FINE, VESSEL, I AGREE TO TRUST YOU. LET’S PLAY THIS GAME YOU’VE SET OUT FOR US. A few vines slithered out of the way to create a gap between lush ferns. Beyond Ishtan’s body. Beyond where the vent cover lay. There was an old wardrobe of a computer, a few lights lazily flickering along the side.
Yan moved fast. The gun was in his extended arm, safety off, before the last vine had retreated. But Iris was faster. In hindsight, he regretted his actions tremendously. Without warning, without explanation, he broke the distance between him and the engineer in a single step and struck Yan in the neck with the edge of his palm. Yan’s arm fell limp, and the gun clattered to the floor. Yan had played his part to perfection.
“Coward,” Yan hissed, nursing the sore spot with his hand. “That was our chance, you idiot. You brainwashed idiot. We’reall dead because of you now.” Thin vines circled Yan’s crouched form and began to wound around his ankles. “You utter coward.”
“The nerve block is temporary,” Iris apologised, ignoring the terror clouding Yan’s eyes. “It will let off in a few minutes.”
I AM PLEASANTLY SURPRISED, theNicaeasaid, sounding genuinely surprised.YOUROWNENGINEER. YOU ARE TRULY A MAN OF FAITH, VESSEL.
The vines slithered from the floor to Yan’s feet, worked upwards along his legs, and tightened around his torso. He wheezed for a breath but didn’t fight this time. It wouldn’t be long now. Yan said nothing, just glared at Iris with both fear and disappointment. It wouldn’t be long at all.
“Every living thing is the same,” Iris said. “I cannot prioritise one over the other. That’s what the Light has taught me. That’s what my entire life has been dedicated to. I cannot turn my back on my teachings. I cannot arbitrarily value one life over another. I cannot end a life to spare yours, engineer Yan.”
The vines lifted Yan off the ground, now firmly wound as high as his neck.
COME ON CLOSER, SO I DON’T HAVE TO REACH.
Reaching was an effort, then. Iris filed that piece of information away. He walked by Yan’s side as the vines carried him forth. Jesi was left behind, sobbing, crumpled on the ground. She folded her hands over her head and pulled herself into the smallest of balls. Only her shoulders trembled, silently.
“You had asked me how the Starlit remains so impassive to others’ suffering,” Iris said, glancing to the side to find Yan still conscious, still glaring at him, the vines now curling along his jaw. Iris wanted to stop and tell the engineer everything, to confess his plan, his every fleeting thought and longing. But this wasn’t the time to fall apart. “We are impassive because suffering is not a special experience. It holds no revered space inour hearts. There will always be suffering, and there will always be joy. We know our professional boundaries. The Vessels who tended to your family’s shuttle did their jobs, and they did them well. To stop and lose themselves in your suffering would be to disregard their duties. You were not in any immediate danger, and so they carried on with their responsibilities. You cannot take it personally. Remember, Vessels do not serve the living. We serve the dead.”
They stopped at the mountain of bones, one Starlit monk and one engineer. “When you pass, I will do my best to tend to you as well. I will do my job as I have for a decade. I will accept this for what it is. I cannot die with every person I bury. You are my charge, but you are no different.” Casting his eyes downwards, Iris asked softly, “Would it be all right if we prayed before the inevitable befell us,Nicaea?”
HURRY UP, theNicaeasang, but Iris could tell the ship was watching closely, listening intently to whatever words he was to utter. He reached up and gently pulled down the vines from Yan’s mouth. The engineer sneered at him, but fear was not buried too deep beneath the rage.
“Pray,” Iris said. “I believe you know how to.”
The vines carrying Yan merged into one, arm-thick umbilical cord that ran off to the side, behind the mountain of skeletons. The fungi had already begun to work their way up it, spreading around the organic cocoon encasing Yan with a glowing film.
Rising on his toes, Iris pulled Yan’s head down to his level. Yan resisted, but the angle was not in his favour, and Iris had deliberately grabbed a handful of the engineer’s hair for leverage. TheNicaea’s many eyes were on Iris’s back, watching, listening, enthralled by the intensity of human exchange. The weight of the inorganic gaze between his shoulder blades was a boulder pressing into him with crushing force. But they werenow sufficiently away from Jesi. If theNicaeawere to react, Jesi still had a second or two at her disposal. It was all she’d need.
Be ready,Iris thought to VIFAI.I need you to take control of my arm again.With the engineer now flush against him, their foreheads pressed together, this was their one chance. Iris’s brain stem began to burn. “Pray,” he urged the engineer.
“I pray that everything you love turns to ash in your hands,” Yan hissed against Iris’s cheek.
“Oh, Yan, you have such a way with words.”
The pulsar blade ignited against the dim light of the hangar just then. With one slice, the vine holding Yan in place was gone, and the engineer tumbled to the ground. He quickly fought his way out of the remainder that had previously held his arms at his sides.
TheNicaeahadn’t seen this coming. She attacked at once with a personal kind of fury, aiming for Iris’s legs and arms, but careful not to murder him. Simply aiming to maim and disfigure. VIFAI reacted quickly, slashing away in a precise rhythm, despite having to use Iris’s left arm.
“Was this the fucking plan?” Yan’s shout broke off as Iris kicked the back of his knee. The engineer tumbled forwards. A vine plummeting by, stiff as an arrow, missed Yan’s head by a sliver. “This is an awful plan.”
“Iapologise.” Iris dragged Yan to his feet with his free arm and sliced another three vines that attacked. “I didn’t have the time toworkshop this.” He dropped the engineer back to the ground and swung the pulsar blade over his head. Five vines fell around them, twitching and slithering away. He couldn’t keep this up forever, not even with VIFAI’s help.
YOU LIED, VESSEL, theNicaeaboomed.
“I’m sorry,” Iris yelled back. “It’s not personal, but I couldn’t let you kill my friend.”
“We arenotfriends,” Yan shouted, dodged a vine, and tumbled across the ground. In a flash, he had a femur in his hand that he swung without much grace or impact. “Not afterthat.”
Still, it was all worth it to know where the terminal was. Now came the second and the most vital part of Iris’s plan. In a brief moment of peace between attacks, Iris sheathed the pulsar blade and tapped a complex rhythm along the hilt. As the final note resonated, the hilt split into halves, each capable of projecting a single crisp, glowing blade. Iris grabbed one of the halves. “Just like I told you, Jesi.” He threw the hilt as far as he could, aiming for it to land near Jesi.
On cue, the girl threw her arms away from her head and scurried to her feet. The pulsar hilt landed not two metres from her, and she reached it in record time. Her trembling thumb dug into the indent, and the blade shot out to full length.
“Go,” Iris shouted and extended his own blade again. VIFAI sent another burning pulse through his brain stem, and the barrage of vines continued. Iris was a mediocre fighter at best, but his AI knew his actions better than he did. All Iris could do was surrender to it.
Yan stared at him in disbelief, the femur in his hand forgotten for the moment. “Youhave totell me how that thing works.”
