The Human Experience
Chapter 36

A few days after my last entry.

The Voice-people have a proposal for Enver and the Star-King. A risky one, maybe even a foolhardy one, but the only hope the ship has. If the brothers let Empathy and Loyalty enter their minds, they’d gain the ability to sense and track down Distrust and Hatred. Not only that, but they’d supposedly be able to manipulate energy like the Voice-people can, shooting thought strings at high speeds to blow objects away and sucking them back in to create a vortex. By letting Loyalty and Empathy possess them, the kings would have their best shot at replaceing and trapping the the other two Voice-people.

But there are repercussions. Empathy and Loyalty are composed of so many Voices that if they entered the kings’ minds, they’d practically engulf their entire identities. They swore they’d detach once the others were trapped, swore they wouldn’t touch the stores of radiation in their hosts’ brains. But they don’t have perfect self-control. Both admitted that for their kind, entering a human mind without sucking it of radiation is like a dehydrated man keeping water in his mouth without swallowing. And they’re dying. They’re going against their survival instincts to help humans.

As well-intentioned as they are, if their willpower crumbles, the kings would go catatonic in a matter of minutes.

_____

Orcadis didn’t come out of his chambers the next day, or the day after that. Jesreal brought platters of whatever dried food and preserves they had left, placing them by the threshold. They were never admitted. When she pounded on his doors and demanded he open up, she got barely a grunt in response. The door remained closed.

As she did now, Del sometimes sat cross-legged outside his quarters, bundled in a few quilted blankets, silent. Yesterday she’d brought the sole surviving plant from the greenhouse – the one with violet leaves coated with a sheen reminiscent of liquid metal – and settled it in the nook between his door and the wall. As if it could speak to him like no human could. As if he’d hear its thought-waves like a newborn’s helpless squalls and take it in.

When he still didn’t open the door she tried to nurse it herself.

It died. That hurt her more than it should have.

Del heard somebody sit down beside her and she lifted her head from the blankets she’d cocooned herself in.

“Think if I ‘disrespect’ you again, he’ll come out?” Lykus asked with a mischievously arched brow.

It had been difficult convincing Hector to stay as Lykus for a little longer, but Jesreal insisted his emotion-regulator would draw the Voice-people, as it produced its own radiation.

She wasn’t in the mood to respond to his teasing. Instead she turned to contemplate the intricate patterns of the corrugated steel walls. Lykus growled quietly to himself. Being ignored often drove him to do shocking things for attention. Del thought better of her tactic and turned to face him.

As always, Lykus was pristine, clean-shaven and smelling of mint, his sleek raven hair loose except for two sections near his ears that he’d braided into a little coronet around his head. Classic Ferralli vanity. Men and women alike were required to wear their hair long and braided in Van-Ferrall – an ancient tradition that associated loose hair with “loose” morals. She’d always found it dissonant that Lykus, a man with no morals whatsoever, should be so prim about the maintenance of his hair. Del never did more than throw hers up into a tousled bun.

She studied him. As crude as he was, Del couldn’t hate Lykus. Not when she saw that thirst for understanding and humanity in his eyes – the longing to be Hector.

“I know how it is,” she said. “You can’t go back to black-and-white now that you’ve seen in colour. Even if the colours confuse and frustrate you. I feel the same way about sensing thought-energy. Now that I can’t do it, I feel incomplete. An essential part of my capacity for empathy is gone. Just like yours, when you’re Lykus.”

Lykus frowned, then leaned toward her. “Can I eat that?” he said softly, nodding to the dried figs and jerky on the platter Jesreal had left for Orcadis. Before she could answer he reached around her and grabbed it, settling back against Orcadis’s doors to chomp on a stick of dried beef.

“Threatened to kill Enver today,” he said around his mouthful. “Unless he did what Empathy and Loyalty asked him to. Still said no, the bastard.”

“Why are you helping us?” Del asked Lykus. “Why try and convince Enver to take the risk?”

Lykus sniffed at a fig, made a face, then popped it into his mouth anyways. “I just wanted to threaten Enver, Del. Stop over-thinking.”

As if on cue, Enver hobbled around the corner, Star-King Serasta and their two Voice allies shadowing him. “Listen to me, Enver!” Serasta was shouting after him.

Enver had his claws plastered over the holes near his temples where his ears had melted. “Get away from me, freakth! Like hell you’re Infecting me! It’s a trick, Therathta. You blathted fool! They want to feed on our mindth!”

“If that were true, we would have done it by now and not bothered asking your permission,” Loyalty said calmly.

“Doing this would give us the advantage of having matter and energy to use against Hatred and Distrust. We could trap them again, maybe even into the escape pod. That way we can blast them off into space and be done with it.” Serasta stepped toward Enver, who’d positioned himself behind Lykus as if thinking him a good repellent against his brother. “Isn’t it worth it, Enver? You’re the one who wanted to be king, who was willing to kill your own brother to get the throne. Well, save the people you almost killed me for. Act like a leader.”

Enver clenched his hands into fists. “How do we know theeth thingth aren’t the thame ath the two who attacked uth? Nobody actually thaw all four of them at oneth, did they?”

“I did,” Lykus said, but as always his input seemed to hold little water.

“It’s too damned rithky!”

A storm-cloud passed over the Star-King’s face, darkening the good-natured features until they were all harsh angles and lines. “Too risky?” He took a menacing step toward his brother, making Enver shuffle back. “Riskier, perhaps, than high treason and impersonating the Star-King? Riskier than keeping me locked up in the palace catacombs for almost two decades? You already risked everything, Enver. You’re a fraud, a traitor, a selfish and ignorant and hopelessly stupid man, yes, but you are not a coward.” He held up a palm to forestall objections. “Your recklessness nearly destroyed my empire, so don’t feed me your shit about ‘risks’ and ‘consequences.’ If you refuse to do this, it is entirely out of selfishness.”

Enver licked his lipless mouth. He dabbed his brow with a kerchief – a habit both brothers seemed to share, though Del had thought Enver’s sweat glands had been destroyed in the fire. “I want a thentence reduction,” he said suddenly.

Serasta’s jaw worked. “What?”

“Give me ten turnth exile, not a lifetime.”

Enver, it seemed, had taken his brother’s accusation of selfishness and run with it.

“No,” the Star-King said, firmly.

The brothers stood staring at one another for a long time. Finally, Enver moved out from behind Lykus with a resigned sigh. “You haven’t changed, brother,” he whispered.

The corner of Serasta’s mouth twitched. “Decades of catatonia will keep a man stuck in time, Enver. But what is your excuse?”

“Gods be damned, I’ll have no more of your moralithing! Alright! I’ll do it. Quickly now, before I reconthider.” The Star-King signalled for the coruscating silver beings to approach, but Enver grabbed his forearm before he could give the command. “What about fifteen turnth in exile?”

Serasta just looked at his opportunistic younger brother, bulbous eye gleaming with hope, and, as if despite himself, barked a laugh.

“Delmirath love, but I mithed you, Therathta,” Enver snapped, his own deformed mouth twitching up.

Their laughter dried up with the echoes of Enver’s whispered admission. The Star-King closed his eyes against his brother’s words. “Do it,” he whispered to the Voice-people.

Empathy and Loyalty exploded into light, swallowing the royal brothers from sight.

“There’s nothing you can do to help,” Del hissed in Lykus’s ear as they trotted down the steel halls after Serasta and Enver.

“I don’t want to do anything – I just want to see a good fight.”

She cursed, but didn’t stop tailing him. Lykus smiled. Del could still get Infected; she was nervous around the Voice-people. But she was even more nervous about leaving Lykus unsupervised in situations he could potentially screw up.

The brothers passed into the grand dining hall reserved for the monarch and the highest ranking noblemen of the Vangardian court. It was like stepping out of the cold, streamlined metal bowels of the ship and back into the Iron Keep. The walls were sculpted to look like cruciform piers supporting vaults that arced into a barrel-vaulted ceiling. There were no exposed pipes or metal surfaces. Instead there were floors of lustrous black marble, walls of varnished cherrywood, and tables adorned with maroon silk tablecloths. At the front, a rose window served as the room’s centrepiece, artificially backlit so the stained glass threw broken colours across the room.

The false king himself had contributed this chamber during his reign. Barking mad, the man. Vangardian taxpayers’ money had gone into carting stained glass and black marble to space for this wildly impractical display of opulence. The carved pillars in the walls couldn’t serve any purpose, since the walls had been the floor and ceiling before the ship started spinning. Indeed, Lykus had heard that Enver’s engineers had fortified the walls with metal beneath the superficial layers of wood, and hidden gears inside the walls could retract the pillars and chandeliers into compartments to protect them when the ship wasn’t spinning.

The explosion in the western wing had left its mark on the hall. Chandelier shards lay on the floor and tables like coats of crystal frost. Several tables were overturned despite having once been bolted down, broken chairs in every direction, and a slice of the rose window was missing, the white light behind spearing through the hole.

Serasta and Enver strode to two pillars flanking the royal dais where the Star-King took his meals. Following their gazes, Lykus saw Hatred crouching atop one pillar and Distrust on the other, huddled figures swathed in shadow, waiting to strike.

Enver grabbed one pillar with both hands and started shaking it to dislodge Hatred. Serasta lifted a palm toward Distrust, sending out a lash of thought-strings that rippled the air like a heat wave. She pounced from her perch, twirled over Serasta’s head, and landed softly on the marble behind him. Hatred sent the royal table behind slamming into his pillar, leaping when it groaned and tipped forward. Enver barely managed to swivel aside before the collision shook the floor, sending out spindly cracks through the marble like roots pushing through soil. Lykus squinted against the dust cloud, seeing Hatred’s shadowy form alight on his feet beside Enver.

That was the downfall of human bodies. Empathy or Loyalty – whichever one had invaded Enver – was now constrained by human eyesight. Lykus couldn’t let the fight end this quickly. How dull was that? “Enver, to your left,” he called. The king spun, ducking Hatred’s flying fist.

Distrust and Serasta were circling one another, each failing to get behind the other. Distrust shot chair pieces into the air and tossed them at the king, who easily deflected them back out. Finally she attacked, dodging beneath his defensively raised fists to jab twice at his abdomen. Serasta folded back.

“Amateur mistake, Serasta,” Lykus said, shaking his head. “Don’t leave yourself open.”

Distrust certainly minded this rule, keeping her elbows tucked to her body as she danced around him, falling into crouches when she could to conserve energy and minimize her surface area. She fought like some sort of skulking animal, static in her crouches and then lightning-fast in her strikes. After all, she did embody distrust. One quick strike and then a retreat back to a safe distance to evaluate the situation.

The problem with Distrust, though, was that she seemed to distrust herself as much as her opponent. She’d attack Serasta, then fall back long enough for him to recover. Typical Helm idiocy. Lykus stored the knowledge for later exploitation.

Lykus slipped behind one of the pillars carved out from the wall, objects whizzing past him in the air. Del had Serasta’s back. She’d taken up one of the unbolted chairs like a shield and was using it to swat the objects the king couldn’t see heading his way.

He turned to study Hatred. There was rawness to his moves – a rawness born of deep-seated pain, the kind where raging and throwing things were more important than hurting your opponent. Now that Lykus thought about it, he noticed Hatred was mostly throwing things, not necessarily even aiming them at the kings.

That rawness meant hurt. Hurt was a distraction. Hatred still fought well – all four combatants did; most Helms were trained in combat and likely produced millions of thoughts concerning battle arts – but he used rage instead of technique. Another weakness stored.

Of course, the kings had weaknesses apart from cumbersome bodies. Serasta was fierce – he must have been Loyalty – but couldn’t guard himself properly, leaving himself open to Distrust’s precise jabs. Enver was hesitant, gentle almost – Empathy.

Lykus rubbed his chin in thought. “Switch partners,” he said. Loyalty’s fierceness would balance Hatred’s rage, and Hatred’s lack of aim would keep Loyalty’s bad defences from being such a detriment. Empathy and Distrust would probably hover more than fight, but at least their skills would be matched.

They continued fighting their respective partners. Finally Distrust disengaged from an attack, dropping back into her crouch. Del grabbed Serasta’s collar and shoved him between Enver and Hatred’s wrestling match. Serasta threw Hatred back with a blow to the side of his head, giving Enver time to crawl away and intercept Distrust.

The new combination actually kept the kings from getting the shit beaten out of them. That made Lykus smile. Not because they were winning, but because he’d interpreted emotions from movements to help them win. Thank you, Hector. You’re not so weak after all.

He woke from his contemplations when Del pushed her chair into his arms. He grabbed the back, holding it legs out like she had, then lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Keep stuff from hitting them,” she said, wiping her sweaty brow, and turned to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“This isn’t working. Their bodies are too weak. They’ll never force those two all the way into the ship in the hangars. I’m going to bring the ship to them.”

She hurried from the room, clanging the double-doors shut behind her so the Voices wouldn’t escape.

Lykus doubted even someone with Del’s mental control could move that massive titanium monster she’d commandeered. He shrugged, placing the chair down behind the pillar and sitting, angling himself so he had a good view while being protected from flying objects.

Was it just him, or had the Voice-people become more...real? Their physical features were better defined now, only a vague shadowy smear to their outlines. They’d even adopted distinctive mannerisms. It felt like their identities were clearer, as Jesreal had predicted. The tighter-wound their component Voices, she’d guessed, the harder it would be for them to separate back into them. And truth was, today Lykus hadn’t once seen them erupt into light and scatter.

Serasta dodged a flying section of the pillar Hatred had knocked over. He kicked Hatred’s legs out from beneath him, but the Voice-person turned the fall into a roll, springing back to his feet. Empathy was trying to lend a gentle inflection to Enver’s lisp as he spoke of understanding and friendship. Bloody idiot. Distrust hissed at him, charging again. He barely managed to hop out of her range.

The bodies only seemed to be holding Empathy and Loyalty back. Unlike their combatants, they could be hit by the flying objects. And if they got hit, they had to worry about physical pain.

But Lykus knew they needed the bodies to physically force Hatred and Distrust into Del’s ship.

Lykus rose to his feet. He walked along the wall, evading soaring objects, until he was only a few paces behind Distrust. “You’re dying,” he said.

She spun, lashing out at him. He smiled when her arms passed harmlessly through him.

“You won’t last long without radiation, and look at you, wasting your time fighting the wrong enemies.” His eyes flicked over to where Serasta and Hatred fought. “Empathy and Loyalty are sacrificing themselves for us. Will he do the same for you? When you kill Orcadis and get the stone in the energy compartment, will he take it from you and leave you to starve?”

Distrust actually tensed, glancing at Hatred.

“He’s the most dangerous to you now,” Lykus continued as Enver rushed to help Serasta. “Join us against him. You know those other two are no threat. He’s the threat.”

She blasted Lykus away with a burst of energy and he flew back, skidding across cold marble. He grabbed a table leg as he passed it and used it to redirect his momentum, swinging back to his feet.

He landed face-to-face with Distrust, gazing into her squinty eyes and slight, tense features. “You want to trap us,” she hissed.

“Yes. Into the ship in the hangars. Programmed for Amaris, with the remaining moonstone on board. You have a shot at making it in time. But with both you and him feeding off the stone...” He shifted his gaze to Hatred again; the large shadow was being overwhelmed by both brothers.

“And the other two? The ones invading your kings?”

“Martyrs. They won’t harm us. They’ll wither away here on this ship.”

Her image flickered as she tried to read his empty smile. Lykus didn’t know whether the Voice-people could sense thoughts themselves, but it didn’t matter. He was dead serious. Let the fools who wanted to die, die. Martyrs. Fuck that. He wanted to live.

“My friend Delia is bringing the ship. Help us trap Hatred inside. We’ll extend the ship out on a cable, spit him into space, then reel it back in for you. Then we’ll send you to Amaris with the moonstone.”

Together Serasta and Enver had managed to pin Hatred down. He was bellowing, a storm of objects colliding around him.

“Why should I trust you?” she demanded.

“The catatonics have been revived. We don’t need the rock anymore. And I think we’d all agree it’s better to send you to Amaris as opposed to keeping a hungry brain-sucker within our midst.” He gave her a pleasant smile. “Don’t trust me. Trust that I, like you, want to live.”

He could see her evaluating the risks. If he was lying, then she’d be hurled out into space to die like Hatred. But his way, she had a chance at survival. If she remained here, skulking in the evacuation vessel’s corners, she’d starve for sure.

Slowly, she gave a nod.

Lykus just smiled.