Messiah (38 page)

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Authors: S. Andrew Swann

BOOK: Messiah
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The starscape blurred, and Toni squeezed her shoulders and whispered, “Not everything.”
Toni II realized that she was blushing as well as crying. “We always enjoyed the view from space, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“I’d forgotten it. Nearly a year orbiting that damned wormhole.”
“The damned loneliness.” Toni’s arms lowered, to embrace her from behind. Her chin rested on her shoulder, looking out at the stars with her. “We’re not alone.”
“But—”
“You asked why I keep saying ‘them’ when I mention Proteus.”
The question on Toni II’s lips had been,
but you’re no longer human.
Of course, Toni would know that.
“Yes.”
“Proteus can no longer contain its own. It governed by consensus for centuries. Consensus by a small elite, self-selected group that infinitely propagated itself—but this past battle they not only took me, but thousands of others, all recently human. Proteus is changing in spite of itself.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” The way she held her, chin on her shoulder, Toni II felt Toni’s cheek against her own, felt the warmth of her breath against the side of her face. Whatever she had done, whatever bargains she had made, Toni still felt human. “I don’t know what any of this means. I think anyone who does is lying to themselves.”
“Why . . .” Toni II trailed off, unable to finish the question.
Toni’s response was to turn and lightly kiss the side of her neck, below her ear. Even though she had expected the response to her barely spoken question, the light touch of her other self’s lips on her skin send a ripple of fire down the whole length of her body.
She swallowed a painful doubt and whispered, “I don’t know if I can join you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“But what you’ve become?”
Toni turned her around to face her. She reached up and gently wiped a tear off of Toni II’s cheek. “I won’t leave you. Leave us.”
She stared into Toni’s face for several long moments. Her skin was bluish silver in the light reflected from Bakunin’s ocean. She had never been particularly vain, but somehow, seeing her face on another person—on Toni—made it beautiful.
Toni’s expression seemed to collapse into a vulnerable sadness that made Toni II’s heart ache for her. She began to say, “I never wanted to—”
She grabbed Toni’s shoulders and pulled her into a sudden, impulsive kiss. Toni stiffened a bit in surprise, and then fell into the embrace as if it had been her idea. Which it had been.
They kissed each other, holding on as if they could become one person again; every touch incredibly alien, and incredibly familiar; the motion of each tongue mirroring the other. With their tongues’ mutual caress, Toni II felt aches awaken in her body that she hadn’t known existed.
They pulled away from each other at the same moment, and Toni II saw her own bemused expression staring back at her.
They both said, simultaneously, “I know this is weird, but...”
The words trailed off as they both realized that, for all that had happened since Toni II had popped out of Wormhole Sigma Draconis III, they were still enough the same that their thoughts still echoed each other. Echoed each other enough that they moved in silence as the sphere-ship’s motion caused Bakunin’s orb to set behind Toni’s left shoulder.
They removed each other’s clothes, allowing the brief touches of hand to skin to send warm shudders through the other. They both slowed as the excitement built, until their motion had a near ritualistic gravity. When they stood to face each other’s nakedness, they both quietly said, “I love . . .”
Again the simultaneous statement trailed off, this time more in a mutual embarrassment for the narcissism of the words. They both reached for the other’s face, thumbs tracing lower lips, and they both responded by kissing the other’s hand, taking the thumb into their mouth. Both closed their eyes and shuddered at the contact of tongue on skin.
Then they embraced, pressing the whole length of their naked bodies together, kissing each other again. When the kiss broke, Toni II allowed herself to realize that she held a naked woman in her arms. Some part of herself that still lived on Styx prompted her to quietly say, “When did we become gay?”
“You know,” Toni said, “since Proteus touched me, I don’t have to be—”
Toni II placed a finger on Toni’s lips, quieting her. She shook her head, smiling and wondering at the fact that, for the moment, she was taking the lead. “I know you could be anyone now.”
Anything.
“You could be a man if that’s what we wanted.” She caressed Toni’s face. “But this is still
you
, isn’t it?”
Toni nodded slightly, and Toni II felt her breath hot on the skin between her thumb and forefinger.
“
That’s
what we want,” she told her.
Tentatively, awkwardly, surrounded by stars, they made love to each other as if it was the first time for both of them.
Much later, Toni II lay on her back staring up at the universe with Toni curled up on top of her.
I need to stop thinking of her as my sister ... things are weird enough already.
“What now?” she asked herself.
Herself lifted her head up from between her breasts and looked down on her, “Whatever it is, it’s together.”
“You make it sound easy.”
Her other self placed her head back down on her chest and said, “If it was easy, this would have happened
before
we both nearly died.”
“I guess so.” Toni II bit her lip. “What about Proteus?”
“What about them?”
“Will I have to . . .”
“Only if you ask for it.”
“What if I can’t?”
“I won’t let that come between us. I won’t let anything do that.”
Toni II stared up at the stars. “Just us against the universe ?”
“Just us,” Toni said.
The return to the
Wisconsin
was an unwelcome return to reality, or what was masquerading as reality nowadays. If she could have, she would have prolonged their orbit around Schwitzguebel, if not forever, at least a bit longer than they did. But she couldn’t abandon everyone, especially since she bore some responsibility for Stefan and what he had done. She knew, without discussing it, that her Protean self felt the same. They felt a duty here almost as strong as they felt toward each other. And, as inconvenient as that was, without that part of themselves, they probably wouldn’t feel nearly as deeply for each other.
Whatever happens now, though, we have that.
They walked out of the air lock, and Mallory was waiting for them. Toni II felt Toni’s hand brush hers and wondered what the priest would make of their relationship.
“Captain,” Mallory said to Toni. He turned to her and said, “Lieutenant.” His eyes were still shadowed from the bruising vacuum, and Toni II figured that was how he was telling them apart. There was a distant, almost fatalistic look in his eyes, and just as she recognized it, Toni squeezed her hand.
“What is it?” Captain Toni asked him.
“You were concerned for our mission to the surface.”
Toni II thought of the people that were probably lost now, Parvi, Kugara, Flynn, Nickolai, Dörner, Brody—people she barely knew ... but, even so, she asked, “You have news about them?”
“About what they face.”
“What?” both Tonis asked in unison.
“The obstacles in their path are more recent than the Dolbrians. Whatever the Protean on Salmagundi wanted us to find, it is sealed behind a barrier erected by the Proteans themselves.”
Toni II turned to Toni and said, “That means that they can remove it, right?”
She felt Toni’s grip tighten on her hand, and her voice was cold when she spoke, “Why didn’t Proteus tell me this?”
Toni II opened her mouth, but then it sank in. Her other self had accepted Proteus’ bargain, and she hadn’t stopped to think of what it would take to make her agree to it, to allow an alien machine to burrow into her, take her apart and reassemble her, to know her more intimately than she could possibly know herself. To embrace something that, for all her life, she’d been taught was an evil. Maybe
the
evil.
To face that, accept that, and discover that what had embraced her had betrayed her.
Toni II felt the anger, and read it across her own face.
She squeezed her hand back, a silent acknowledgment that Toni still had her.
Mallory had been explaining the logic of why they hadn’t heard this from the Proteans, but it didn’t really matter. What mattered was what he said next:
“I need a pilot.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Cathedral
“Before you search for something, make sure you understand what is before your eyes.”
—
The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
 
“I think it better that in times like these a poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.”
—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
(1865-1939)
Date: 2526.8.13 (Standard) Bakunin-BD+50°1725
It took General Lubikov several hours to secure his position in control of the monastery. Kugara thought the delay had more to do with a pathological thoroughness on Lubikov’s part than it did with any effective resistance. All the prisoners remained in the amphitheater, with oversized suits of powered armor playing baby-sitter over them.
It at least gave them some time to rest.
An hour or so into the waiting, Dörner whispered to her, “What are we going to do?”
She sighed and said, “Get some sleep. We have no idea when will be the next time we’re going to get some rest.”
“But aren’t you planning an escape?”
Kugara shook her head.
“But—”
“Rest,” Kugara said, and the blonde xenoarchaeologist shut up.
She didn’t blame Dörner, much. The woman was an academic and probably didn’t see any difference between their situation now and all the other crazy risks they’d taken so far. But it
was
different. They were held by trained military, rested, undistracted, and vastly overequipped for the job. They were in a confined space with a finite number of escape routes, also covered by their opposition. Lubikov’s men were aware of their captives’ history, and were expecting something.
Most importantly, Lubikov showed every intention of taking them where they were planning on going anyway.
Still, it didn’t make it easy, doing nothing.
Nickolai sat on the ground and leaned up against one of the stone benches. His eyes were closed and occasionally he’d grumble a feline snore. She slid down to sit next to him, leaning her head against his massive chest. He grumbled again, and his arm shifted to reach around her, pulling her to him. Even half-conscious, his hug was bruisingly strong, and would have been a struggle to escape, had she wanted to.
She ran her fingers along the fur on his chest, tracing where his stripes faded to white. It reminded her that there was a reason she was doing this. In the personal and moral vacuum she had been in since Mosasa hired her, she could have seen herself giving in to Adam’s bargain. Her independence aside, what would she have been giving up, really?
With Nickolai, she knew what she’d lose. For all that she seethed at his self-flagellation, his angst, his superior attitude—she knew that deep down she found him admirable. For all the physical prowess engineered into him, his real strength was a commitment to what he thought was right. She had lived a long time in a world where expediency and power ruled the day; she had accepted that ethics and morals were simply obstacles to overcome. What was right began and ended with what worked.

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