Forgotten Suns (20 page)

It was an ordinary enough question, and anybody might ask
it. But something about it made Aisha’s head hurt. Lieutenant Zhao was pushing—testing.

Rama didn’t seem bothered by it. “It does fascinate me,” he
said, “how many stories are the same from world to world. There is always a
hero who endures great suffering in order to come to glory, or a villain who
causes suffering and in the end pays a high price. Humans of any world, it
seems, do insist on justice in their stories, though not always in their
rulers.”

“You don’t believe in stories, then, Meser Rama?” Lieutenant
Zhao asked.

“I believe in what is real,” Rama said.

“Not everyone has the same definition of reality,” Aunt
Khalida muttered.

Aunt Khalida had been going for the wine while other people
talked. There were reasons why Pater didn’t let people drink wine or spirits on
the expedition, besides being a good Muslim, and this was one of them.

Aisha tried to think of some way to change the subject, but
Lieutenant Zhao had already got his teeth in what Aunt Khalida said. “Really?
How do you define it, Captain?”

Aunt Khalida looked him in the face. “How do you think?”

That confused him. He blinked. He even seemed a little
sorry, though not enough. “There are certain standards that we all agree on.”

“Are there?” She shook her head as if she felt sorry for
him. Very, very sorry indeed. “Rama’s wrong. Justice isn’t only for stories. It’s
mercy we’re all short of.”

“Stories are meant to be true,” said Captain Hashimoto. “They’re
life without the dull parts. All the best and worst: those things go into
stories.”

“Usually the worst,” said Aunt Khalida.

“Light and dark are balanced,” Rama said. “One should never
outweigh the other.”

The way he said it made Aisha’s skin shiver. The words were
full of memory and sorrow and pain.

Aunt Khalida didn’t care. “You would know, wouldn’t you?”
she said.

“Too well,” he said.

“The rest of us tell stories,” she said. “You are the story.”

He didn’t answer that. He hadn’t tried to stop her, either.
She was getting them both in trouble. Really bad trouble, if Lieutenant Zhao
understood even a tenth of what she was saying.

Captain Hashimoto saved them, maybe. “Everyone is a story,”
she said. “Sometimes we know what it is when it happens. Sometimes it takes a
while.”

She stood up. That was a signal for the final toast. If it
came a little earlier than it should, nobody argued with her. There were so
many currents swirling around the room, most of the people there must have been
baffled. They seemed glad to escape.

~~~

Rama was so good at hiding what he felt that Aisha didn’t
think anyone else knew how dark his mood was. Aunt Khalida must; she’d caused
it. But she was busy getting reamed by the captain. Aisha could feel that even
through the door.

Lieutenant Zhao wasn’t going to let Rama get away. There
wasn’t much Rama could do to avoid him, but Aisha didn’t think he wanted to
try. When Lieutenant Zhao followed him toward the lift, he paid no attention.

“Meser Rama,” Lieutenant Zhao said. “The hour is early, and
I have a bottle of Dreamtime Cabernet in my cabin. It’s already open; jump will
turn it to vinegar. Would you care to finish it with me?”

Aisha would have bet Rama would ignore him. She was horribly
shocked when he said, “That’s kind of you,” and instead of getting on the lift,
went down the corridor toward Lieutenant Zhao’s quarters.

The last thing Aisha wanted to do was get trapped in a ship’s
cabin with a Corps agent. She ought to bolt; Rama wouldn’t blame her. But she
couldn’t do it.

This was exactly what Rama needed her for. He might not know
it and he certainly wouldn’t like it, but that didn’t matter. It had to happen.

~~~

She didn’t get offered any wine, but there was a case of
synthorange. “I have a weakness for it,” Lieutenant Zhao confessed.

Aisha wasn’t thirsty. She didn’t much care for synthorange,
either. But she took a bottle because it was the polite thing to do.

Rama was doing the same thing with the wine. He must have a
plan after all. Aisha shouldn’t have doubted him. She probably shouldn’t have
followed him, either. But she had, and so far it was all perfectly harmless.

If she’d ever stopped to think about what a Corps agent’s
cabin was like, she’d have said black leather walls and spy screens everywhere,
and a jab like a spike into her mind the minute she came inside the door. What
she found instead was an ordinary cabin with jump cradles stowed and a bunk and
a desk and a hatch into the lavatory. There weren’t any personal things. No
pictures or databeads or scattered underwear. No evil machines for scooping out
parts of brains.

Not that Lieutenant Zhao needed one of those. He was
psi-three. He had one in his brain.

He was trying to use it on Rama. What had got his suspicions
up, Aisha didn’t know. She wasn’t Corps. Please God she never would be.

Something had him sniffing around Rama’s edges, and Aisha’s
too because she was stupid enough to be here. On the surface it was one of
those deadly dull adult conversations that went on and on about nothing.
Winemaking, weather, the difference between one glass of strong-smelling red
stuff and another. Underneath, Lieutenant Zhao was trying to get inside Rama’s
head.

Adults would never just
ask
what they wanted to know. Lieutenant Zhao must be getting very frustrated. As
far as he could possibly see, there was nothing much to Rama but a stream of
random thoughts and a taste of wine. He liked his wine sweeter, and not as
strong.

Almost too late, Aisha remembered to hide behind the sun.
Lieutenant Zhao had come so close she could feel him breathing. Maybe he couldn’t
touch Rama, but he could definitely get at her—and the Corps would get her
after all.

She lay as low as she could. He was focused on Rama, who was
giving him smooth glassy surfaces to slide off.

Lieutenant Zhao said, “Do you know, I’ve found no record of
your having been tested for psi. Do you happen to recall the name of the agent
who tested you?”

“Should I?” Rama asked.

Lieutenant Zhao shrugged. “People usually do. Mostly they’re
terrified of it. A few are actually eager.”

“I don’t believe I would have been either of those things,”
Rama said.

“It’s no matter,” said Lieutenant Zhao. “Just curiosity.”

“Why?”

Rama was pushing. It was fair enough considering how
Lieutenant Zhao had been doing the same thing, but Aisha wanted to scream at
him to stop.

Lieutenant Zhao seemed a bit startled. People didn’t talk
back to Psycorps. “It’s just a feeling,” he said. “A hunch, if you like.
Sometimes I think we miss the best ones by testing so young. Not all talents
mature at the same rate.”

“Whatever I am,” Rama said, “I’ve been since I was a child.”

“Still,” said Lieutenant Zhao. He lowered his eyes; he was
sitting down, but he seemed to be shuffling his feet. “I wonder if I might ask
permission to test you again. You’re under no legal obligation, of course.
Testing is only compulsory for citizens in their thirteenth year.”

“What happens if you find something?” asked Rama.

“I’ll invite you to accompany me for further testing.”

“May I ask where that would be?”

“In the sector we’re about to jump into,” said Lieutenant
Zhao, “we would go to Araceli.”

Aisha felt Rama come alert. “That could be interesting,” he
said.

She wanted to kick him. One psi agent wasn’t much compared
to Rama, but Psycorps had thousands of them. No matter how strong he was, if
enough of them got together, they could swarm over him and drown him.

And they would. The minute they found out what he was, they’d
eat him alive. They wouldn’t even leave a molecule for the archaeologists to
fight over.

Lieutenant Zhao almost seemed as if he might save the day
after all. “I could be wrong,” he said. “Sometimes, especially in jump, we pick
up false readings; we think we see things that aren’t there. I hope you won’t
be disappointed if you turn out to be perfectly normal.”

Rama shrugged and smiled. He was straight out of his mind.

“We can begin now,” Lieutenant Zhao said. “It won’t take
long.”

That was all Aisha could take. She jumped up. “Rama, you’ve
got to go. It’s getting too close to jump.”

“You go,” said Rama, “I’ll be back before the last alarm.”

“But what if you aren’t?” Aisha demanded, not even caring if
she sounded desperate. “You can do this later.”

“I’m going to do it now,” Rama said.

That was his iron voice. Nothing Aisha could say would budge
him, even if she could have said it in front of Lieutenant Zhao.

She dropped back down into her seat. “It’s on your head,”
she said.

“But not yours,” said Rama. “Go.”

She stayed where she was. Her heart was hammering and her
eyes kept blurring, but she wasn’t moving unless he was. He could take them
both down if he was going to do this.

“Not you,” he said.

She hadn’t seen his lips move. She folded her arms and set
her chin and showed him who else could be stubborn.

Aisha was ready to fight if Lieutenant Zhao tried to send
her out, but he hardly seemed aware of her at all. He sat in front of Rama,
looking hard at him. Rama looked back calmly.

He was used to people staring at him. He wasn’t either
embarrassed or uncomfortable.

After a while Lieutenant Zhao flushed and looked away. “I
promise I’ll do you no harm,” he said. He sounded oddly distracted.

“Nor I you,” said Rama. He had that faint smile, the one
carved on his statue back on Nevermore.

Aisha gave up then. Whatever happened after this, it wouldn’t
have anything to do with her. She just had to hope she didn’t get caught in the
backlash.

It was not the same as Aisha’s testing. There was no uplink
to the worldsweb in jump. Lieutenant Zhao was alone, with only his own powers
to draw on.

He had a good share of those, and no way of knowing what he
was getting into. He leaned forward in his chair.

The air started to hum. The hairs on Aisha’s arms stood up.
She shivered all the way down inside.

Rama sat perfectly still. Whatever Lieutenant Zhao was
beaming at him, he was like deep water. Nothing rippled the surface.

Lieutenant Zhao frowned. He was almost touching Rama now,
eye to eye and nose to nose. His breathing was quick and shallow. Rama’s was
deep and slow.

Lieutenant Zhao sucked in a single enormous breath. He
almost choked on it. When he started again, he was matching Rama.

So was Aisha. It was impossible not to. The air in the room pulsed
in the same rhythm.

Her nose wrinkled. She caught a faint smell of hot metal.

She squeezed her eyes shut. There were wide rolling plains
behind the lids, and a sky stretching from horizon to horizon, dark with storm
clouds. Shapes of metal moved under it, pouring over the dry brown grass.

They were people and animals. Men, mostly, in armor, and
giant antelope under saddle or pulling carts or chariots. The hubs of the
chariots’ wheels were set with bronze blades, sharp and whirling and deadly.

Banners flew over them. Aisha would never in her own life
have recognized them, but in this waking dream, she could put names to the
lords and domains that they belonged to.

She stood in a chariot. Its floor was woven leather, firm
but yielding. She was dressed in armor, and her team of golden duns were mares
and therefore hornless, but their headstalls were set with horns of sharpened
bronze. When she looked down at her hands, they were rounder than her own, and
not as brown. They were the color of the honey that Blackroot tribe harvested
from hives in their orchard.

She looked from side to side down the line of chariots,
people and animals that she knew. They were all waiting on the command to
charge. She could feel the eagerness in them, and taste the sharp tang of fear.
But none of them was so afraid that he couldn’t bring himself to fight.

They were angry. The army that stood against them had sworn
treaties and promised loyalty, then gone home and bred treason.

A flash of gold and flame sped down the line: a man in
golden armor on a red-eyed black stallion, with a blood-red cloak streaming out
behind him. Aisha knew him in her bones, long before she recognized the lion
helmet or the face under it.

The Rama she knew when she was awake was a dim and faded
shadow of this warrior king. He drew every eye and focused every mind on both
sides of the battle. When he called out to his own army, he hardly needed to raise
his voice. Every one of them heard him.

He halted not far from Aisha. His stallion snorted and
tossed his horns and pawed the grass.

He was looking down at something in it. Far down—much
farther than a man on a horse-sized animal might ordinarily look.

Lieutenant Zhao stood in an empty circle, surrounded by men
in chariots. Most of the men looked like Rama, but they were much, much taller.
The smallest of them must be over two meters.

Those were the people the doors in the ruined city were made
for. In armor and in chariots, they were gigantic.

Rama was not. Nor was his mount. But he managed to tower
over everyone.

He smiled at Lieutenant Zhao. Lieutenant Zhao stared blankly
back. “This isn’t real,” he said.

“It was,” said Rama.

Lieutenant Zhao shook his head. “You won’t control my
reality. I won’t let you.”

Rama swung his leg over the pommel of his saddle, which had
no stirrups, and slid down. He paused to stroke the antelope’s neck, lingering
over it, but only for a moment. When he stepped away from the stallion, his
hand flicked.

The army vanished, all but Aisha. The plain was still there,
an endless stretch of windswept grass.