Beneath Ceaseless Skies #142, Special Double-Issue for BCS Science-Fantasy Month 2 Read online

  And then she stood on the plateaux—her feet hurting, her bag digging into the small of her back, her breath coming in fiery gasps—and it didn’t matter, any of it, because there was the stone.

  She’d only seen the blocks the traders brought down. The one for her cousin’s exhalation had been roughly the size of a woman; of course, with lamsinh at such a dear price, people would buy only what was necessary. But here were no such constraints. The stone towered over her, cliffs as tall as the Temple of Mercy, broken bits and pieces ranging from the size of a skyscraper to the size of her fist; colors that ranged from a green so deep it was almost black, to the translucent shades Flesh-Mother so valued, the same color used for all the family’s breath-siblings—all the stone’s veins exposed, streaks of lighter and darker nuances that seemed to be throbbing on the same rhythm as her own frantic heartbeat.

  She walked among them, letting her hand lightly trail on the smooth surfaces, feeling the lambent heat; the faint trembling of the air where the sun had heated them through, like an echo of her own breath. People had always been vague about exhalation: they’d said you’d know, when you saw your block of stone, what kind of breath-sibling you wanted to carve, what kind of birth master you wanted to give to your children yet to come. But here she didn’t just have one block of stone, but thousands; and she wandered into a labyrinth of toppled structures like the wreck of a city, wondering where she could settle herself, where she could make her first cut into the incandescent mass around her.

  And then she rounded the edge of the cliff, and saw it, lying on the ground.

  It was huge, easily ten times her size, with streaks the color of algae water, and a thousand small dots, almost as if the stone had been pockmarked; a pattern of wounds that reminded her, for some absurd reason, of a tapestry that had used to hang on Seventh Aunt’s wall, before the bomb tore her apart in the marketplace.

  In all the stories she’d heard, all the tales about girls running off to have adventures, there was always this moment; this perfect moment when they reached the plateaux, or when someone showed them a block of stone, and they just knew, staring at it, what it would look like when whittled down to shape; when they’d freed, measure by agonizing measure, the limbs and head and body of their breath-sibling, the one who would be their constant companion as they traveled over the known planets. In the stories, they didn’t carve; they revealed the stone’s secret nature, gave it the life it had always longed for.

  Rechan had never given that credence. She was the daughter of an engineer, and believed in planning and in forethought; and had brought sketches with her, of how her own stoneman would look, with delicate hands like her mother, and large strong arms that would be able to carry her to hospital if the delivery went badly.

  Except that then, she stood in front of the stone, and saw into its heart. And knew, with absolute certainty, that it wasn’t a stoneman that she needed or wanted to carve.

  * * *

  Later, much later, when she thought about it all, she wondered how she’d endured it—months up in the plateaux with scant rations, sleeping rough, sheltering under the rock face when the rain came—day after day of rising and going back to her block of stone; carving, little by little, what would become her breath-sibling.

  She did the outside first: the sleek, elegant hull, tapering to a point; the shadow of the twin engines at the back, every exhaust port and every weapons slit rendered in painstaking detail. Then she turned inwards, and from the only door into the ship, made corridors inch by agonizing inch, her tools gnawing their way through the rock. All the while, she imagined it hanging in space—fast and deadly, a predator in a sea of stars, one who never had to cower or shelter for fear of bombs or flyers; one who was free to go where she wished, without those pointless restrictions on her life, those over-solicitous parents and breath-mothers who couldn’t understand that bombs happened, that all you could do was go out and pray, moment after moment, that they wouldn’t fall on you.

  It was rough carving. She didn’t have the tools that would be available to the generation after hers—not the fineness of Akanlam’s carving, who would be able to give Mau fingernails, and a small pendant on her chest, down to the imprint of the chain that held it. She carved as she could—hour after hour, day after day, lifted into a place where time had no meaning, where only the ship existed or mattered; stopping only when the hunger or thirst brought themselves to her attention again, snatching a ration and then returning, hermit-like, to the translucent corridors she was shaping.

  Until one day, she stepped back, and couldn’t think of anything else to add.

  There was probably something meaningful one was supposed to say, at an exhalation’s close. She’d read speeches, all nonsense about “your breath to mine” and meters and meters of bad poetry. It didn’t seem to matter very much what one said, truth be told.

  “Well,” she said to the ship, laying a hand on the hull, “this is it.” Winter had come by then, settling in the mountains, a vise around her lungs; and her breath hung in ragged gasps above her. “I’m not sure—”

  The stone under her hand went deathly cold. What—? She tried to withdraw her hand, but it had become fused to the lamsinh; and the veins shifted and moved, as lazily as snakes underwater.

  There was a light, coming from the heart of the stone, even as the breath was drained out of her, leaving her struggling to stand upright—a light, and a slow, ponderous beat like a gigantic heart. Breath-sister, the stone whispered, and even that boomed, as if she stood in the Temple of Mercy, listening to the gong reminding the faithful to grow in wisdom. Breath-sister.

  Her hand fell back; and the ship rose, casting its shadow over her.

  He was sleek elegant beauty—everything she had dreamt of, everything she had carved, all the release she sought—and he didn’t belong on Voc, anymore than she did.

  Come with me, the ship whispered; and she had stood there in the growing cold, trembling, and unable to make any answer.

  * * *

  “A ship,” Mau said, thoughtfully.

  Rechan shivered. It had made sense at the time. “I named him Sang,” she said at last. Illumination, in the old language of the settlers—because he had stood over her, framed by light.

  “I didn’t even know you could carve ships.”

  “Anything living,” Rechan said, through clenched teeth. She was going to feel sick again. Was it the baby, or the memories, or both? “Stonemen are tradition, but we could have carved cats or dogs or other Old Earth animals if we felt like it.”

  “Whoever you’d want assisting at the birth of your children,” Mau said with a nod. She smiled, her hand going to the impression of the pendant on her chest. “I suppose I should be grateful Akanlam followed tradition. Being an animal wouldn’t have been very—exciting.”

  But you wouldn’t know, Rechan thought, chilled. You’d be quite happy, either way. That’s what you were carved for, to give your breath to Akanlam’s babies, and even if you hadn’t been born knowing it, everyone in our society has been telling you that for as long as you can remember. How much responsibility did they have for their carvings? How much of themselves had they put into them; and how much had they taught them?

  And what did Sang owe her, in the end—and what did she owe him?

  “Your ship is still up there,” Mau said. Her voice was quiet, but it wasn’t difficult to hear the question in her words.

  “Yes,” Rechan said. “The crossfire you heard about, it’s not between the rebels and the government soldiers. It’s Sang mopping rebels up.” It hadn’t been what she’d dreamt of, when she’d carved him; she’d wanted a spaceship, not a butcher of armies. But, consciously or unconsciously, she hadn’t put that into her carving.

  “The ship you carved?” Mau lifted an eyebrow.

  “I was young once,” Rechan said. “And angry. I don’t think I’d carve the same, if I had to do it again.” Though who could know, really. She’d always wondered what would hav
e happened, if she’d answered the question Sang had asked; if she’d said yes. Would she still be on Voc, still going over the bitter loneliness of her life? Would she be elsewhere on some other planet, having the adventures she’d dreamt of as a teenager? If she could do it again....

  “Anyway,” she said, “I don’t have much choice. If we don’t reach the plateaux in time....” She didn’t dare say it, didn’t dare voice the possibility; but she felt as though someone had closed a fist of ice around her heart.

  * * *

  They were halfway to IndigoBirdsPass, where they would have to abandon the car, when the noise of a motor made everyone sit up.

  “That’s not good,” Akanlam said. “We’re sitting targets here.” She didn’t stop the aircar, but accelerated. The noise got closer, all the same: not a flyer but a swarm of drones, dull and tarnished by dust. They banked above the overhang ahead and were gone so quickly it was hard to believe they’d been there at all. Akanlam made a face. “Rebels. Our army has Galactic drones.”

  “Let’s go on,” Rechan suggested. They would get to the pass in half a day. Surely that was enough time, before the drones sent their analyses onwards to their masters. Surely....

  Not half an hour later, the drones came back, and hung over the aircar for what seemed like an eternity. Rechan found herself clenching Mau’s hand, so hard that the stone hurt her fingers.

  When the drones left, Akanlam killed the motor. “That’s it. We have to go on foot. Under the cliffs, where they’ll have trouble sending flyers. Come on.”

  Mau shot Rechan a warning glance. Rechan spread her hands, helplessly. Yes, she had to be careful, but what else could she do?

  “There’s a path,” Akanlam called from the shelter of the overhang. “A goat trail, probably, but it’ll be sheltered. At least for a while.”

  Rechan slid down from the aircar and walked to the overhang. There was a path, twisting along the side of the mountain and vanishing between two large stones. It was steep and thin, and one look at it would have made her doctor’s face pale.

  But there was no choice. There had never been any choice: everything had been set from the moment she’d walked into the insemination center; or perhaps even earlier, when she’d lain in the silence of her room and known that she couldn’t bear it forever. She laid her hands on her belly, whispered “hang on” to the unborn baby, and set her feet on the path.

  She’d forgotten how tiring it had been, ten years earlier. Her breath burnt in her lungs after only four steps, and her legs ached after eight; and then there was only the path ahead of her, her eyes doggedly on every rock and particle of dust, making sure of her step—perpetually off-balance, struggling to keep the curve of her belly from betraying her as rocks detached under her feet—she mustn’t trip, mustn’t fall, mustn’t let go....

  After a while, the pain came on. At first, she thought it was just the aches from the unusual exercise, but it didn’t abate, washing over her in a huge, belly-clenching wave, cutting her breath until she had to halt. Touching her belly, she found it hard, pointed, and the baby a compressed weight under her hands. A contraction. She was entering labor. No, not now—it was too early. She couldn’t afford—couldn’t lose everything—

  “Elder Aunt?” Mau was by her side, suddenly, her hands running over her belly.

  “It’s starting,” she said.

  “Yes.” Mau’s voice was grave, expressionless. Rechan didn’t want to look at Akanlam, who’d always been bad at disguising her emotions. “It’s your first one, Elder Aunt. This can go on for hours. There is still time, but you have to walk.”

  “I can’t—” she whispered through clenched teeth, bracing herself against the next contraction. “Too—tired—” And they were going to reach that plateaux, and she was going to find there was no ship, that her dreams were lies, that it had never been there—how she wanted to be the ship now, hanging under the vastness of the heavens, without heaviness, without pain, without a care in the world....

  Mau’s hands massaged her, easing the knots of pain in her back. “One an hour at first, Elder Aunt. Or more apart. There is still time. But you have to walk.”

  “The drones?” she asked, and it was Akanlam who answered.

  “They haven’t come back.”

  Not yet, she thought, tasting bile and blood on her tongue. She hauled herself as upright as she could, gently removing Mau’s hands. “Let’s walk,” she said, and even those words were pain.

  There was a divinity, watching over thoughtless teenagers; there had to be one for thoughtless adults, too; or perhaps it was her ancestors, protecting her from their distant altar—her thoughts wandering as she walked, step after step on the path, not knowing how far the ending lay, not caring anymore—step after step, with the occasional pause to bend over, gasping, while the contraction passed, and then resuming her painful, painstakingly slow walk to the top.

  She found her mind drifting—to the ship, to his shadow hanging over her, remembering the coldness of the stone against her hand, the breath that seemed to have left her altogether; remembering the voice that had boomed like ten thousand storms.

  Come with me, breath-sister.

  Come with me.

  He was there on the plateaux, waiting for her, and what would she tell him?

  They climbed in silence. There was just Mau’s hands on her, guiding her, supporting her when she stumbled; and Akanlam’s tunic, blue against the grey of the rock, showing her the way forward.

  She was barely aware of cresting a rise—of suddenly finding herself not flush against a cliff face, but in the middle of a space that seemed to stretch forever, a vast expanse of lamsinh rocks caught by the noon sun—all shades of the spectrum, from green to palest white; and a trembling in the air that mirrored that of her hands.

  “There is no ship,” Akanlam said, and her voice was almost accusatory.

  Shaking, Rechan pulled herself upwards. “He’ll be deeper into the plateaux. Where I carved him. We have to—”

  “Elder Aunt,” Mau said, low and urgent.

  What? she wanted to ask; but, turning to stare in the same direction as Mau, she saw the black dots silhouetted against the sky—growing in size, fast, too fast....

  “Run.”

  She would have, but her legs betrayed her—a contraction, locking her in place, as frozen as the baby within her womb, as helpless as a kid to the slaughter—watching the dots become the sleek shape of flyers, hearing the whine of the motors getting louder and louder....

  Run run run, she wanted to shout to Mau and Akanlam—there’s no need for you to get caught in this. Instead, what came out of her was a scream: a cry for help, a jumble of incoherent syllables torn out of her lungs, towards the Heavens; a deep-seated anger about life’s unfairness she’d last felt when carving the ship. It echoed around the plateaux, slowly fading as it was absorbed by the lamsinh stone.

  Her hand was cold again, her breath coming in short gasps—and, like an answer to a prayer, she saw the ship come.

  He was sleek, and elegant, and deadly. Banking lazily over the plateaux—illuminated by the noonday sun, as if with an inner fire—he incinerated the flyers, one by one, and then hovered over Mau and Akanlam, as if unsure what to do about them. “No you don’t!” Rechan screamed, and then collapsed, having spent all her energy.

  Breath-sister. The ship—Sang—loomed over her once more.

  She’d forgotten how beautiful Sang was; how terribly wrong, too—someone that didn’t belong on Voc, that shouldn’t have been here. He should have hung, weightless, in space; instead he moved sluggishly, crushed by gravity; and his hull was already crisscrossed by a thousand fracture lines, barely visible against the heat of the stone. The lamsinh was weathered and pitted, not from meteorite strikes but from weapons—in fact, dusty and cracked he looked like a rougher, fuzzier version of the rebel flyers he’d incinerated.

  You need me, the ship said, and came lower, hull almost touching her outstretched hands. Let me give y
ou your breath back.

  It was wrong, all wrong—everything she had desired, the breath she needed for her baby, the birth she’d been bracing herself for—and yet.... “You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “You’re a spaceship, not a flyer.” She was barely aware of Mau standing by her side, looking up at Sang with wide eyes; of Akanlam, spreading her tunic on the ground.

  I waited for you.

  “You can’t—” But he could, couldn’t he? He could do exactly what she’d thought of, when she’d carved him—all her anger at the war, at the rebels, at the unfairness of it all—year after year of hunting down rebels because that’s what she’d wanted at the time; not a breath-sibling to help her with a birth, but someone born of her anger and frustration, of her desire to escape the war at any cost.

  Come with me.

  She’d wondered what she would do, were Sang to ask that question of her again, but of course there was only one possible answer. The world had moved on; she had moved on; and only Sang remained, the inescapable remains of her history—a sixteen-year-old’s grandiloquent, thoughtless, meaningless gesture.

  “You have to go,” she said, the words torn out of her before she could think. “Into space. That’s what I carved you for. Not this—this butchery.”

  The ship came close enough for her to touch the exhaust ports: there was a tingle on her hands, and a warmth she’d forgotten existed—and, within her, for the first time, the baby quickened, kicking against the confines of her womb. She ought to have felt relief, but she was empty—bracing herself against the next contractions and trying to crane her head upwards to see Sang.