This time, Zanlan laughed, their face splitting into a wide grin as the quan approached, and when qe was within touching distance, the child very slowly reached out and patted Rencki on the top of qis furry head.
I did my best not to gape, nor point out the lethality of at least one of Rencki’s tails. Instead, I watched as my companion nuzzled qis head a little deeper into the touch of the child, allowed qimselfto be gently petted by them as they slowly emerged from the shelter of their parent’s calves the damp snuffling sounds dissolving into a thing not unlike a purr.
That is how we fell in with Ranwha and Zanlan.
It was a tight fit in the back of the speeder.
The vehicle was not especially large, and every spare mil had been crammed with food, bottles of water, spare batteries, pillows, blankets and a couple of oversized stuffed toys.
Ranwha and I sat up front, while in the back Zanlan and Rencki dug themselves a little fortress of displaced bags and soft goods, Rencki cooing softly while Zanlan stroked qis ears, back, belly and decidedly dangerous furry tails. So convincing was my quan partner that for a moment I wondered whether qe was actually receiving pleasure from the attentions the child gave qim. Was there some algorithm in qis OS that rewarded organic attention as our minds rewarded intimacy with joy, physical contact with the sense of pleasure, trust, security? Or had qe simply dedicated so much of qis processing power to social blending that qe understood the easiest way to the parent’s heart was to bring the child happiness? I couldn’t tell, and it did not seem appropriate to ask.
Ranwha drove. The big highways were still functioning, and he had used autopilot most of the way north, but the smaller roads had been the first to lose electricity when the solar transmitters had started to fail, and authorities had prioritised powering launch sites and vital services over rural routes.
“Not that you’d imagine it,” he murmured as we raced along between the high hedges and heavy, twisted branches of the trees that hemmed the road to Kiskol. “These days the nights are so bright that the speeder keeps charging even after sundown.”
There was bitterness in his voice, and I did not interrogate it. Nor did I ask the obvious questions – not while Zanlan laughed and Rencki cooed in the back. The reason for his bitterness was as clear as the reason for his love, and the same.
“So what is so important that you came to Adjumir?” he asked as we crossed a bridge over a fat brown river kissed with hot summer vapour and the slow ripple of hidden, preening reptiles.
“We were sent by the Accord. I cannot say more.”
Two clicks; he disapproves of my silence, especially now, especially when all lies should be burned away in the light of the twin suns, but he will not push further. “Your accent? You do not speak Assembly Adjumiri, but neither is it…”
“I live on Xihana. My first language was Mdo-sa.”
“The Shine?”
A nod – then correction, a click of affirmation. Ranwha’s eyes do not leave the road. “Shine sent ships a few moons back, offered to take people out. Assembly warned us off – said they were slavers, cruel, that they lied. Didn’t stop people going, mind. Better a slave than dead. Assembly didn’t try to stop anyone, either. People free to make their own choices, they say.”
“The Shine are cruel.”
A click; who is he to judge cruelty, or the choices people make, times being what they are?
“I didn’t think many people born in the Shine left. Are you a… what do they call it? A Unionist? I saw a documentary – rebels, someone was martyred, they use the symbol of the binary star. The Shine pretends they don’t exist, but Lhonoja, the Edge…”
His voice trailed off. There are some things too big for even the Shine, too big to really encompass and name.
“I am not a rebel. I… There was an accident. I was changed. I am not… It is not something I am comfortable with. I want to tell you that I am not a coward, that if I thought I could make a difference… although it is… complicated.”
“You don’t seem to be a coward. You came to Adjumir just in time for the world to die. You could have stayed away. I suppose that makes you brave. Or stupid. Or both.”
I said nothing, tried to press a little deeper into my chair.
The morning’s thunder was already thickening up for afternoonrain, a grumble to the east, a smell of preparing green that drifted through even the sealed bubble of the speeder. Then: “Did you come by ship?” he asked, the simplest thing in the world. “There’s no elevator nearby, no shuttle pad.”
“Yes.”
“Was that the ship that came through the skies over Millopix during yesterday’s storm?”
I didn’t answer. Behind me, Rencki was still gently making little purring noises in Zanlan’s lap, but I could feel the force of qis attention on the back of my neck, hear qis warning voice in my mind as though qe had actually spoken.
Ranwha clicked his tongue twice at my silence, and in silence we drove on.
Later, it began to rain.
At first, it was beautiful, dark shadows broken up by dazzling light sweeping across the land.
Then it was powerful, slicing torrents tapping in across the dome of the hollow vehicle.
