The Bronze Skies by Catherine Asaro
Eventually I reached the tower where I had stopped the last time I came here. I didn’t have to wait tonight; an Abaj waited by the entrance, a robed shadow like a standing stone in the dark.
“Eh,” I said, Undercity style.
“Come.” With that lengthy greeting, he turned and headed deeper into the city.
I took off with him, lengthening my step, the two of us striding beneath the vast sky. It didn’t take long to reach the edge of the city where the ruins met the mountains, a huge and jagged range taller than the peaks beyond Cries. An ancient palace stood at their base, a long building about three stories high. Nine doorways were spaced along the front, none with doors. Faded murals covered its walls and the tower at each end, their details hidden by the night. Had I drawn a line through the center of the building, its two halves would have been mirror images.
I accompanied the Abaj up nine steps that spanned the length of the building. By myself, I would never have climbed those stairs. I had an eerie sense, that if the palace hadn’t wanted me to enter, I couldn’t have walked through the doorway at the top of the stairs.
The Abaj took me inside. The darkness deepened, and I needed my IR vision to see. Benches and sculpted figures stood against the walls, and someone had swept the floor clean of sand and debris. I could almost believe spirits haunted the shadows. The sense of age saturated the air as if it had deepened with the passing of the millennia. At the back of the chamber, we went through another doorway and entered complete blackness. I couldn’t see squat. The air felt colder, but I still should have seen something in the IR. Even the Abaj at my side showed no heat signature. Interesting. This ancient building had some very modern shielding.
“Here,” the Abaj said. At least, I assumed it was him. Given that our previous conversation had consisted of two words, I couldn’t be sure.
A circle of light appeared in the floor. It wasn’t large, only a few paces across. With a hum, it slowly descended into the ground, moving down a chute where lines glowed on walls in patterns that resembled old-fashioned circuit diagrams.
“Go,” the Abaj said, his robed silhouette visible in the faint light as he indicated the lift.
Walking onto random glowing circles hadn’t been in my plans when I headed out to pursue the elusive Calaj, but what the hell. This was the most interesting part of the ruins I’d yet seen. I stepped down onto the circle, and it continued to descend in its glowing chute, as if I had entered the inner workings of an ancient, gigantic computer. I studied the designs as the wall moved past, looking for signs of a code. When I laid my palm against the surface, it slid under my skin, cool and ridged, the circuit diagrams slightly raised. The air had an astringent smell, not dry exactly, but with a machine quality. Despite all that, I couldn’t shake my odd sense that this place was alive.
The wall ended but the lift continued to descend, now within a framework of crystalline poles that refracted the light, breaking it into colors. Bronze gears turned inside the poles like a clockwork machine. It reminded me of the columns in the Lock temple. I didn’t get it. Why put gears in a device that also used electricity, optical conduits, and superconductors? We’d never learned to decipher the ancient technology of our ancestors, which depended on an eerie combination of mathematics and neuroscience. It didn’t feel as if the people then even used the same mental processes as we did now.
The poles were spaced widely enough that I could see the room below. Light filled it, bronzed rather than the blue of the Abaj command center. A divan stood to the left, carved from red stone. Gold cushions softened its surface, shimmering like silk. More of those antique circuit diagrams glowed on the walls in patterns I didn’t recognize, glyphs maybe, but they bore no resemblance to any language I knew. A circular table with two chairs stood in the center the room, all designed from the same transparent material, with gears and lights inside them. On the far wall, a similarly built counter held a tray with two glasses and a decanter of water, and even those objects containing little gears and lights. The room was beautiful in its own surreal way.
After the lift settled onto the floor, I stepped between two poles and walked to the table. When I laid my palm on its surface, it vibrated, its gears turning with the barest hum.
I looked around. “Is anyone here?”
Me, Max thought. Don’t tell anyone.
Why do you say that? I asked.
This place may have been built by your ancestors, but it looks like mine are all over the walls. I’m not sure what to think. Maybe I should be obsequious.
I smiled. You aren’t very good at that.
Across the room, the circuit diagrams moved. I froze, staring as they rearranged themselves into the outline of a tall archway. It brightened with light until I couldn’t see the wall anymore—and when it cleared, the Uzan stood there, framed in an entrance bordered by glowing blue circuit lines. He wore black trousers, boots, and one of those shirts, black with red and green embroidery. It was the first time I’d ever seen an Abaj without his robes, except for the pharaoh’s bodyguards in their black leathers.
“My greetings, Major,” he said.
So calm, as if it were perfectly natural to greet me in a clockwork room. I did my best to match his casual tone. “And mine to you.” I motioned at the room. “Do you live here?”
“Usually.” He took the tray from the counter and brought it to the table. The little gears inside the glasses and decanter turned while lights ran along them like a train of sparks.
This is too strange, Max thought.
No kidding. I had no idea how to react.
The Uzan lifted his hand, inviting me to sit. As I settled into a chair, he sat across from me, his long, long legs stretched on either side of the table. He poured water for each of us and gave me a clockwork glass filled to the brim.
“My thanks.” I drank self-consciously. It was pure, filtered water of the highest quality. On a world where drinkable water rated as a valuable rarity, he offered me honor.
I can’t get a good reading on this room, Max thought.
Maybe it’s also hiding from you.
It’s producing signals different from anything I’ve seen before.
The Uzan took a swallow of his drink and set down the glass. “So. Why have you come?”
I liked that, straight and to the point. “I think Calaj might be on her way here.”
“How do you know?”
“Instinct. Intuition.”
He didn’t raise his eyebrows, but he somehow gave the impression he had. “None of our monitors register her presence.”
How had he known? He hadn’t asked anyone, at least not that I detected.
Not that I did, either, Max thought.
The Uzan was watching me closely. “I would feel the effect of her brain waves if she were close enough.”
I strengthened my mental barriers by imagining a fortress around my mind. For an instant, I thought he winced. Damn. I hadn’t meant to cause harm, just protect myself against a telepath. He was hard to read, though. His face could have been an ancient statue carved in the mountains.
I said only, “Calaj is good at hiding.”
“Where is she coming from?”
“Cries. She left about twenty minutes ago.”
“If she is running, she will be here soon.” He looked past me, gazing at nothing. The lights in the table speeded up and glittered. “She isn’t anywhere within a kilometer of Izu Yaxlan.”
I stared at him. Yes, he might pick up her brain waves if she were within a few meters, especially with his enhanced neural systems, but from several kilometers? No way.
He lives in an ancient computer, Max thought. Maybe he’s part of it.
The Uzan returned his focus to me. “I will let you know if my information changes.”
“How did you—” I stopped when he held up his hand.
“Izu Yaxlan allows me to live here,” he said. “I would not have that change.”
That sounded like a polite versi
“We have not finished,” the Uzan said.
I sat back down. “We haven’t?”
“The new analysis of Pharaoh Dyhianna’s DNA is complete.”
I never imagined that subject would come up. I spoke carefully. “May I ask the results?”
I expected evasion, Majda style. Instead he said, “You were correct. You, Secondary Calaj, and the Ruby Pharaoh all show genetic markers that appear in the people from the deepest areas of the Undercity.”
Holy shit. He had just smashed the “unsullied” ancestry of the Ruby Dynasty. “Does the pharaoh know you’re telling me?”
“She asked me to.”
The Majdas would have a fit. “How did she know you would see me?”
“I would have found a way, had you not chosen to visit.” He met my gaze. “Now that you are here, you need to remain in the city above for one night.”
What the hell? Max thought.
I blinked at the Uzan. “You want me to stay in the ruins?”
“You ask many favors by coming here. Izu Yaxlan requires an acknowledgement of the generosity you’ve been shown. You do that by staying.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to piss off his city. “All right.”
He nodded, his demeanor lightening. In a less formal tone, he added, “It’s not so bad.”
“You’ve had to do it, too?”
“On occasion.” His look turned rueful, enough for me to read. Or maybe I was becoming more attuned to him, better able to interpret his expressions.
Knowing even he had to do time in the ruins made it easier to accept. I took a swallow of the delicious water. “It’s strange to think Calaj may descend from the same stock as the Ruby Dynasty.”
“You, Calaj, and the pharaoh all share a trait.” The Uzan tapped my wrist. “You have skin receptors for a bacteria that isn’t in our databases. We found it only because you asked us to look.” He sat back and took a swallow of his water. “You still had the bacteria on your skin when you entered the Lock, but it was disintegrating in the light. A few more moments and no trace would have remained.”
My skin tingled where he had tapped it. Odd. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I assumed these giant warriors never touched anyone. When faced with the taciturn monolith of an Abaj warrior, it was too easy to forget their human side.
His revelation about the receptors made a lot of sense, however, and felt like a safer topic. “I think the bacteria locks into the skin receptors to create bioluminescence,” I said. “You need an atmosphere saturated with the stuff, though.” Otherwise, I’d have noticed my skin glowing before now. “My ancestors probably engineered it to help them live in the dark.”
“Why would they want to live in the dark?”
Good question. “I’m not sure. Down-deepers are powerful psions. Or maybe they retreated when their technology failed during the Dark Ages. You don’t need cooling systems in the deep. And gods, it’s gorgeous down there.” Beautiful and dark. People dying in the night, inbred and starving, surrounded by exquisite swirls of luminescence.
“Majda sent bee-bots to search the deep,” he said. “They found no trace of life.”
“The people hide. It’s a small population.”
“They would die out from inbreeding.”
Bitterness edged my words. “Yes, it’s killing them. They increase their gene pool by taking lovers from people in the aqueducts.” Like one of my parents, either my mother or father.
He shook his head. “The aqueduct population is also inbred.”
“Not as much. We widen our gene pool with people in Cries.” Although I didn’t personally know anyone who admitted giving birth to a child with a Cries father, rumors filled the whisper mill: kids sneaking from Cries into the Undercity, illicit love affairs, liaisons in Jak’s casino.
“Still, Calaj is unusual.” The Uzan spoke with difficulty. “To kill the very people we are sworn to protect—as a Jagernaut and as a human being, I cannot fathom how she could do it.”
I hadn’t expected him to open up this way. “I can’t either. She doesn’t seem to have a motive.”
“I don’t see why she came to Raylicon.” He finished his water. “Her records didn’t show her Undercity heritage. Nor did she have access to the Kyle tests on the people living below the aqueducts. So she didn’t know she shared any genetic markers with them.”
“Maybe she suspected her heritage. Family legends of a long-lost ancestor, that sort of thing.”
“Possibly.” He nodded to me. “I hope you enjoy your stay in the city.” With that, he stood up, rising to his full, imposing height.
These past few moments, as we relaxed, I’d forgotten how abrupt the Abaj could be. I stood up, feeling short for one of the only times in my life. How did the pharaoh keep her equanimity around her huge bodyguards? Then again, she had other concerns, like stopping the Traders from enslaving her people.
I walked to the lift that had brought me here. As I stepped onto it, the Uzan spoke. “Major.”
I turned to him. “Yes?”
He had a strange look, as if he hadn’t meant to speak. He did, though. “The desert sands shift in unison.”
I froze.
What did that mean? Max thought.
I spoke with care, keeping my voice humble. “Only for those who deserve them.”
The Uzan nodded, his face once again impossible to read. He lifted his hand and the lift began its rise to the surface.
I slept in a deserted building among the ruins of an ancient city that had existed long before humans on Earth reached for the stars. I slept beneath a sloping roof with a crack that jagged up the wall. I slept with starlight pouring across—
Oh, fuck it. I didn’t sleep at all.
I turned back and forth all night. Two of the Uzan’s copies had left me here with nothing more than my jacket to soften the floor. I stretched out on my back and gazed at the broken roof, watching stars move past in the sky. My wrist ached. I no longer felt the intelligence I had sensed in the palace, but I had no doubt it existed within these ruins. So here I lay, proving my fidelity to a long dead city.
This is strange, I thought.
A lot of strange happened tonight, Max thought. As, for example, restless sands.
What do you mean, restless sands?
That should be my question to you. When the Uzan told you ‘The desert sands shift in unison,’ your pulse practically went through the roof.
I turned over on my stomach. Through the roof? That makes no sense.
It’s an Earth idiom. And you are evading my question.
You didn’t ask a question.
What did—
I flipped onto my back again. It’s none of your business.
Based on your increased heart rate, I surmise his comment concerned intimacy.
Let me sleep.
You’ve been trying to sleep for hours. At this point, it is unlikely our interactions will change your inability to achieve that state.
I crossed my arms. You can be really annoying, Max.
My apology. He asked you to have sex with him, didn’t he?
No, he did NOT ask me to have sex.
Max was silent.
Fine. If you could growl a thought, I was doing it. He invited me to start a relationship.
That is surprising.
Thank you so much for your faith in my ability to attract a lover.
I have no doubt about your ability to attract a mate. I meant I didn’t expect the leader of the pharaoh’s bodyguards to ask any woman such a thing.
Why? They get lonely, too.
Yes, of course. Another silence, which was a comment itself given that his mental processes worked much faster than human thought. Then he added, The Abaj were selected for their ability to survive on their own. Their women were dying out.
They
Why did you turn him down? You live close enough.
I didn’t turn him down. I told him that he honored me greatly, and I didn’t deserve him.
That is a gracious way to say no. But it is still no.
Max, stop.
It’s because of your casino man.
Go away.
Jak.
Fine. It’s because of Jak. Now will you let me sleep?
You need to come to terms with your repressed emotional—
Stop! I drew in a deep breath. I don’t want to talk about this.
It harms you.
Unbidden, a memory came to me from my eleventh birthday. Jak had taken me to a grotto I’d never seen before, a hollow where mineral-laden water had dripped from the ceiling for eons, until its deposits encrusted every surface of the cave. He led me in the darkness so I couldn’t see anything. Then he flicked on his lamp—and a wonderland sparkled into view all around us, the light reflecting and refracting in a lacework of crystalline formations. It shimmered like nothing I had ever seen, even in my imagination. In that instant, I had truly believed we stood in a place of magic.
“Happy birthday,” Jak said.
I hugged him then, unable to find words that said how much I loved that incredible present. Some emotion had moved within me that day, like a rusted, broken lock grating open despite all the damage to its mechanisms. To this day, I couldn’t say what that feeling meant, but this much I knew; I would never give up that memory even if I lost everything else in my life.
After a moment, Max thought, I didn’t mean Jak caused you harm.
I know. I couldn’t talk about it with an EI, or anyone for that matter. Max, please go away.
I can’t leave unless you disconnect your gauntlets.