t have any idea what she’d have said. In the private lab—her private lab—Xan and Cara were sitting in their cage playing a word game they used to pass the time. They paused when she came in, but didn’t ask her what had happened. What was wrong.

The uneaten half of Cortázar’s sandwich was still on his desk, wrapped in brown paper. Elvi threw it in the recycler and opened her work environment. All the reports and data feeds she’d been poring over for weeks. She split the screen and, with her new permissions, pulled up Cortázar’s. She backed both up to the functional index.

His was a hundred and eighteen entries longer. Elvi felt something like anger, something like dread, something like the mordant pleasure that comes from being proven right about something shitty.

“What an asshole,” she said.