Chương 89: Stellar Abyss

White Sands, Stellar Abyss Ringworld Imperium Stellarum August 12, 2848 Beneath Rain's feet, the brilliant sand felt soft as silk, and surprisingly cool to the touch. When she shifted her weight, she could actually hear a soft squeaking sound from the movement of the tiny, dry silica quartz crystals. She could taste salt on the air whenever the sea-breeze blew about her, catching the diaphanous cloth of her wrap and teasing the blue fabric out to flutter in the wind.

Beneath a yellow sun, the blue of the sea and the sky were almost overwhelming. So many of the Imperium Stellarum's settled worlds orbited red dwarf stars, or, perhaps an orange sun at best, such as Vidako's K'in, one half of the binary pair. That sort of light tended to make everything muddy and brown.

To the solar north and south, she could dimly make out the rim mountain chains that rose sixteen-hundred kilometers above sea-level; but between the northern and southern ranges, the horizon trailed dream-like images of distant archipelagos and continents rising into the sky.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Iolana, Matriarch of Pod Hakai walked up on Rain's right. Pika's mother was a tall, muscular woman, straight-backed even when relaxing on the last day of her son's visit. A jealous part of Rain's mind wondered whether she would be that tall, if she'd gotten proper food to eat when she was a child. It helps to stand up straight, Whisper chided her silently.

"The thing I can't get over is how my skin feels," Rain admitted.

"I haven't had a dry patch since we arrived. I've always had dry patches, ever since I was a little girl." Iolana turned to regard her, and the older woman tilted her head to one side. Rain could see that Pika's mother was just beginning to get the first, tiny wrinkles along the top of her skull.

"That's because you've never actually lived on one of our worlds until now. We aren't meant to spend years on space stations or ships, or on dry human worlds. When you finish your second year, I'll arrange for all of us to visit Alu. You should at least know what the home world is like before you make a final decision." Rain kept her face empty and placid, in the way she had learned from the older working girls, before the marines from the Nerva had come to take her away.

Iolana was her host; Iolana was the one who had arranged her passage from Vidako to Stellar Abyss, and back again. Though Pika's mother had been nothing but kind and welcoming to her, she couldn't escape the fear that the slightest word wrong, an unintentional insult or careless remark, would turn that warmth to violent anger. That everything which had been offered could be withdrawn again, just as quickly.

Her eyes swept down the beach toward the glittering blue water, where waves gently rippled against the white sands. The carefully tended reef a hundred meters out protected the city of White Sands from the titanic storm-swells which built in the open ocean. On a ringworld that contained as much water as three million habitable worlds, such things had to be carefully managed. All across the sands and throughout the lagoon, everywhere she could see, were her people.

Rain had spent so much of her life living among humans that she'd never really just how strange it was to grow up that way - to be the only Alu'kan within sight, or perhaps one of a pair, so often that it simply became normal. Now, it was the occasional human or Torean who were the oddities; Rain could see only a single vacationing family, together in a cluster. Otherwise, there was a knot of males of both species cavorting with a few Alu'kan girls, perhaps the same age as Rain, waist-deep in the waves.

Pika was out somewhere beyond them, she knew: last Rain had seen, he'd dove into the deeper waters, aiming for the reef.

"They're a disgrace," Iolana muttered, apparently having followed Rain's gaze.

"I feel as if I should apologize to you on their behalf, or in place of their mothers. Foolishness."

"You don't have to," Rain hurried to say.

"I wasn't upset at all. I was just thinking that all my life, I've never lived in a place where I looked like everyone else. And down there, those men are the ones who stick out. Until now, that's always been me. It feels - good to be here. I don't know the right word for it. Like coming home to a place you've never been before. That you didn't even know you'd missed. Even just speaking Alu'kan, instead of Imperial Standard..."

Iolana reached out and, before Rain could step away, settled an arm around her shoulders. Rain did her best not to flinch, not to throw the older woman off and run; she knew that the gesture was meant to be a comfort. From Cassie or Vee, it would have been, though even that had taken months of living together to feel right. The treacherous part of her mind, which tried to ruin everything, still didn't accept Iolana as safe. It isn't your fault, Whisper reminded her. It's a trauma response.

Don't let yourself spiral. Just breathe.

"You poor girl," Iolana said.

"I haven't pushed, because I don't want to make you uncomfortable. But I hope you understand that you can talk to me, when you're ready. You've lived your entire life alone, but now you've come home. Which brings me to this. I'd hoped that the paperwork would come through a bit more quickly, but I'm just glad everything was approved before you had to leave." The older woman reached into the front pocket of her dress, pulled out a tablet, and flipped it open.

A quick series of flips and taps, and then she put the device away again.

"You should be getting a copy of everything now. I can't say that I'd ever want to have my skull opened up, but that neural lace does seem like it would be terribly convenient." Files received, Whisper said. Would you like me to display them using your ocular nerve, or summarize? Summary, please, Rain told the AI. I can look it over in detail later. This appears to be all the paperwork necessary to adopt you into the Hakai Pod, Whisper explained.

Everything is approved by the junior senator from Stellar Abyss and countersigned by Imperial bureaucracy. Updated identification... the only thing missing is your approval. Rain opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"You don't need to decide right away," Iolana told her.

"You don't even need to say anything at all right now. The forms will wait as long as you need to make a decision. We aren't going to tell you what to do, Rain. We're simply offering what you deserved to have from the time you were born. It isn't nearly enough, but I hope that it is a beginning."

"I - I," Rain tried to speak twice, but couldn't find the right sounds. Suddenly, she couldn't seem to get enough air. Don't panic, she told herself. Worst of all, Iolana simply waited patiently.

"I don't want to deceive you," Rain finally managed to get out.

"I don't want to let you expect something that isn't going to happen. I'm not ever going to be normal." The older woman made to speak, but Rain simply kept going, because she knew that if she didn't get it out now, she never would. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I know how things are supposed to work," she said.

"And I'm sure you'd try to find me the kindest, gentlest man you could. Like your son. But I don't think I'm ever going to be able to - do that. And so I wouldn't ever be able to be part of a pod. A family. Not really. Because while all the other women were having children, I wouldn't be, and - no one else should be dragged down by what's happened to me. I'm sorry."

And to her own shame, Rain shrugged off the older woman's arm and fled down the gentle slope of the sand to the ocean, because she couldn't bear to even look at Iolana anymore, never mind talk to her. Couldn't imagine talking to anyone. She shrugged off her wrap and let it flutter to the sand, ran into the waves until they were thigh-high, and then dove forward.

The warm waters of the lagoon wrapped Rain in a comforting embrace, and she shot away from shore without surfacing, the movements as easy and natural as walking. There'd never been any place to swim on - well, when she was a little girl. The first time that Senator Catalina had shown her an Olympic-sized swimming pool, she'd felt like her eyes were going to fall out of her head, but even that was nothing compared to an actual ocean.

A series of familiar clicks and long consonants vibrated off her skin: old Alu'kan, the way it was meant to be sung, from underwater. Rain still couldn't parse most of it, but she recognized the singer, and a moment later, Pika was there, swimming beside her, comforting in both his size and familiarity. Being near him was a lot like being near Sergeant Torres, the marine from the Nerva who'd carried her out that day. You just knew that no one would hurt you when he was around.

Pika led her out toward the reef, and then banked to the right, taking them in a long loop that swung past the rainbow-flashing schools of shallow-water fish, the waving fronds and the hard-shelled crustaceans. Rain wondered what it would be like to swim out from the beach at San Teodoro, and how different the sea-life would look there. By the time they came up, chest-deep in the water but with their feet in the sand, the panic had begun to recede.

"I'm glad you came in," Pika said, with a smile.

"I wanted to swim with you at least once more before we left." Rain's eyes were drawn, in spite of herself, to the scar high on his chest, almost at the shoulder, where Arc had cut out all but one of the zombie fly eggs when they were in the jungle. It would fade, she imagined, as the years passed: but it would never go away completely. Before she could think better of it, she'd reached out one hand to touch the scar.

"Does it still hurt?" she asked. Pika shook his head.

"Good as it ever was," he assured her.

"Anyway, a soldier should have scars. And it's a good one. I got it saving a life." He reached up with one hand, and placed it over Rain's fingers, pressing them against the warmth of his chest. Rain realized, abruptly, how she'd been touching him and jerked her hand away.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"You don't need to apologize," Pika assured her.

"Did my mother speak to you? About the pod?"

"She did." Rain dropped her eyes down to the waves.

"Was that you?"

"I made a suggestion," Pika said.

"But everything past that was my mother and the other matriarchs. It isn't the sort of decision a man can make." Rain tried to imagine one of the human men she'd know uttering those words and couldn't. The images of half a dozen old senators flashed across her mind, followed by the faces of her friends: Arc, even Cal Madine. It was almost enough to make her laugh.

"Excuse me! Hello! Are you Pika kan Iola hana Hakai, Cadet Third Class at the Imperial Mech Academy?" The voice that cut in between them was accompanied by the splashing of a young Alu'kan woman hurrying over. Rain stepped back and turned, putting distance between her and Pika, and then couldn't help but stop and stare.

The young woman who waded up to them was, Rain recalled, one of the group who'd been relaxing with the human and Torean males - the same group that Iolana had felt the need to apologize for, earlier. She was just a bit taller than Rain, whose eyes were about level with the newcomer's nose, and had the same black and white coloring as all of their people. But what Rain couldn't look away from was the fact that this woman had hair, like a human.

It was black and white, and followed the patterns of her face perfectly, with a strip of white up the center, and black on the sides, and it was slicked back from her head by the salt-water of the lagoon. Her lips were a distinct black, in contrast to the white of so many Alu'kans.

"I am," Pika said, turning to regard the other woman evenly.

"And you are?" The woman's face split into a grin.

"Nane," she introduced herself.

"Of Pod Au. Cadet Fourth Class. Well, as of when we get to Vidako, anyway." Rain watched Pika's eyes widen, and then he laughed.

"A new mole rat!" Nane cocked her head to one side, confused, and Rain couldn't help but give a sigh and raise her fingers to her forehead.

"You'll understand what it means in a few weeks," she explained.

"After Hard Burn. Rain Makani. Cadet Third Class, I suppose." She extended her hand, and the other woman took it enthusiastically.

"I know!" Nane practically squeaked.

"I thought it must be you, from who you were with, but I didn't want to come up like a creep, but I also couldn't just not come over and say something. I wanted to say thank you." Rain frowned; the younger woman's attention was so intense that, once it was fixated on her, she had to resist the urge to step backward.

"Thank you? For what?"

"You're the case I used as an example when I made my argument to Senator Eleka," Nene explained.

"All the matriarchs say that service in fleet is for men, but you passed your first year at the academy. That means women can do it too. And the Imperial laws against gender discrimination meant they couldn't say no to me."

"Oh." Rain tried desperately to think of what to say, because she felt as if she'd suddenly stepped into the middle of some long-standing family argument for which she had not the slightest bit of context.

"You're a Star Walker, then," Pika said, crossing his arms across his chest. Nane's head bobbed up and down.

"I guess it's pretty obvious." She reached up to run a hand through her hair and toss it to one side.

"I wondered about that," Rain admitted.

"Was one of your parents human?" As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.

"I hope it isn't a problem to ask that."

"No, and no," Nane said.

"I got a genetic retrovirus to do it. Spliced in just the right human DNA, and then it took years to grow out, of course. But I love how it looks. Don't you?" She spun about, to show off her hair, though the effect was somewhat diminished by how it clung wetly to her neck and shoulders, rather than flaring out as it would have done when dry. Rain turned to meet Pika's eyes, curious. He sighed.

"You must have heard my mother complaining about them," he said.

"The Star Walkers are mostly young, and mostly women. They are - non-traditional."

"That's because some of our 'traditions' deserve to get thrown out with the trash," Nane said, reaching out for Rain's hand.

"And you're one of the people proving it. There's no reason we need to stay back with our pods pumping out babies while the men go off to fight. Human women don't do that. Torean women are killer pilots - well, so I hear. And with the war on, there's no way I'm going to miss out. I just hope Wai the Shipbreaker leaves some of the Swarm for the rest of us!" Rain shared a glance with Pika, and once again her eyes dropped to his scar. The younger woman's enthusiasm - or was it naivete?

- was almost viscerally embarrassing. She had to resist the impulse to physically cringe.

"Our friend Arc seems to think it will take four or five years to push the Na'xir out," Pika said, and Rain was grateful that his words took the pressure of a response off her.

"So, you may get your wish."

"He's the one who fought a duel for the princess, isn't he?" Nane gushed.

"And you were his second! That's so romantic." She turned back to Rain.

"Maybe you can introduce me to a few single human men, once we get to the Academy."

"You aren't going to have time to be chasing boys," Rain snapped, before she could stop herself. The woman seemed, suddenly, very young and very foolish.

"They're going to run you into the ground for the next six weeks, Nane. I hope you're ready for that. It isn't a game. People get hurt at the academy. Some people get killed." But Nane's eyes only opened wider, and she gazed at Rain with a look of adoration that felt distinctly uncomfortable.

"Don't worry," she promised.

"I won't disappoint you. If you got through it, I will, too. And the matriarchs can rot for all I care. They can't tell us what to do once we're in fleet anyway, can they?" She stepped closed and wrapped her arm around Rain's.

"Tell me everything," Nane said.

"Don't hold back. I want to know exactly what I'm getting into. Oh! We can talk on the way to the gate. We'll sit next to each other. I'm so glad I found you two here..." Rain, somehow already dragged halfway to shore, looked back to Pika with pleading eyes.

"Save me!" she mouthed, silently. But to her intense annoyance, Pika threw his head back and laughed.