“Really? Extortion is your idea of fun?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” the woman said in a dry tone. Next to her, Hlustandi opened one eye to reveal a slitted pupil and then closed it again. The tip of his tail twitched. “However it beats sitting alone in a room counting pigeons.” She gave Kira a stern look. “To be clear, I own no pigeons.”
Kira couldn’t tell if the woman was joking or serious. In an attempt to change the subject, she said, “So how did you end up here?”
The woman tilted her head, the needles in her hands clacking at a furious rate. She didn’t seem to need to look at them; her fingers flicked and twisted the yarn with hypnotic regularity, never slowing, never faltering. “How did any of us get here? Hmm? And is it even that important? One could argue that all that really matters is that we learn to deal with where we are at any given moment, not where we were.”
“I suppose.”
“Not a very satisfying answer, I know. Suffice it to say, I came to Sixty-One Cygni to meet with an old friend when the ship I was on was attacked. It’s a common enough story. Also”—and she winked at Kira—“I like to be wherever interesting things are happening. It’s a terribly bad habit of mine.”
“Ah. What’s your name, by the way? You never told me.”
“And you never told me yours,” said the woman, peering over her nose at Kira.
“Uh … Ellen. Ellen Kaminski.”
“Very nice to meet you, Ellen Kaminski. Names are powerful things; you should be careful whom you share yours with. You never know when a person might turn your name against you. In any case, you may call me Inarë. Because Inarë is who I am.”
“But it’s not your name?” said Kira, half joking.
Inarë cocked her head. “Oh, you’re a clever one, aren’t you?” She looked down at the cat and murmured, “Why are the most interesting people always found hiding behind crates? Why?”
The cat flicked his ears but didn’t answer.
2.
When it became clear Inarë was no longer interested in talking, Kira ripped open the meal pack and devoured the rather tasteless contents. With each bite, she felt more normal, more grounded.
Food finished, she took the container Vishal had given her and put in the contact lenses. Please don’t remove or disable them, she thought, trying to impress her intention on the Soft Blade. Please.
At first, Kira wasn’t sure if the xeno understood. But then a startup screen flickered to life before her eyes, and she released a sigh of relief.
Without her implants, the functionality of the contact lenses was limited, but it was enough for Kira to create a guest profile and log into the ship’s mainframe.
She pulled up a map of the binary system and checked on the locations of the Jellies. There were now ten alien ships in and around 61 Cygni. Two of the vessels had intercepted a cargo tug near Karelin—Cygni A’s second planet—and were currently grappling with it. Three more Jellies were accelerating toward the ore-processing facilities in the far asteroid belt (which would also place them within relatively close proximity of the Chelomey hab-ring), while a pair of the larger Jelly ships were busy chasing mining drones out by Cygni B, over eighty-six AU away.
The three newcomers had arrived at the far side of Cygni A (high above the orbital plane), at varying distances around the outer asteroid belt.
So far at least, none of the alien ships appeared to be an immediate threat to the Wallfish.
If she concentrated, Kira could feel the same compulsion as she had during the attack on the Extenuating Circumstances—a summons drawing her toward each of the different alien ships. It was a weak sensation, though: faint as faded regret. Which told her that the Jellies were broadcasting but not receiving. Otherwise they would have known exactly where she (and the Soft Blade) were.
A small relief, that.
But it made her wonder. First the how. No one else in the system had noticed the signal. Which meant … it was either incredibly hard to detect or it was using some sort of unfamiliar technology.
That left the why. The Jellies had no reason to think she’d survived the destruction of the Extenuating Circumstances. So why were they still broadcasting the compulsion? Was it to find another xeno like the Soft Blade? Or were they really still looking for her?
Kira shivered. There was no knowing for sure. Not unless she was willing to ask the Jellies in person, and that was one experience she’d rather forego.
She felt a small amount of guilt at ignoring the compulsion, at ignoring the duty it represented. The guilt wasn’t her own but the Soft Blade’s, and it surprised her, given the xeno’s aversion to the graspers.
“What did they do to you?” she whispered. A shimmer passed over the surface of the xeno, a shimmer and nothing more.
Satisfied that she didn’t have to worry about being blown up by the Jellies in the next few hours, Kira left the map and started to search for news about Weyland. She had to know what was happening back home.
Unfortunately, Falconi was right: few details had reached 61 Cygni before the Jellies had started their FTL jamming. There were reports from about a month ago of skirmishes in the outer part of Weyland’s system, but after that, all she could find were rumors and speculation.
They’re tough, she thought, picturing her family. They were colonists, after all. If the Jellies had showed up on Weyland … she could just imagine her parents grabbing blasters and helping to fight them. But she hoped they wouldn’t. She hoped they would be smart and keep their heads down and live.
Her next thought was of the Fidanza and what remained of the survey team. Had they made it back?
System records showed that exactly twenty-six days after departing Sigma Draconis, the SLV Fidanza had arrived at 61 Cygni. No reported damage. The Fidanza docked at Vyyborg Station some days later, and then a week after that, departed for Sol. She searched for a passenger list, but nothing public came up. Hardly a surprise.
For a moment Kira was tempted to send a message to Marie-Élise and the others, on the off chance they were still in the system. But she resisted. As soon as she logged into her accounts, the League would know where she was. Maybe they weren’t looking, but she didn’t feel ready to take that chance. Besides, what could she say to her former teammates, aside from “sorry”? Sorry wasn’t nearly enough to make up for the pain and devastation she’d caused.
She shifted her attention back to the news, determined to gain a sense of the overall situation.
It wasn’t good.
What had begun as a series of small-scale skirmishes had quickly escalated into a full-scale invasion. The reports were few and far between, but enough information had reached 61 Cygni to get a sense of what was happening throughout human space: stations burning in orbit around Stewart’s World, ships gutted near the Markov Limit at Eidolon, alien forces landing on survey and mining outposts … the litany of events was too long to keep track of.
Kira’s heart sank. If it wasn’t a coincidence that the Jellies had showed up at Adra so soon after she found the xeno, then in a way … this was her doing. Just like with Alan. Just like with—She ground the heels of her hands against her temples and shook her head. Don’t think about it. Even if she’d played a role in first contact, blaming herself for the war wouldn’t help. That way lay madness.