“Don’t.” He shook his head. “Don’t tell me there’s going to be a ‘ future. Just facing tomorrow is all I can stand.”
She saw the broken instrument that Taryd Roh had left for him I on the ground beside her knee. “You can’t fix this?”
“Blindfolded,” with a broken smile. He lifted his hand. “If I had ‘ll two good hands. But I don’t.”
“You have three.” Moon clasped his hand like a pledge.
He brought his other hand up, laid it clumsily over hers. “I thank you.” He took a long breath, and sat up. “Taryd Roh…” he swallowed. “Taryd Roh caught me re circuiting Blodwed’s radio. After he’d finished working me over, I couldn’t walk for two days. And gods, he enjoyed it.” He ran his hand through his hair; Moon saw it tremble again. “I don’t know what he did while he was in the city — but he was good at it.”
Moon shuddered, wiped the memory of Taryd Roh’s touch from her face. “Is that — why?” She glanced at his hands, his scarred wrists.
“Everything! Everything was why.” He shook his head. “I’m a highborn, a Tech, a Kharemoughi! To be treated like a slave by these savages — worse than a slave! No one with any pride would go on living that way: without honor, without hope. So I tried to do the only honorable thing.” He said it with perfect evenness. “But Blodwed found me, before it was — finished.”
“She saved you?”
“Of course.” Moon heard hatred in it. “What’s the point in humiliating a corpse?” He looked down at his useless hand. “A cripple, though… I stopped eating; until she told me shed let Taryd Roh feed me. Fifteen minutes and he could have me eating shit.” He tried to get up, fell back onto the cot, coughing until his eyes ran. “And then there was the storm—” He spread his hands helplessly, as though he wanted her to know how hard he had tried to do the right thing.
Afraid that she did understand, she only said, “And now?”
“And now everything’s changed. I… have to think about someone besides myself again.” She didn’t know whether he was glad, or only resentful.
“I’m glad you failed.” She looked down. “We’ll get out of here, BZ. I know we will.” It isn’t finished. Suddenly certain of it again.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter to me any more. It’s too late, I’ve been here too long.” He lifted her chin with his fingers. “But for your sake, I’ll hope.”
“It isn’t too late.”
“You don’t understand.” He pulled at the seal of his uniform coat. “I’ve been here for months, it’s all over! The Festival, the Change, the final departure… everyone’s gone off world by now, they’ve left me behind. Forever.” His gaunt face twitched. ““In dreams I hear my homeland to me call; and I cannot answer…”“
“But they haven’t! It hasn’t happened yet.”
He gaped as though she had struck him. He pulled her up onto the cot beside him, almost shaking her. “Truly? How long? How long? Oh, gods, tell me it’s true!”
“It is,” breathlessly, stumbling. “But I don’t know h-how long I mean, I’m not sure… a week or two, I think, until the celebrations.”
“A week?” He let her go, slumping back against the wall. “Moon. Damn you, I don’t know whether you’re heaven or helclass="underline" a week.” He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “But I think you’re heaven.” He embraced her, briefly, chastely, his face averted.
She lifted her hands as he pulled away, clung to him with sudden gratitude. “No, don’t. A little longer. Please, BZ; I need a little longer… Hold me just for now.” Until everything isn’t drowning in ugliness. Until I believe in hope, and feel his arms holding me again…
Gundhalinu stiffened with surprise and a strange reluctance. But his arms circled her, almost mechanically, and pulled her to him again, sheltering her, answering her.
So long… remembering Sparks’s tender hands as though it had been only yesterday… it’s been so long. She rested her head on his shoulder, let herself dissolve, mindless, timeless, against the solidness of his flesh; let it give substance to the phantom of another flesh, and strike the chains of bitter knowledge from the future. After a time she felt Gundhalinu’s arms tighten, felt his breathing change; felt her own heartbeat quicken unexpectedly with answering emotion.
“Wilt thou… to me in Sandhi sometimes talk?” hesitantly.
“Yes.” She smiled against his sleeve. “Though I — do not it well speak…”
“I know. Thy accent is terrible.” He laughed softly.
“So is thine!” She felt his head rest on her own shoulder; she rubbed his back with slow, peaceful motions, heard him sigh. Gradually his arms loosened and fell away from her; she felt his breathing change again. She lifted her head, saw his face half smiling, asleep beside her own. She lowered him carefully onto the cot, lifted his legs up and covered him with blankets. She kissed him gently on the mouth, and went to her own pad on the floor.
“You fixed it, huh? Lucky for you, Blue-boy.” Blodwed stooped down as she entered the chamber, picked up the broken distance finder, which Gundhalinu and Moon had repaired working together through the new morning. Her voice barely disguised relief; but Gundhalinu heard only the threat, and frowned. “Hey, what did you do that for?”
White birds fluttered up from Moon’s shoulders; the pair of starls slunk under the cot at the sound of her voice. “To give them a little freedom,” Moon said, more confidently than she felt.
“They’ll get out! That’s what I keep them in cages for — they’d run away if I didn’t, the stupid things.”
“No, they won’t.” Moon held out her palm, filled with bits of bread. The birds circled down again onto her arm, jostling for position. She stroked their curling feathers. “Look. This is all they really want. Keeping them in a cage won’t make them yours; not if you know you can’t ever open the door.”
Blodwed came toward her across the room, the birds flew up again. Moon put the crumbs into Blodwed’s hand; but the hand made a fist and she dropped them onto the floor. “Screw that. I
don’t want that. I want a story, Blue.” She moved on across the room to Gundhalinu, sat down on the cot beside him. “About the Old Empire, some more.”
He moved away from her pointedly. “I don’t know any more stories. You know them all.”
“I don’t care. Just do it!” She shook his arm. “Read that book again. Read it to her, she’s a sibyl too.”
Moon glanced up from watching the birds peck at crumbs around her feet.
“Sit, sibyl.” Blodwed gestured imperiously. “You’ll like this. It’s all about the first sibyl that ever was and the end of the Old Empire. It’s got space pirates, and whole artificial planets, and aliens, and super weapons zap!” She disintegrated Moon with her finger, laughing.
“Really?” Moon said, looking at Gundhalinu. “Do they really know about the first sibyl?” He shrugged.
“He said it was all true.” Blodwed’s enthusiasm and her voice rose. “Come on, Blue. Read the part where she saves her True Lover from the pirates.”
“He saved her.” Gundhalinu coughed his indignation.
“Look, just read it.” She leaned over, the starls scuttled out with clicking claws as she groped under the cot. She found the battered book, tossed it at Gundhalinu. “And in the end, she thinks he’s dying, and he thinks she’s dead; it’s so sad.” She grinned ghoulishly.
“Blodwed, I’ll tell you a story,” Moon said suddenly, clutching inspiration’s key. She sat down cross-legged; the starls came to her, scattering the birds, and laid their pointy muzzles in her lap. “About me… and my True Lover, and tech runners and Carbuncle.” And you will listen, and understand. She felt the strength of the inspiration suddenly take hold of her, almost as though she were compelled.
She told the story again; letting down the barriers that kept her emotions back, letting herself see Sparks’s face laughing in sunlight, hear his music drifting over the sea, feel the fire-bright nearness of him… feel his going away as it wrenched a part of her soul out of her. And she left nothing out, of the things she had seen and done “You mean you didn’t even know it’d take five years to go to Kharemough? You really were stupid!”)