“No.” He put an arm across his eyes. “I don’t it want.”
“You must. To heal, you need strength.”
“No. I don’t—” The arm came down from his eyes, he lifted his head to look at her. “Yes… I guess I do.” He took the drink in his good hand; she saw scars on that wrist, too. He caught her looking at him, raised the mug to his mouth without comment and sipped slowly.
Moon chewed a mouthful from a strip of dried meat, swallowed it whole before she asked, “Who are you? How did you here get?”
“Who am I…” He looked down at his uniform coat, touched it; his face changed with a kind of wonder, like a man coming out of a coma. “Gundhalinu, sibyl. Police Inspector BZ Gundhalinu—” he grimaced, “from Kharemough. They shot down my patroller, and took me.”
“How long have you here been?”
“Forever.” He opened his eyes again. “And you? Did they you from the star port kidnap? Where are you from — Big Blue, or Samathe?”
“No, Tiamat.”
“Here? But you’re a sibyl.” He lowered the cup from his lips. “The Winters don’t—”
“I’m a Summer. Moon Dawntreader Summer.”
“Where did you Sandhi learn?” Something darker than curiosity shadowed it.
Moon frowned uncertainly. “On Kharemough.”
“You’re proscribed, then! How did you back here get?” His voice broke, too feeble to support the weight of an authoritarian demand.
“The same way I left — with tech runners She slipped into her own speech without realizing it; taken by surprise, indignant at his indignation. “What are you going to do about it, Blue? Arrest me? Deport me?” She put her hands on her hips, clenched with resentment.
“I’d do both… if I were in any position to.” He followed her doggedly from language to language. But the righteousness drained out of him and left him limp on the cot. He laughed, a hoarse, hating sound. “But don’t worry. Flat on my face… with the cosmic crud, and living in a kennel… I’m not in any position.” He finished the liquid in the mug, let it hang empty from a finger over the cot’s edge.
Moon refilled the mug and put it into his hand again.
“A smuggling sibyl.” He sipped carefully, watching her. “I thought you were supposed to be serving humanity, not yourself. Or did you have that tattoo… put on purely for business reasons?”
Moon flushed with fresh anger. “That isn’t allowed!”
“Neither is smuggling. But it’s done.” He sneezed violently, spilling his drink on himself, on her.
“I’m not a smuggler.” She flinched, brushed droplets from her parka. “But not because I think it’s wrong. You’re the ones who are wrong, Gundhalinu, you Blues — letting your people come here and take what they want, and give us nothing in return.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “So you’ve swallowed that simplistic line bait and hook, have you? If you wanted… to see real greed and exploitation, try a world that didn’t have our police force to keep the peace. Or to keep… people like you from coming back to make trouble, once you’ve been off world
Moon settled back on her heels, saying nothing, holding the words prisoner. Gundhalinu matched her silence; she sat listening to the breath wheeze in his throat. “This is my world, I have the right to be here. I am a sibyl, Gundhalinu, and I’ll serve Tiamat any way I can.” Something harsher than pride filled her voice. “I can prove my claim any time you ask. Ask, and I will answer.”
“No need, sibyl.” A whisper of apology. “You already have. I ought to hate you, for curing me—” He rolled onto his stomach, looking down at her; she blinked at his expression, her hands closed over her own wrists. “But knowing I’m alive and not alone, seeing your face… hearing you speak a civilized language, my own language: Gods, I never thought I’d ever hear it again! I thank you—” his voice broke. “How long… how long were you on Kharemough?”
“Almost a month.” She put another piece of dried meat into her mouth, let the juices begin to dissolve, easing a throat closed by sudden empathy. “But — I might have stayed longer, maybe all my life. If things had been different.”
“Then you liked it there?” There was no sarcasm now, only a hunger. “Where were you? What did you see?”
“The Thieves’ Market, mostly. And the star port city.” She sat cross legged, pulling her feet into place, and let her mind see only the days that had feasted her eyes; see Elsevier and Silky and Cress alive and sharing her feast; the journey down to the planet surface, and KR Aspundh’s ornamental gardens… “And we drank lith and ate sugared fruits… Oh, and on the screen we saw Singalu raised to Tech.”
“What?” Gundhalinu sat against the wall, gasping with incredulous delight. She noticed that he was missing a tooth. “Ye gods, I don’t believe it! Old Singalu? You’re making that up, aren’t you?” Laughter was the best medicine.
She shook her head. “No, really! It was an accident. But even KR was glad.” And she remembered tears welling in Elsevier’s eyes, in her own… Tears rose again suddenly; tears of grief this time.
“Dropped in on KR Aspundh.” He shook his head, wiped his own eyes, still grinning. “Even my father didn’t just drop in on KR Aspundh! Well, go on, what next?”
Moon swallowed. “We… we talked. He asked me to stay a few days. He’s a sibyl, you know—” She broke off.
“And I know there are a lot… of things you’re not telling me,”
Gundhalinu said quietly. He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to know. I don’t even want to know why the hell KR Aspundh has tech runners to tea. But you could have had anything you wanted there — the life, all the things you couldn’t have here. Why? Why did you leave all that, and risk everything to come back here? I can see it in your eyes, you wish you hadn’t.”
“I thought I had to.” She felt her broken nails dig into her palms. “I never wanted to go off world in the first place. I was going to Carbuncle to find my cousin… But when I got to Shotover Bay I met Elsevier, and then the Blues tried to arrest us—”
“Shotover Bay?” A peculiarly chagrined expression settled over his face. “It’s a small universe. No wonder I keep thinking… I’ve seen your face somewhere.”
She leaned forward with a smile starting, studied his face in turn. “No — I guess I was too busy running.”
He twitched his mouth. “No one’s ever called it memorable. So you were going to Carbuncle. But after five years, you aren’t still going there? Whatever happened to your kinsman is ancient history, by now.”
“It’s not.” She shook her head. “While I was on Kharemough I asked, and the Transfer told me I had to return, that it wasn’t finished yet.” The cold silence of the void grew loud inside her, squeezed her breath away. “But ever since I’ve come, everyone I’ve cared about I’ve destroyed, or hurt…” She hunched over, pulled herself into a hiding place.
“You? I don’t — understand.”
“Because I came back!” She let the words come, making him see her for what she was, every act and every retribution that had brought her relentlessly to this place… “I made it happen! I made them do it, it was all for me. I’m a curse — none of it would have happened without me, none of it!”
“You wouldn’t have seen it happen; that’s all. Nobody rules anyone else’s fate — we don’t even control our own.” She felt his hand hesitantly on her shoulder. “We wouldn’t be prisoners here; I wouldn’t be alive now to say… you’re wrong to blame yourself, if we did. Would I?”
She raised her head. “But the mers, Lady, even the mers… they were safe on Ngenet’s land, until I came!”
“If Starbuck and the Hounds were poaching, it was no fault of yours. It was nobody’s doing but the Queen’s. I’d say you must be thrice blessed, not cursed, if all you got… out of an encounter with Starbuck was a sore throat.” He began to cough, pressing his own throat.