He was being stupid. The six servitors weren’t focused on him. They didn’t care about him—or rather, he wasn’t a threat. The servitors surrounded Cheris. They must have blackmailed her into doing this, for reasons of their own. He liked that theory better than the idea that Cheris had decided to go moonlighting as a Vidona.
Cheris’s motivations became clear three minutes later (more or less; damage to his augment meant its chronometer was not absolutely reliable) when two shadowmoths pulverized themselves against the force shield that suddenly materialized around the base.
Jedao would have kicked himself if he’d possessed the necessary mobility. The servitors who lived here didn’t want to be incinerated by unfriendly Shuos any more than he or Cheris did. If their invariant defenses had been inadequate to the task, that left exotics. And since this was one of Kujen’s bases, the exotics relied on the high calendar.
The servitors must have bargained with Cheris to reactivate the base’s exotic defenses. Cheris might have a reputation as a radical, but she’d grown up with the remembrances. She wouldn’t be squeamish, especially if she’d started out as Kel infantry and professionally stomped out the lives of heretics.
His train of thought dissolved when the knife flicked expertly along his arm, where Dhanneth had liked to cut him. Since Jedao never formed new scars, there was no way Cheris could have known. Despite the gag, he choked back a cry, transfixed by the unexpected erotic-horrific connotations of the pain. Dhanneth?
Impossibly, he saw Dhanneth, a phantasm of shadow and heat. As large as ever, with those impossibly broad shoulders and a wrestler’s muscles. He wore Kel gloves, nothing else. There was a hole in the side of his head, and his eyes were abyss-dark.
Jedao forgot about Cheris, forgot about the servitors, forgot about everything but Dhanneth. The man he’d raped. Dhanneth had committed suicide, after. Jedao would never forget the muzzle-flash of the gun, the way gunsmoke had stung his nostrils. The look of triumph in Dhanneth’s eyes as he’d escaped.
Jedao’s breath hitched. Sorry would mean nothing to Dhanneth. So he tried to say, You can kill me as many times as you need to. It was no more than what he deserved.
There was something in his mouth. His teeth scraped against fibers. Perhaps this was another part of Dhanneth’s revenge. If so, Jedao’s part was to endure it too; to endure anything Dhanneth thought of. It was no worse than what Kujen had intended for him.
Dhanneth smiled. The hole in his head gaped wider and wider until nothing remained but negative space. Behind the blindfold, Jedao shut his eyes.
Much later, he returned to himself. He could feel his tongue, swollen as it was, in his mouth. Someone had removed the gag. Given him clothes. Removed the shackles, even.
He was in a different room. Statues, tapestries, vases with incandescently beautiful glazed patterns. Kujen’s taste in decor: he would have known it anywhere. His eyes stung as he reminded himself that Kujen was gone.
Someone had cleaned him. Incongruously, he smelled of perfumed soap, musk and apple blossoms. This was Kujen’s base. Foxes forbid that Kujen ever be parted from his luxuries.
(Except he’d never enjoy wine or whiskey or perfume again. Because Jedao had killed him.)
Jedao rubbed the painful, ugly crusts of tears from his eyes. The absence of cuts dizzied him; he laughed, and only then did he see Cheris standing over him. Her expression shifted, like patterns of light and shadow over a lake.
“What happened between you and General Dhanneth?” Cheris asked, quiet and intent.
Jedao flinched. He’d never addressed Dhanneth as General; had originally known him as his aide. Kujen had broken Dhanneth to major. Jedao had found out too late.
“You know the story,” Jedao said. The words scratched his throat on the way out.
“You told me it was rape.”
He couldn’t read her expression. Didn’t answer. What else was there to say?
“Jedao,” Cheris said, even more quietly, “I only know what you’ve revealed. You were hallucinating. It’s damned peculiar for a rapist to say the things you did.”
Dread twisted his stomach. “What did I say?”
“‘You can kill me as many times as you want, if it turns you on,’” Cheris said, mimicking his voice. The way he knew he sounded when he was aroused.
Jedao covered his face with his hands to hide his flush. He’d said that to Dhanneth once, and never again. Because he didn’t know how to flirt properly; couldn’t imagine what else he had to offer.
“Did he ever kill you? In bed?”
He wished for any hint of expression on her face, any scrap of inflection in her voice, to tell him how to answer. Absent either, he settled for the truth, except without the humiliating details. He doubted she wanted to hear about Dhanneth choking him. “Once. It was an accident.”
For an agonizing minute, Cheris was silent. Then she said, “An accident.”
“Dhanneth didn’t hurt me.” It’s only pain.
She raised her eyebrows.
Jedao deemed it best to change the subject. “I know what you did,” he said in a rush. He gestured toward the invisible tracks where she’d cut him. “If it had to be one of us, it was going to be me.” Because of the way he healed.
Now that he felt less sluggish, he reached out with the othersense. The shield remained in place. No servitors in this room, unless they were very small, but several circulated elsewhere. He wondered if they were the same ones who had threatened Cheris earlier, assuming he’d interpreted that correctly.
Cheris accepted his transparent attempt to avoid talking about Dhanneth anymore. “I don’t know how much time we have,” she said. “Do you still want your memories?”
Her eyes were opaque. She was holding something back. Guilt? A grievance? Something else?
Jedao was tired of waking over and over to the bitter knowledge that he had failed to die again. All he wanted was answers. This was the only way to get them.
“Yes,” Jedao said.
TO CHERIS’S RELIEF, Jedao hadn’t questioned her. She wasn’t sure what she would have told him. No, that wasn’t true. She knew perfectly well what she would have said: anything he wanted to hear, with enough poison to sell the lie. She’d become much better at lying since Jedao—the original Jedao—died.
Cheris didn’t know what use Kujen had intended for the heavy restraints in the base, and he wasn’t around to be asked. But she’d assured Avros Base that she would prevent Jedao from wreaking havoc after she divested herself of his memories. She of all people knew how dangerous he could be after four hundred years of treachery and vengeance and deceit without a body of his own, just a voice in the dark. Imagine how much damage he could do if he was made whole—and set free. She didn’t know if he would emerge from the process sane. It made sense to take precautions.
The base’s mobile units helped her transport the equipment into the room: cabinets with crystalline panels revealing gears and jewels and strange traceries of light. They were certainly pretty. If Cheris hadn’t known better, she might have mistaken it for an art installation. Kujen’s design sense. He’d always enjoyed beauty.
“Try not to listen too closely,” Cheris said to Jedao, who was shackled to keep him from interrupting the ritual and causing foxes knew what sorts of unwanted side-effects.