Ninefox Gambit (19 page)

“General?” he said.

He wasn’t speaking equal to equal this time. He spoke with deference. Fear, even.

“Sir, the dead. I can’t keep count. I don’t, I don’t – sir, I don’t know what to do next.” The eerie thing was that she couldn’t hear him breathing, despite the raggedness. When he next spoke, his voice wavered in shame, then firmed. “It’s my turn to die, isn’t it? I just have to find my gun in the dark –”

A long silence.

And then, quite softly, “My teeth will have to do.”

Cheris had seized up again, trying to tell herself this was a trick, that it had nothing to do with Hellspin Fortress, or worse, some other incident she couldn’t remember out of the history lessons she had stupidly failed to review. But this time she was sure. She aimed and fired again, fruitlessly.

“Cheris.” His voice no longer sounded young, and Cheris sensed he was finally in earnest. She half-turned toward the source of the sound, which was across the room from the shadow. Everywhere darkness hung like curtains of sleep. There were starting to be amber points of light not just in Jedao’s shadow, but everywhere, in the walls, in the air, everywhere, like stars coming closer to stare. She had no doubt that when they did, they would reveal themselves as foxes’ eyes.

Jedao recognized her again: he spoke to her as a subordinate, and formation instinct began to trigger. “Not that way. Or that way, either, if you’re thinking to escape. You’re about to swing left. No, don’t freeze, that’s even worse.”

In the swarm of lights she couldn’t figure out what to shoot. His speech, rapid but precise, now came from several directions at once, which only confused her further.

He was half-laughing. “You keep reacting, and you’re reacting with
my reflexes
, don’t you think I know what you’ll do?”

Her hands clenched. Another bolt hissed against the wall, to no effect. It wasn’t just the sudden cool malevolence of his voice, or its authority, it was that his reflexes were a part of her, he was
in
her, she couldn’t get him
out
.

On the other hand, if this wasn’t just a game, if this wasn’t pure pretense, then she might be able to trigger his madness and use it against him. Too bad she couldn’t get him to shut up so she could think clearly –

“You’re determined not to drop the gun, but look at your hand shaking – there it goes, and you’re still fixated on that stupid fucking luckstone. Reprioritize. What’s the real threat – where’s the real game? Go ahead, pick up the gun, try again.”

Cheris couldn’t make his voice go away and she couldn’t stop reacting like him. As a Kel, she couldn’t help responding to the orders, either. She was going to go ahead, pick up the gun, try –

Jedao started to laugh in earnest. “I’m going to enjoy watching you die, fledge.”

The Kel called their cadets that, or inferiors who fell out of line. All her muscles locked up in spite of her intentions. The luckstone felt leaden in her hand. She had taken comfort from it since her mother gave it to her. It gave her none now.

“You have no idea whether that gun works as advertised on full strength,” Jedao said contemptuously, “or how it works if it does, and you never asked. The Kel don’t get smarter, do they? Go ahead, pull the trigger.”

The Nirai technician wouldn’t have lied to her –

She knew nothing of the kind.

“Think about the name of the gun, fledge. You know what a chrysalis is. Where do you think they
put
me when it’s time for retrieval? I have to go into a container, and your carcass is handy. Remember that despite the fact that I’m a traitor and mass murderer, one of us is expendable, and it isn’t me.”

It was horribly plausible. She fired again, but wildly. Sparks; a dance of staring eyes. Again and again. No better luck.

“Honestly, Captain,” Jedao said, biting down on her usual rank, “if this is a typical example of Kel competence, no wonder Kel Command keeps using a man they despise utterly to win their wars for them.”

Cheris tried to make herself keep firing. Couldn’t. The shadow revealed itself next to the door, the nine eyes arrayed in an inhumanly broad candle smile. She stared at the shadow and felt herself falling into it, toward the pitiless eyes. They were opening wider: she thought she saw an intimation of teeth in them. It was worse that he had called her
captain
rather than
fledge
, that naked reminder of Kel hierarchy. Her nerve shattered: too much strangeness all at once. “General,” she croaked. “I didn’t mean to – I don’t know what you want, sir, I don’t understand the order –” She was talking too much, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I failed you, sir, I’m sorry, I –”

“Cheris.” The eyes dimmed, rearranged themselves into the more familiar line.

“– can’t figure out –”

“Cheris! I’m done. It’s over.”

“Sir,” she whispered like a broken thread, “what are your orders?” Her fingers crept toward the chrysalis gun. She made them stop. What if he wanted something else from her? She couldn’t bear the thought of getting it wrong again.

“Cheris, sit down,” Jedao said gently.

It took her two tries to take a step toward the chair. But the general wanted it, so it was an order, so she would do it. Wasn’t that how life went, in the Kel?

“I’m a hawkfucking prick,” Jedao said. Cheris flinched: hawkfucker, fraternizer. “I didn’t realize how badly formation instinct would affect you. You had conflicting orders. The fault isn’t yours.”

“I
am
Kel, sir.”

“I know.” His voice dipped tiredly. “I misjudged. No excuse.”

She had no idea how to respond to that, so she kept silent. He was her superior. He demonstrably knew how to break her. And yet she was supposed to be able to judge him and kill him if necessary. How did Kel Command expect a Kel to be able to deal with this? The fact that he was always present, always watching her, only made it worse.

“Cheris. Please say something.”

She would have bet that he was sincere, except she had thought the same when he was pressuring her to shoot herself. “The chrysalis gun, sir.” Some use it had been.

“I wasn’t entirely lying about that. It forces me inside and puts us both in hibernation. I don’t know whether it does permanent damage to you. I’m never around for that part.”

That would have been useful to know much earlier. Naturally, the Orientation Packet hadn’t mentioned any such thing. She didn’t know why she had expected it to be more helpful. But then, she had gotten herself into this situation, hadn’t she?

Cheris focused on the in-out of her breathing until she felt calm enough to think clearly again. She put the luckstone on the corner of the desk. It made a small click. “I’m done with your game, sir,” she said flatly. “You win.”

“Oh, for love of –” Jedao checked himself. “At the risk of alienating you forever, I have to point out that you lost the moment you agreed to play the game on my terms, without negotiating.”

This was typical Shuos thinking, but she couldn’t disregard it. “You weren’t serious about playing games with the swarm, sir?”

“I seem to recall someone arguing that the commanders didn’t deserve to be toyed with. No, I wasn’t serious, but it was plausible that I was, wasn’t it? Think about that.”

She frowned. “Was it worth doing that just to make a point?” She was looking at the luckstone.

“You have the lesson backwards, Cheris. The luckstone is incidental. I don’t have hands and I can’t hold a gun. When you agreed to be my opponent, what weapons did you think I had?”

“Your voice,” she said at once, but she had missed the important one. “Your reputation.”

“Yes. We’ve already told the heretics that I’m facing them.”

“Garach Jedao Shkan,” she said. Her voice was unsteady. Maybe they should have bannered the Deuce of Gears after all, so the enemy would know to dread them.

“Anytime you want me to feel like my mother caught me harassing the geese again, go right ahead,” Jedao said with unexpected humor. “In any case, reputation: it’s an awful tool to have, but you can’t escape it, so you must learn to use it.”

“I understand, sir,” she said. She did. They didn’t call Jedao a weapon for nothing; and fear of weapons was a weapon in itself.

“Do you?” Jedao said. “Then you’re ready for the plan. Here’s how it’ll go.”

CHAPTER TEN

K
EL
N
EREVOR WAS
about to say some banal greeting when Cheris showed up at the command center. Instead, Nerevor stared openly, then drew herself up, her face grim.

Cheris wasn’t wearing her gloves. Both were tucked into her belt. Her hands felt cold and clammy and exposed. The combat knife also at her belt was too heavy, too light, for all that she was used to it. She reminded herself that this part was her idea, even if Jedao had agreed it would work.

“General,” Nerevor said.

“The briefing,” Cheris said. She didn’t want to have to repeat herself.

The ranks of moth commanders blazed into life. Cheris scanned them, trying to get an overall impression of their reactions. After her last time doing this, she knew that attempting to track every individual would just fluster her. Better to set herself a smaller goal and hope that Jedao picked up on whatever she missed.

Cheris inhaled, then began. “We’re going to force a breach in the shields.” Mouths opened. “No, I’m not taking questions. You’re here to listen.”

Jedao didn’t bother telling her most of them were skeptical. She could figure that out herself. “Shuos Ko is taking you seriously,” Jedao said, “but then he would. Kel Paizan and some of the bannermoth commanders are worried we’re going to pull a second Hellspin.”

Cheris went on. She couldn’t pause every time Jedao said something. “The shields have a weakness. They rely on a human operator who can be made to falter. You will receive further instructions when we begin the siege. I have knowledge you don’t, and we still don’t know how or why the Fortress fell. I won’t risk that information falling into enemy hands.”

On the word “hands,” she unsheathed the combat knife, then retrieved her left glove. The knife was sharp in the way of bitter nights. Cheris made a show of sawing off each of the glove’s fingers in turn. They fluttered to the floor, looking like hollowed-out leeches. When she was done, it looked like a ragged imitation of Jedao’s fingerless gloves, the kind no one had worn since his execution.

The silence could have swallowed a star.

She put on the amputated glove, then cut all the fingers off its mate. She put that one on, too.

“I give the orders here,” Cheris said. “We have already seen what happens when a moth commander falls out of line. I will not tolerate any further lapses in discipline. I trust I have made myself understood.”

Cheris didn’t dare glance back at Kel Nerevor, but a muscle was working in Kel Paizan’s jaw. Colonel Kel Ragath looked amused, of all things.

“Say something,” Jedao said. “Don’t let up.”

“You are thinking,” Cheris said, “that this can’t possibly work. But the fact is that out of all the great and terrible weapons in the Kel Arsenal, Kel Command saw fit to send us a single man. If you cannot trust in Kel Command, you are not fit to be Kel.”

It was a gamble saying this to officers who had, in some cases, served longer than she had been alive, but the argument felt right. It was a Kel argument, an appeal to authority.

They looked at her in silence.

“Acknowledge,” Cheris said.

“Sir,” they said in one voice.

She wondered what Shuos Jedao could have achieved in life with the Kel united behind him. His soldiers had loved him; the histories were mercilessly clear on this point.

“We will continue our approach to the Fortress of Scattered Needles along a favorable gradient,” Cheris went on. “Because of the changing calendrical terrain, we will be forced to use nonstandard formations. I have transmitted the orders giving the coordinates and the preliminary formation keys. In the meantime, I expect everyone’s reports on the recent engagement in two hours. That’s all.”

It was a relief when the salutes were replaced by the colorful chatter of status graphs.

Commander Nerevor’s eyes were deeply troubled. “The – fingers, General,” she said. “What are your orders?”

“Just dispose of them,” Cheris said. She felt ill about the gloves herself, but she had needed the symbol. Besides, if she ever recovered from her present disgrace, she could always acquire a new pair of gloves.

The hush around her spoke something of fear. If that had been her intent, why was her stomach knotted up?

C
HERIS WAS IN
the command center when Commander Nerevor alerted her that they were an hour out from the shields. “Look, sir,” she said, gesturing at her scan readouts.

The scan didn’t show them the Fortress proper, as it couldn’t penetrate the shields. The grid showed a simulation of the Fortress’s position, a whorled mass of curves and lines like ink spun solid. The adjacent display showed the facing hemisphere, with subdisplays to pick out key features in the hexagon-pentagon facets.

As Cheris watched, flickers of pallid glowing shapes lit the shields: feathers, leaves, the fractured hearts of river rocks, bullets, stormclouds. She might have stood there forever, entranced by the unexpected beauty of the patterndrift.