The Human Experience

Nine-Quarter P, day 14, 3410.

Everywhere I go, I hear people whispering. Vangarde fears that, after three-thousand and four-hundred turns, the empire will fall. Star-King Serasta will be the anchor dragging it slowly but surely to the ocean floor. The assassination attempt left him not only mad, but impotent – the king has no heirs, nor will he ever have any. When he dies, the supposed ‘divinity’ that Neoma’s Testament claims belongs to his line will also die, and Vangarde will lose the support of the Star-Church.

In the past couple of Ts, he has lost Polenisi and the Blue Isles as political allies. The quarantine he implemented left them unable to do any trade with Vangarde. And while Vangarde can live without their sugar cane, cinnamon, fish, and bamboo, these tropical maritime lands cannot make do without the modern Vangardian defence ships they need to keep pirates at bay.

Too much Vangardian money has been invested in efforts to study and eradicate the Voices. It’s true that this epidemic needs to be stopped, but the entire globe could join the effort if only the Star-King would allow Vangardian technology to leak outside of Fort Neoma. I think Orcadis brings this up at every royal council meeting, but the Star-King’s paranoia of other countries rising to challenge Vangarde keeps him blind. He hoards Vangarde’s science, pushes away other countries that are eager to help. When an otherworldly event threatens the entire world, mankind should come together to overcome it. Not Star-King Serasta.

So I think it’s only a matter of time before a new contender makes a grab for the throne. That should be interesting, I think.

Sometimes Del swore she had the shittiest luck on the planet. She slunk into the shadows of the tapered corridor, looking out into the expanse where Star-King Serasta lay motionless on a table. A single wide-shaded lamp hung from the ceiling, casting a glowing pool over the dormant king and the imposter brother who stood at his side.

Enver. Here. Of all times, come to visit his brother.

“Okay, okay, your turn,” Enver said, holding a piece of parchment to the king’s face. “Gueth a letter.”

Silence. Water dripped in the distance, a persistent echo.

Enver gave a crazed laugh, making Del jump. She pressed herself farther against the wall. “Not fair! You alwayth gueth ‘F!’ You know I put at leatht one ‘fuck’ in all my riddelth!”

Del strained her ears, but Serasta wasn’t making any sounds. Enver was crazier than anyone knew. Here, in what he thought was the solitude of his brother’s prison, he allowed himself to show it.

“Ech! You win. A fucking vegetable, and you win every time. It’s cauth I know you’d have won in real life. Alwayth did, you thit! Won everything. I thuppoth I can’t bring mythelf to make you looth now.” Enver brought a mangled claw to his brother’s forehead and began stroking his hair with a roughness he didn’t seem to be aware of. His bulging snake-eye gazed into the distance, lost.

Cold stone bumps dug between Del’s shoulder-blades and she realized she was still flattening herself against the wall. Seeing Serasta unconscious was almost as big a blow as finding Enver here. She’d been expecting someone bound, perhaps drugged from the chaotic feel of his thoughts, but unconscious? How was she going to lug a full-grown man out of the Keep in broad daylight, and with Enver right there? Stupid, gods be damned. She should have waited for nightfall. The excitement of potentially discovering a captive king had left her mindless.

But of course Serasta was unconscious. He’d been Infected. Even the most powerful mind could last no more than a turn and a few quarters with a Voice sucking it of thoughts. The king’s mind had long been emptied, the parasite having either died or found a new host, and now his body was being artificially sustained. Yes, she could see the IVs and the feeding tube stuffed down his nose. Heartbeat, digestion, breathing and the rest of those subconscious functions he would have retained – those areas of the brain were separate from the ones that gave birth to conscious thought.

Still, could Serasta be reviving? Del felt his raging thoughts, quite distinct from Enver’s.

“Ah, brother,” Enver sighed, “I mith you. You fuck! I fucking mith you. Orry thinkth I’m crathy, but I know what I thaw. Do it again, brother. Open your eyth like you did latht week.”

Del’s breath caught. So he was reviving. And Orcadis really hadn’t realized it? He hadn’t felt the jumbled thoughts? That man was growing more absent-minded by the day.

Something scuttled by Delia’s feet. She gasped, the sound ricocheting against the stone. Del clapped her hands over her mouth as a rat’s tail whipped around a corner.

It was too late.

Enver pivoted, his faded brown travelling cloak whiplashing, the lipless mouth contorted. “Delmirath tits! Who thent you, girl? Did Orcadith thend you?”

She froze, unable to do anything but nod.

“Oh, no. No, no, no! That thon-of-a-whore promithed nobody would find out!” He limped toward her, making Del shrink back. “You. You’re that mentalitht, aren’t you? Whath Orcadith playing at? Why are you here?”

Without giving her pause to answer he tried to grab her. Del ducked away, backing up faster. The patchwork of features on the king’s face twisted, shining gruesomely in the ambient light. Again she sensed his intention, and again she swerved out of his reach just moments before his arm lashed out.

“Thtay the fuck thtill!” he bellowed, now snagging the air at random in hopes of catching her. “Your king orderth you! I’m taking you to Orcadith right now to have your damned memory wiped. Whath the meaning of thith? Who elth knoth about thith room? Who elth?”

Del caught the king’s flying wrists and struggled with him, but he was too strong. She barely managed to push him back.

Enver staggered, breathing heavily. Spittle flew from his gash-mouth as he screamed, “Where do you get thith audathity, you little bitch? I’ll thow you to–”

The crazed wavelengths preceded him. Del lunged and pulled the electric gun from Enver’s belt just as his gnarled hand reached for it. He blinked his one eye, the melted lid not able to fully come down over it, hand belatedly patting his empty holster.

She already knew there wasn’t time to straighten and aim the gun. Instead Del stuck out her foot, and when Enver charged he toppled over it, rolling to the granite, caught in his cloak.

She had to straddle him to pin him down, cranking the gun to full power and ramming the nozzle against his temple. That made him stop struggling. He lay on his belly growling like a captive animal.

“Amarith thtrike you Helm bathterth down,” he snarled. “You know how fucking dead you are? You bitch! My men will rip you apart limb from limb! How...how dare you? Unhand me, I’m your king!”

Del pushed away the dawning horror. What was the penalty for holding the Vangardian Star-King at gunpoint? Being drawn and quartered? Flayed alive, perhaps?

“Actually, you’re not my king,” she made herself say. “I need your phone.”

“Like hell you do! I’m not telling you where it ith.”

But he automatically thought about it. Del reached into his left cloak pocket and drew it out. “Call your private hangar. Tell them you need a ship flown down to the beach on level one, near the shipwreck from the Battle of Crimson Waters.”

“What, now you know about the ethcape route, too? Fucking Prier, I wathn’t even thinking about that!”

She didn’t explain that Jesreal had told her about the elevator shaft cleaving through the heart of Fort Neoma when she’d made her first escape from the Keep. “Make the call,” she said, louder, trying to sound threatening. “I’d prefer not to have to kill you.” ’I’d prefer not to have to kill you?′ Textbook. Delia, you amateur.

“I’m dead anywayth if you take Therathta!”

“I’m giving you the chance to flee. Your brother won’t be well enough to make a public appearance for quite some time. Tell Orcadis, too. I want both of you out of Vangarde within the P. Disappear. Leave the throne in the temporary custody of your oldest uncle, or whomever it would pass to.” Her voice caught in her throat, and she swallowed. “I’ll do all in my power to convince Serasta not to hunt you two down.”

For some moments Del only felt Enver’s chest heaving beneath her. She wondered if she’d undermined her own authority by sounding too merciful.

Then the mad prince burst into tears.

She choked. Not tears. Anything but tears. Where was his anger, his stupid groundless threats? “Don’t do that!” she demanded. Well, more like begged. “This is your damned fault. Face it like a man. Cooperate and I’ll do all I can to spare you.” There. Better. More firm.

It took some minutes for Enver to calm down and make the call coherently. Del warned him against calling for help; anyone who traced him here would also trace Serasta.

“W-Where are you t-taking h-him?” the prince hiccoughed when it was over. “How will you feed him? He’ll die, and then we’re all doomed! Apocalpyth – apocalypth will come, you thtupid wench!”

Del cranked the gun’s intensity back down to stun before pulling the trigger. Enver’s body jolted with the current of electricity and he went limp. The goggling eye still goggled, angled up to her face. She shivered as she climbed off his back.

Serasta’s pale face glowed under the lamplight as Del approached. His peaceful expression was frozen in place, and yet...there was almost a slight furrowing of his brows, like he was concentrating, struggling to regain consciousness. She detached the IVs and the feeding tube with the dexterity her mentalist training had taught her. Enver’s final words came hauntingly back as she worked.

What if he does starve to death before he wakes? And there were other needs to consider. She tried not to think of having to wipe the king’s ass as she hauled him up under the armpits and dragged him from the table.

His legs slapped to the ground and Del staggered beneath his weight, hitting the wall. She dragged Serasta back through the corridor, out of the portal covered by the oil-painting of anthurium flowers, and into the wheelchair she’d had Belred fetch for her. Of course, it had been hard to get rid of Belred after she’d spun that story about the snake-bite leaving her legs weak and unreliable. He’d gone to fetch the toxicologists despite her protests. It wouldn’t be long now before they returned to find her room deserted.

Rummaging through the hangers in Orcadis’s closet, Del found a nondescript cloak among many simple cotton tunics and plain trousers. Good thing Orcadis hated fancy garb. It was his farm boy’s blood. He never wore anything he’d be sorry to get dirty, because he insisted on doing the jobs other leaders sent subordinates to handle. Once a toilet on the sixth floor had sprung a leak, flooding the entire bathroom. Orcadis had been there, wrench in hand, as soon as he’d been informed.

Del started, realizing she’d been running her fingers down the cloak absently. She ripped it from the hanger and wrapped Serasta’s slouched form in it, then drew the hood over his head. A lump moved in her throat. Am I killing him? she wondered, crouching to place Serasta’s bare feet on the chair’s footrests. She looked into the regal face, thin and black-bearded, trying to gauge him. Would the Star-King forgive? Or would he hound down his brother and his old friend, bring them to their knees?

Would he forgive?

She hadn’t. For seven turns she had lived with revenge in her heart, and for reasons that looked dwarfed and stunted compared to Serasta’s. Suddenly Delia felt petty. She hoped Serasta was a better person than she’d been.

Sighing, Del finished wrapping the cloak so that it completely covered his white medical gown. She took The Hyacinth: Growth, Climate, and Care, from one of Orcadis’s bookshelves, opened it on Serasta’s lap, and arranged his hands around it. Maybe that would make his downward-lolling head more excusable.

The emergency evacuation was down the hall. Orcadis had established his personal quarters near it on purpose. Now Del thanked the Quintet she wouldn’t have to parade halfway across the Keep with an unconscious king in a wheelchair.

After pressing her ear against the door to make sure the corridor beyond was empty, Del slipped out, rolling the wheelchair ahead of her.

The elevator was, of course, locked. Orcadis’s iris scan made quick work of that, and soon they were clattering into the vault’s echoing depths, the darkness growing denser and the spot of light from where they’d entered extinguishing above their heads.

It felt like hours before the elevator clanged to a halt, making Del’s anxious breaths bounce around the damp metal walls in the silence. Seconds later it started again, this time pushing forward, out to the edge of level one. Finally, the rusted doors groaned open.

Sunlight flooded Del’s eyes, blinding her after the blackness of the descent through Fort Neoma. A warm sea-breeze blew her hair off her shoulders and she could hear the rush of the ocean ahead. She blinked through her tears, trying to make out the white outlines.

A rocky beach took shape. Two wall-like boulders rose on either side of the elevator, masking it from unwelcome eyes. Farther down the beach, its hull impaled on a cluster of jagged rocks, was the wreckage of the Akkútian warship, the Sadurra. Brought to the beach to serve as a monument from the first and only attack on Fort Neoma, the Sadurra – or, the Liberator, in Vangardian – was now a rotted skeleton of the great galley that had led its fleet against the Star-King. Driftwood – no doubt deliberately placed for added effect – lay scattered on the boulders, and the great bronze figurehead of the war-goddess Jhev was corroded, blue from centuries of wind and salt.

Next to the broken vessel, having landed on a flat section of beach, was the royal aircraft Enver had summoned for her. The pilot leaned against the craft’s side. When he heard the doors rumbling shut in the rock face behind Del and Serasta, concealing the elevator, his head perked up.

Del struggled to wheel Serasta over the jagged terrain. She gave up when the king sagged in his seat, focusing instead on holding him upright.

The pilot squinted in confusion at her. “You there! Give me a hand,” she called, hoping her Helm robes would lend her some authority.

“Where is His Grace? Who’s this man?” the pilot demanded, rushing forward to help her prop Serasta up again. He got his answer quickly enough. A gust of wind blew the hood from the king’s head. The young pilot gawked between Del and the infamous face of their old king. His spastic wavelengths reeked of confusion and terror, and without thinking he reached –

Del whipped out Enver’s electric gun and sent its blue energy-waves lashing toward the man. He crumpled on the rocks, one leg still twitching. “Goddamnit,” she sighed, pocketing the gun again. “What is it with people shooting first and asking questions later?”

After staring for a while at the imperial craft, biting her lip, she called Jesreal.

“Delia, I told you you can’t call me here! The Infected don’t take kindly to those of us who speak to outsid–”

“Quick question,” Del interrupted. She turned the screen to the beached vehicle. “You know how to pilot one of these things?”

A day came and passed. Then two. A week. Hector left no stone unturned, but on the tenth evening he lost hope. Wherever Kaed was, wherever he’d been taken, it wasn’t in Rakkhat.

After packing their bags, Hector and the Infected climbed a dune on the city’s outskirts to get one last three-sixty-degree vantage of the surrounding landscape. Ahead to the east, the Golden Flat sizzled beneath the dying rays like a golden pie-crust fresh from the oven. Behind, pinpricks of torchlight shone out through windows. Even the shale and mud-brick hovels of the slums pulsed with children’s laughter.

Hector squinted into the east, shading his eyes against the current of sand carried on the wind. He’d wrapped his cotton scarf around his nose and mouth, so his voice was muffled as he said, “I understand. You have to go.”

“There’s nothing we can do, Hector,” Zorion said, a pleading edge to his voice. “We’re already cutting it close. If we don’t start for the Basin tonight, we won’t make it before the Alignment.”

Hector peered up into the shifting clouds. Amaris was gone, hidden behind Delmira’s cool, creamy-blue face. The bunching clouds broke her pale shafts of moonlight, leaving only wavering patches upon the desert floor. “You’ve already done enough. It’s alright, go.”

“I called the other Infected spread through Rakkhat and told them to be on the lookout for him. Fintan, Cass and Leina have whole teams out searching. Surely someone will–”

Hector turned and clasped Zorion’s shoulder. “I know, my friend. Thank you. Please, go forth with a peaceful heart. You did everything you could.” He gathered the tall, lithe elder into a hug. “Goodbye.”

Zorion inhaled sharply at the last word, pulling away to gape at Hector with eyes wide like moons in his dark face. “No, my boy, no! You’ll go catatonic if you stay! You’re coming with us. I won’t have it any other way!”

“I can’t. Not without Kaed.”

“And what exactly is your duty to this boy?” Syfer demanded.

Hector shook his head. “He doesn’t have anyone else. I haven’t really been nice to him in the past, but I suppose we’re kindred spirits. I won’t leave him.”

“He’s already done for. Save yourself. There’s no point dying alongside him.”

“Goodbye, Syfer.” Hector extended his hand.

Syfer gripped it. He pulled Hector closer, leaning down on his camel to say in an undertone, “You’re a good man, Hector. That also makes you a stupid man, but I admire you nonetheless. I pray to the Quintet you and the boy reach the Basin in time.”

Silent tears streaked Zorion’s face, making the flying sand stick to his cheeks. He shook his head, his grip on Hector’s elbow firm. “I w-won’t have it. Come with us, Hector, please. I’m not going without y-you.”

Hector stepped back, overwhelmed. They were calling him good, crying for him, refusing to abandon him. Him. Piece-of-shit, murdering, traitorous him. Was this friendship? Who in their right mind would give this up so they could be selfish again? Lykus could never know this.

He strapped a few daggers to his belt from the saddlebags, not looking at either man, then lifted his satchel from the camel’s back and swung it over one shoulder. “Travel safely. I hope you’re right and the Liberator knows what he’s doing.”

“H-Hector,” Zorion wheezed, tear-moistened lips trembling. “D-Don’t. I won’t go.”

Hector scooped Zorion up like a sack of potatoes and handed him to Syfer. Understanding, the young lord pulled him onto the camel despite his protests. Inclining his head grimly at Hector, he snapped the reins and the camel pushed forward through the wind. Zorion’s wheezing sobs carried until the camel’s dark form disappeared down the other side of the dune.

What felt like hours later, Hector settled beneath a large, multi-limbed cactus with finger-thick spines. He wondered what he’d tell Orcadis. Hello, Orcadis. The Infected? I let them go. Oh, Kaed? Yeah, I lost him. He wondered what Orcadis would do to him. He wondered if he should run.

Then he stopped wondering. This wasn’t about him. It was about a boy he’d kidnapped, disregarded, and then left to die. Hector wouldn’t run this time. This time, he’d care about someone else.

Apocalypse or not, he’d find Kaed.

Del sat rigid and straight-backed in the pilot’s seat, her senses alert even though the craft had been safely airborne for over an hour. Every jolt of turbulence and wisp of cloud she passed through made her jump.

“Okay, what was that?” she demanded, as the hilly terrain below tilted to one side.

“The ship is adjusting its course,” Jesreal said – Del had propped her phone up on the console. “It may’ve sensed a storm up ahead. Well, there are a number of ways to get to the coordinates I had you enter into the console. As long as you keep the ship at the altitude I told you, you shouldn’t have issues with being spotted, either. You’ll even pass over the highest peaks of the Inaultis mountain region without problems.”

Del shifted uncomfortably. As part of her Helm training she’d had a few flying lessons, even piloted some smaller vessels with minimal supervision, but nothing this extensive. Traversing half the planet at staggering heights wasn’t quite like practising a few turns over the waters of Port Crimson.

Jesreal had given her step-by-step instructions for liftoff, even told her how to disable the ship’s locating device. Now it was cruising on auto-pilot. She’d have to land it manually, of course, but in the rocky sea of the Golden Flat, she’d have lots of space in which to fuck up.

Misty tentacles writhed over the windows, again making Del uneasy. She rose from the pilot’s seat, tired of looking helplessly out into the haze, and checked on Serasta. He looked ridiculous strapped into the co-pilot’s chair, but there wasn’t anywhere more secure to put him. Del had reclined the chair as far back as it would go. Still, the king sagged sideways, and for all her inventive methods of propping him up, she doubted he’d escape the landing without a bump and a bruise.

“You sure you have everything you need to take care of him?”

Jesreal gave a careworn smile. “I spent the last many turns stocking the Radiant Thinkers’ base with food and supplies. The things I’m missing others will get for me. By the time your ship lands, I’ll have all the provisions I need for him.”

“But...you’re not going to tell anyone about him, are you?”

“Delia, how many people even know what King Serasta looks like? The Infected came from all over the planet – Little Vangarde, Polenisi, the former Akkútian dependencies. Most of them have never even seen Fort Neoma, much less the king himself. I don’t need to tell anyone who he is. Telling them he’s someone I care about will be enough.”

“You’re that important to them?” Del asked.

The chirurgeon gave a modest half-shrug. “I give them something indispensable.”

“That spacecraft you’re building?”

“Hope.”

Del didn’t pry. Jesreal still wouldn’t reveal the location of the Radiant Thinkers’ headquarters, though she’d given nearby coordinates somewhere in the Golden Flat, where she’d promised to meet Del with a wagon to transport the king. She’d also warned that Del’s phone would have to be confiscated upon her arrival. Worse, Del wouldn’t be able to leave the base before the Alignment. The Infected were certainly living up to their reputation of being a secretive bunch.

Obviously, seeing as Orcadis wants to blow them up and all.

Below, jagged snow-capped peaks punctured the clouds, floating in a sea of mist. She guessed they’d reached the Inaultis mountain ranges. It was all rather annoying. What had taken over three quarters on horseback took but a few hours in Enver’s jet. To think she could have been spared the trek with tedious Belred.

“Will I get Infected, then?” she said, staring at the mists pressing against the windowpanes.

She heard Jesreal chuckle. “Trust me, you won’t.”

“But you’re shipping me off into the heart of Infected territory. King Serasta could get Infected, too.”

“Delia, I promise you that won’t happen.”

Fine. Be cryptic. “Is...is Hector there? At the base?”

Jesreal paused. “No.”

Del retook her seat and leaned back, crestfallen. She tried not to think about Hector and the Infected as the hours melted away, the terrain flattening to grassland. Only when the electronic reminder sounded did she realize she’d dozed off.

“Attention: approaching destination in ten minutes.”

Del jerked awake, rubbing her neck – she’d slept at an awkward angle. The panic quickly rose when she saw the cracked, red earth on all sides of the vehicle. It was landing time.

She jumped from her seat. After tightening Serasta’s buckles and getting Jesreal back on the phone, she strapped herself in to override the ship’s automated piloting system. Her hands were sweaty on the yoke, but she kept calm as she pulled it toward her and the ship did a nosedive.

“Not so steep,” Jesreal warned. “Even it out or you’ll land miles before the mark.”

Del nodded, swallowing the knot in her throat. From the corner of her eye she could see the altimeter’s reading dropping quickly. She slowed to the speed Jesreal indicated – the speed that should have her landing in the right place.

The horizon tilted again, red desert swallowing her windshield. That was when she saw it: a bowl-shaped labyrinth of ridges and caves, the size of a small city. It was like a gigantic ice-cream scooper had left the crater smack in the middle of the desert. The raised rim probably shielded it from wind and heat, and rainwater would doubtless collect in its numerous caves. It was the perfect place to hide a large number of people.

To hide the Infected.

“Delia, I said slow down!” Jesreal yelled, snapping Del from her thoughts. She concentrated, sweat beading her forehead as the ground rose.

“Can I pull up now?” she asked. Individual landscape features were gaining three-dimensionality, rocky ledges and clefts that grew prominent against the uniform red sea. What if she crashed in one of those clefts? What if her ship skidded into a mound of rocks? “Jesreal, I want to pull up!”

“Not yet,” Jesreal said firmly. “I can see you, but you’re not close enough.”

Del tempered her anxiety, doing as Jesreal said. When the chirurgeon gave the word Del pulled the nose up, the resistance pressure making the ship judder. She flipped the switches Jesreal told her to flip, making the craft bob above a flatter portion of land, and tried to set the cumbersome thing down...

Del cried out as the ship lurched and her seat straps cut into her neck. She threw out an arm to keep Serasta in place. The juddering rattled her brain and she just screwed her eyes shut, trying to hold the yoke straight. The ship scraped to a halt, its metal exterior screeching against rock.

Del’s sharp breaths drummed in her ears. She opened her eyes to find everything spinning.

“Not bad,” came Jesreal’s voice from the phone that now lay on the floor, at the opposite end of the ship. “It’ll still take me a half hour to reach you, though.”

By the time Jesreal and her two helpers reached the crash-site, Del had settled Serasta back into his wheelchair and checked his breathing a dozen times to make sure her shitty piloting hadn’t killed him. Jesreal, clad in worn slacks and a vest over her shirt, appeared in the open doorway. Her eyes lingered on Serasta, but she strode over to Del and clasped her shoulder. “I knew you’d make a bad Helm the moment I laid eyes on you. You and I have scientific minds, Delia. We don’t take anything on blind faith. We question everything – even the people we love.”

Classic mad scientist Jesreal. The woman still spoke as if everyone else could get inside her brilliant head. And, well, Del could, but...damn it, she was still shaking from the landing! She gave a strained smile, swatting away the wavelengths. She was just too tired to Pry.

Jesreal’s helpers wheeled Serasta from the ship and lifted him into the back of a donkey-drawn cart. Del couldn’t help remembering transporting Lykus the same way that long-ago night...

“Come,” the chirurgeon said, escorting her down the ramp. “I’ll return before dawn to park the ship in a more secure location. For now, the king needs to reach the base straightaway.”

They climbed onto the driver’s bench. Jesreal turned to her, grimacing. “Sorry, but...your phone?”

“Oh. Right.” Del searched in the folds of her robes, finally drawing it from a side-pocket and handing it to Jesreal. As if I have anyone to call, anyways.

The cart wobbled through the desert as twilight gave way to dusk. Delmira shone like a beacon, her daughter Amaris the Conspirator already hidden behind her. Pastel-blue moonlight gave the desert’s rocks a purplish hue, and though the temperature dropped steadily, the ground still sizzled with the day’s heat.

Del looked at Jesreal when a sniffle drew her attention. The chirurgeon’s cheeks glistened wet, though she looked stoically at the road twisting through the boulders. Del went stiff. The usual choking sensation overcame her.

Stars above, what is it with everyone and crying today?

“Jesreal?” she forced herself to ask. “Is something wrong?”

Her old mentor blinked, wiping her tears with her sleeve like she’d only just realized they had fallen. “I’m sorry. I just...I knew him personally. He was a good friend. We used to talk all the time about how we could reel Orcadis in from the brink of madness. Serasta was the only one who believed me when I said Orcadis’s practices came with grave repercussions.”

Del glanced over her shoulder at the dormant king. “What...what kind of man was – uh, is – he?”

“A good man. Lighthearted and kind, and a loyal friend.”

A loyal friend. That’s good. Hold onto that. “Is he vengeful?”

“He’s just.”

“But does he forgive?”

Jesreal gave her a curious look. “Serasta the man does. Serasta the king simply cannot.”

It was a punch to the gut. Del looked straight ahead, slowly releasing a painful breath. She’d been a fool to expect anything else. A man might forgive a friend’s betrayal, but how could a king forgive a subject’s treason? It went beyond the personal. Enver and Orcadis had betrayed a whole empire.

“I wonder if we can speed the king’s recovery,” Jesreal murmured to herself.

Del felt a chill. “S-Speed?” Had she given Orcadis enough time to flee?

“Perhaps. His revival already goes past what I thought possible. I just can’t understand how Serasta is starting to generate thoughts again. It can’t be natural – his brain shouldn’t be able to start producing radiation again, not after the Voices stripped it. Unless...” Realization dawned on Jesreal’s face. “Unless Orcadis administered the radiation directly to his brain.”

“What do you mean?” Del asked.

“The thought-energy detector! It gives the Helms their powers by feeding huge quantities of radiation into the brain. The regular human brain produces small amounts of this radiation to let us think – to give us self-consciousness. In Helms, extra radiation is pumped into the brain to amplify that ability, making one able to sense others’ thinking patterns. It makes thoughts visible to the senses, like special glasses that let us see ultraviolet light. What if Orcadis used the detector to pump radiation to Serasta’s depleted brain? In the right dosage, it would restore his ability to think. Overdone, it would turn him into an Iron Helm.”

“So when the king wakes up he may be able to read thoughts?”

“I don’t think Orcadis was that careless,” Jesreal said. “But I do believe he used the detector on our Star-King. Maybe if it’s stimulated with a jolt of radiation, the depleted brain can start producing the normal amount again.

“In this case,” Jesreal continued triumphantly, “our friend Serasta should have no problem reviving quickly. Do you know where we’re going, Delia?”

She nodded. “Amaris’s Basin – Lady’s Fist. There’s nowhere else out here where the Radiant Thinkers could hide a base.”

“The Basin gives off the most radiation of any place on earth. Thousands of times more than the grottos in Van-Doth or the rock formations in Inaultis. In fact, if someone lived at the Basin long enough, they could become a Helm. It would take turns, mind you, but it could happen.”

Del shook her head to clear it. “But I thought many of the Infected have been at the Thinkers’ base for turns. They’re Helms now?”

“The Basin’s radiation lets their Voices feed freely and keeps their minds from being further drained. Prolonged exposure to the Basin has restored some of the earliest Exodus-goers to their previous functioning. More is possible, I’m sure, but nobody has stayed long enough to develop the ability to detect others’ thoughts.”

Del mulled that over. “The grottos, the rock formations, and various spots in Akkút – including the Basin. I don’t understand. What’s the connection between them? Why is the silver stone so widely scattered?”

The cart jerked over bumps and fissures in the rock, squeezing between two walls of layered red-and-orange sandstone. Ahead, the land opened up into a potholed mess, cracks leading to a massive ridge on the horizon. Still, Jesreal navigated her way surely as she responded. “Amaris. When the Amaris asteroid crashed tens of thousands of turns ago, it landed here at Lady’s Fist. A smaller piece, scientists believe, broke off in the atmosphere and crashed in the Dothian Sea – near the grottos. Generations ago, the Inaulti queen was challenged by lords who said a woman couldn’t be allowed to rule. She likened herself to the ruling goddess Amaris, even imported hundreds of caravans of stone from Amaris’s Basin every T-turn. She erected a stone javelin in the Inaulti Valley for every one of those lords she killed – the final count is one-hundred and twenty, I think. As for Akkút, the stone is taken from the Basin and used by the Akkh, since it’s prized for its aesthetic beauty. Things like parliament, the palace, and famous statues are made with the stone.”

“So everywhere on earth, the stone originally came from the Amaris asteroid.”

“Exactly. Last Alignment, an asteroid hit the Amaris moon, breaking off a chunk and sending it hurtling to earth. So, by extension, the special stone comes from the moon itself. The radiation that is responsible for human sentience is from Amaris.”

It was strangely...fitting. Scripture said Amaris’s daughter Neoma inherited the universe after her mother’s passing. Neoma, goddess of identity, breathed individuality into every living organism after hearing the tale of her uncle’s struggle to gain autonomy from his brother. In a way, it was Amaris’s daughter who’d brought the seeds of sentience to the planet...

Delia had never been one for religion. Now, however, she found herself shrinking beneath Delmira’s rays.

“It’s no solution, though,” Del said. “I mean taking the Infected to the Basin. It’ll keep them alive, but people won’t stop getting Infected. What are you going to do, pack the whole planet there? And when the Voices suck it of radiation? What then?”

Jesreal’s eyelids drooped. Del realized just how exhausted she looked, and understood that she’d slaved over the same questions for turns. The chirurgeon sighed. “I can’t think of anything that won’t end in mass death, be it Voice or human or both. Only one thing is for certain: if I can’t take the Infected to Amaris, I’ll simply have to bring Amaris down to them.”