Ishida asks: “Is anybody sure this Sudbury was actually here?”
“No,” Joe says, as if it might be more convenient.
But now it’s Borden’s turn. She found the dog tag, she’s holding it again. She looks around at the accusing eyes. “I didn’t stash this away and bring it out now to upset everybody,” she says coldly. “One of us knows what happened to Sudbury. I think we all need to hear.”
I look at Joe. Borden looks at Joe. Joe looks defeated, then defiant. “Goddammit,” he says. “We beat the beans out of a fellow Skyrine.”
“He deserved it,” Tak says.
“Yeah, but we didn’t kill him.”
“He wasn’t just kicked out, given a dishonorable discharge?” Borden asks.
“No,” Joe says. “He went to the MPs and IG and pressed charges. Everybody I knew was about to be court-martialed. I had some connections already, so I went to the main office at Hawthorne. Told them what happened.”
“Told who?”
“Our DI, as it turned out. I told him about Sudbury and what he did—to protect my squad. He took me to a side office in another building. Special Considerations, it was called. Inside, he volunteered Sudbury. Filled out papers and everything. We’d heard rumors about Guru attitudes toward sex criminals—violent offenders. Rapists. Child molesters. The rumor was, if they were reported, the Gurus and Wait Staff would make sure they were locked up. DI said only that it was rumored to be a death sentence. I didn’t care.”
“What happened?” Borden asks.
“Everything tidied up,” Joe says. “Sudbury went away. Nobody was brought up on charges. The DI never mentioned it again, and I never went to that building again.”
“The Gurus took charge?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said.
“Didn’t know,” Borden says. “Nobody let on that Sudbury would end up here?”
“Wherever here is, how could they?” DJ asks.
Joe shakes his head.
“Not just Skyrines,” Borden says. “Similar deal in the Navy. Nobody wanted to talk about it.”
Litvinov adds, with a firm nod, “Russian perverts, too.”
“Gays, you mean?” Jacobi asks sharply, as if leading him into a trap.
“No. Still difficult in Russia, but not for Gurus. These were worst of cruel, vicious—sadists. Generals and colonels said they were made into Guru sausage. Never asked for more. Did not wish to know.”
“Sausage!” Jacobi says. “Nothing wasted in this man’s army.”
The others take the tag from Borden and pass it around. Ishida, as if morbidly fascinated, holds on to it the longest. “No guns, no knives, no weapons, right?”
“Apparently,” Borden says.
“Everyone fought with bare hands and teeth,” Ishida says.
Ulyanova has been studiously avoiding entering the discussion until now. “Ugly bits of flesh. Sausage. Gurus find use.”
“Just guessing?” Borden asks.
Ulyanova frowns. “See it. Remember it. They were put in cage, told they would not eat until, unless, they select meanest. Gurus want… how do you say it? Like skimming cream. Why humans deserve their doom, for film and broadcast. Audience love it. In the end, Gurus leave dead to rot.”
“Sex monsters in the fight of their unholy lives,” Ishida says. “For the director’s cut.” She clutches her metal arm with the opposite hand, knuckles white. “Almost makes you sorry for them.”
“You didn’t see what the bastard did to our sister,” DJ says. “Got what he deserved.”
Some of us nod in agreement, but Tak and Litvinov, Borden and Ishikawa, have this dismayed look, as if even now they can’t believe or even conceive of the depth of Guru depravity.
The dog tag hangs between us, loose. Nobody wants to hold it. Borden doesn’t reach for it. It should just float away, like the guy it once belonged to.
“You see why I want Gurus dead?” Ulyanova asks.
“Aren’t you one of them now?” Ishida asks.
Nobody defends Ulyanova, and she doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. Nobody speaks for a time. Our tight little group has definite seams on this issue. Fascinating. I’m split myself—I could have killed Sudbury and enjoyed watching him die.
But this…
Makes him almost equal to us. Fodder for distant eyes.
“Might make it more convincing this is actually a Guru ship,” Tak says. “What the hell would Antags care about human deviants?”
“What are they planning for us?” Ishikawa asks. “Same thing, different day?”
“Fuck!” DJ exclaims. “I did not need to hear that.”
“You should ask your Bird Girl,” Jacobi says. “You can do that, for us, to put our minds at ease—can’t you?”
“Ask Ulyanova,” Borden suggests. “She’s right here.”
“I do not see future,” Ulyanova says, and turns sullen.
“Well then, who the fuck does?” Ishikawa asks. “If the Antags have Gurus—”
“We know that much,” Borden says.
“—then what’s happening with them? Is this all going to end up interesting, part of the movie extras—or a whole new show?”
Jacobi digs in. “What’s the equivalent of Antag sexual deviancy? Breaking eggs? Making omelets?”
That’s too much. The tension weirdly breaks. Joe snorts. Some of the others let air out of their noses, showing amusement and disdain.
DJ says, quietly enough, “Good question, though. Are there any cages here full of dead Antags? Or are humans just particularly nasty sons of bitches?”
“If you haven’t noticed, we’re already in a cage,” Jacobi says. “Maybe they just have to get us mad enough and we’ll put on a show. Maybe Vinnie is a camera—or DJ! Maybe they’re filming us right now.”
I hadn’t thought about that. It is too fucking possible, maybe even likely.
“I’m ready for my close-up!” Jacobi says, leaning in.
My fists clench.
“Leave Venn alone,” Ishida says. “We have to cut the starshina some slack, too.” She returns Jacobi’s hard look with a hard look of her own. “We have no idea what it’s like to be hooked up to this shit.”
“The bodies in that cage have only been dead a few months, not years,” Borden says.
“They still smell,” Jacobi says.
“Justice grinds slow,” Tak says, following his own line of thinking, which doesn’t get any response.
“How long has ship been hiding?” Litvinov asks.
“Does anybody know anything about this ship, other than what they’ve told us—and maybe what they’ve shown us?” Jacobi asks. “She’s our only source on some of this! Give us the rest, goddammit!”
Ulyanova’s turned sickly pale, almost green. She looks as if she’s digging around in a toilet and finding clogs and backups of the worst sort. “You want me to know?” she asks, tears coming to her eyes. “You want me to ask Guru what the fuck about all?”
“What do you know or feel?” DJ asks, only marginally more gentle. He and I, and Kazak, have been closest to the situation she’s in now. Can the Gurus be any stranger than bugs or Antags?
“Is not good,” Ulyanova says, holding her hands to her head. “Is not true, not correct. And not safe.” Litvinov gathers up the wilting starshina and leads her away, weeping.
“She is done with answers,” he says over his shoulder. Vera goes with them across the cage, and wraps Ulyanova again in her mat.