LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

calmed, I set about cleaning up Isae Benesit’s mess.

      Ryzek’s body didn’t frighten me, and neither did blood. I dragged him by his legs into the hallway, sweat tickling the back of my neck as I heaved and pulled. He was heavy, in death, as I was sure he had been in life, skeletal though he was. When Akos’s oracle mother, Sifa, appeared to help me, I didn’t say anything to her, just watched as she worked a sheet beneath him so we could wrap him in it. She produced a needle and thread from the storage room, and helped me stitch the makeshift burial sack closed.

      Shotet funerals, when they took place on land, involved fire, like most cultures in our varied solar system. But it was a special honor to die in space, on the sojourn. We covered the bodies, all but the head, so the loved ones of whoever was lost could see and accept the person’s death. When Sifa pulled the sheet back, away from Ryzek’s face, I knew she had at least studied our customs.

      “I see so many possibilities for how things will unfold,” Sifa said finally, dragging her arm across her forehead to catch some of the sweat. “I didn’t think this one was likely, or I might have warned you.”

      “No, you wouldn’t have,” I said, lifting a shoulder. “You only intervene when it suits your purposes. My comfort and ease don’t matter to you.”

      “Cyra …”

      “I don’t care,” I said. “I hated him. Just … don’t pretend that you care about me.”

      “I am not pretending,” she replied.

      I had thought, surely, that I might see some of Akos in her. And in her mannerisms, yes, perhaps he was there. Mobile eyebrows and quick, decisive hands. But her face, her light brown skin, her modest stature, they were not his.

      I didn’t know how to evaluate her honesty, so I didn’t bother.

      “Help me carry him to the trash chute,” I said.

      I took the heavy side of his body, his head and shoulders, and she took his feet. It was lucky that the trash chute was only a few feet away, another unexpected convenience. We took it in stages, a few steps at a time. Ryzek’s head lolled around, his eyes open but sightless, but there was nothing I could do about it. I set him down next to the chute, and pressed the button to open the first set of doors, at waist height. It was fortunate that he was so narrow, or his shoulders wouldn’t have fit. Together Sifa and I folded him into the short channel, bending his legs so the inner doors would be able to close. Once they had, I pressed the button again, to open the outer doors and slide the tray in the chute forward to launch his body into space.

      “I know the prayer, if you want me to say it,” Sifa said.

      I shook my head.

      “They said that prayer at my mother’s funeral,” I said. “No.”

      “Then let us just acknowledge that he has suffered his fate,” Sifa said. “To fall to the family Benesit. He no longer needs to fear it.”

      It was kind enough.

      “I’m going to clean myself up,” I said. The blood on my palms was beginning to dry, making them itch.

      “Before you do,” Sifa said, “I will warn you of this. Ryzek was not the only person the chancellor blamed for her sister’s death. In fact, she likely began with him because she was saving the more important piece of retribution for later. And she won’t stop there, either. I have seen enough of her to know her nature, and it is not forgiving.”

      I blinked at her for a moment before it made sense to me. She was talking about Eijeh, still locked away in the other storage room. And not just Eijeh, but the rest of us—complicit, Isae believed, in Orieve’s death.

      “There is an escape pod,” Sifa said. “We can put her in it, and someone from the Assembly will fetch her.”

      “Tell Akos to drug her,” I said. “I don’t feel up to a fight right now.”

      

      AKOS WADED THROUGH THE cutlery that was all over the galley floor. The water was already heating, and the vial of sedative was ready to dump into the tea, he just had to get some dried herbs into the strainer. The ship bumped along, and he stepped on a fork, flattening the tines with his heel.

      He cursed his stupid head, which couldn’t stop telling him that there was still hope for Eijeh. There are so many people across the galaxy, with so many gifts. Somebody will know how to put him right. Truth was, Akos was tired of hanging on to hope. He’d been clawing at it since he first got to Shotet, and now he was ready to let go and just let fate take him where it wanted him to go. To death, and Noaveks, and Shotet.

      All he’d promised his dad was that he would get Eijeh home. Maybe here—floating in space—was the best he could do. Maybe that would just have to be enough.

       But—

      “Shut up,” he said to himself, and he dumped the herbs from the galley cabinet into a strainer. There weren’t any iceflowers, but he’d learned enough about Shotet plants to make a simple calming blend. At this point, though, there was no artistry in it. He was just going through the motions, folding bits of garok root into powdered fenzu shell and squeezing a little nectar on top of it all, for taste. He didn’t even know what to call the plants that made up the nectar—he’d taken to calling the little fragile flowers “mushflowers” while he was at the army training camp outside Voa, because of how easily they fell apart, but he’d never learned the right name for them. They tasted sweet, and that seemed to be their only use.

      When the water was hot, he poured it through the strainer. The extract it left behind was a murky brown, perfect for hiding the yellow of the sedative. His mom had told him to drug Isae and he hadn’t even asked why. He didn’t care, as long as it got her out of his sight. He couldn’t quite escape the image of her standing there watching Ryzek Noavek gush blood like it was some kind of show. Isae Benesit may have worn Ori’s face, but she wasn’t anything like her. He couldn’t imagine Ori just standing there and watching someone die, no matter how much she hated them.

      Once the extract was brewed and mixed with the drug, he brought it to Cisi, who was sitting alone on the bench just outside the galley.

      “You waiting for me?” he said.

      “Yeah,” she said. “Mom told me to.”

      “Good,” he said. “Will you take this to Isae? It’s just to calm her down.”

      Cisi raised an eyebrow at him.

      “Don’t drink any of it yourself,” he added.

      She reached for it, but instead of taking the mug, she put her hand on his wrist. The look in her eyes changed—sharpened—like it always did when his currentgift dampened her own.

      “What’s left of Eijeh?” she asked.

      Akos’s whole body clenched up. He didn’t want to think about what was left of Eijeh.

      “Someone who served Ryzek Noavek,” he said, with venom. “Who hated me, and Dad, and probably you and Mom, too.”

      “How is that possible?” She frowned. “He can’t hate us just because someone put different memories into his head.”

      “You think I know?” Akos all but growled.

      “Then, maybe—”

      “He held me down while someone tortured me.” Akos shoved the mug into her hands.

      Some of the hot tea spilled on both their hands. Cisi jerked away, wiping her knuckles on her pants.

      “Did I burn you?” he said, nodding to her hand.

      “No,”

Скачать книгу