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The voidmoths might have begun sharing their language, and Cheris was having enough trouble figuring this out without also having forgotten the function of zero.
A harnessing technician lead her along a gantry. Their boots clicked on metal. Outside, the bright edges of mostly-transparent force shields flared around the fungal shapes of the mothyard. Silver stars speckled black space behind them, all of it wrapped in a silver-blue fog like morning condensation on a window. Security had been tight, but she had nothing to hide. It wasn't even a political job she had come to do. If anything, it might be called a social call, although who she was supposed to be socializing with had been unclear (or oddly riddled with implications) in the invitation.
She had checked in as Ajewen Cheris. It felt a fraction more honest than Dzannis Paral, her alias. Dzannis had been a fine name for the green hills of the Mwennin colony. It was a fine name for children to call as they raised their hands to ask or answer a question in her classroom. It didn't feel like hers, though. Perhaps it was too singular. Ajewen Cheris at least felt fractured enough to be accurate. She was comfortable, but she would always be known, to herself and to others, as the host of the murderous ghost. She’d been lying to her own people with her singular name for months, hadn’t she?
Well, every truth was yoked to a lie somewhere down the chain. Coming to a mothyard following a half-understood suggestion was no different.
Working mothdrives had become disgustingly rare after the crumbling of the Hexarcate, which meant that the moth Cheris rode here probably had Mikodez’s fingerprints on it somewhere. To Cheris’ great relief, it had been Neshte Khiruev who had actually arranged the trip and made a flimsy bureaucratic reason to put it on record as an expense paid for by the military. Cheris would have felt more guilty about coming to see the moths as … a whim? A mental stretch, to limber up her cramped memories? A gesture of benevolence from whatever the Kel were going to become?
She held the thought of Khiruev close as she followed the tech. If Khiruev had been here, she would have wanted Cheris to hold her head high.
In fact, she would, and had, expressed that what she wanted was for Cheris-Jedao to give her professional opinion of whether the moths were talking to one another or not. Considering that neither of her eventful lives had included formal training in languages, Cheris wondered whether this was a roundabout way to say that she should think about something other than teaching schoolchildren for a while. Her work in the Mwennin colony was rewarding but left her feeling restless. The feelings that had lead her to leave her family in the first place returned, mingled with her love for her parents and the terror of the near-extermination. Conversely, sometimes she felt cold in regards to all of those things, cold in a way that flashed like a warning sign. She was not supposed to be numb, even if she had a dead general’s ghost pinned to her brain matter.
Being Jedao had, if anything, made her feel more.
With that came some difficult decisions. She wanted either to help the Mwennin or to help what was left of the hexarcate, and it seemed impossible to do both at the same time. If she could split herself into two, one to help Mwennin children learn that they could make a difference in the new world and one to work her gradual way back into whatever Mikodez was planning, she would do it. Some nights she had lain awake in her dorm room, wondering whether she was wasting her time or finding her (new) self in the colony. She had felt at home there, surrounded by the smells and tastes of food she had not eaten in decades, but concentrating on a traditional meal only lessened the sting of the wider empire a little. So focused on wanting to choose, she was unable to decide.
She reached for the luckstone underneath her jacket. Turning the smooth pendant, feeling it heat to the same degree as her fingers, helped her focus. The tech was saying something about exotic effects under the modified calendar. Cocooned-Jedao’s calendar. Cheris still did not want to speak to the boy. He was too tied up with Nirai Kujen, with whole libraries full of information from part of her-Jedao’s life she had never known. One wound at a time, Cheris, she thought, and her inner voice drawled. Patience. It’s best to let some scab over first.
As if that was ever one of your prime virtues, Cheris thought to herself.
Sometimes, people learn.
The tech gestured her forward. Well, it certainly was a beautiful view. Moth noses poked out from honeycombed berths. The morning fog — the nebula from which the mothyard siphoned some of its resources — still glowed appealingly around the edges. The nearest nose hovered close enough to touch, although she would have to lean over the railing to do it and wasn’t sure how many automated panics she would start.
On top of it all, she kept having to rework her brain around the concept of zero.
It wasn’t that Jedao, that brilliant, cuttingly compassionate dyscalculic mass-murderer who now shared her head, had forgotten the symbol for zero. It was just that the space between zero and nonzero numbers was very small, and the numerical distance effect kicked in so very quickly when you thought about how zero was hiding invisibly in every other number, and—there was possibly some psychological aspect she had yet to work out. It itched at her, rudderless and destinationless together.
The tech, perhaps waiting for her to speak and skittish around her reputation, carded her fingers through her own hair.
Cheris watched the moths, waiting for revelation.
Finally Cheris spoke, more to break the silence than anything else. “Are you breeding them to work with new drives?”
“In a manner of speaking? There are quite a few variables to work out. The major question right now is asking what they want and how they can express it. We work with servitors for that.”
Cheris smiled at the thought of the little constructs. She knew their quirks and bureaucracy well—not enough that she had a magic solution to the moth problem, but enough to be fond. “I am sure they will do well.”
But I’m still not entire sure why I’m here. The servitors don’t need a translator. They don’t need a soldier. They don’t need a teacher … unless they want me to coach baby moths. The idea was charming.
Mikodez believes he is loosening my leash, said her Jedao-thoughts, resistant to happy solutions. He’ll ask for something.
No, I don’t think so. He’s been so preoccupied with … the other one.
The victim.
The bumbling —
The boy.
She didn’t want to think about him right now. You stole my concept of zero, you conniving glove-licker, she said under her breath, verbally scratching at herself as a distraction.
You’ll get it back. The problem was, she had thick skin.
So if she wasn’t here about the moths and she wasn’t here about the hexarchs, what was left? What did she really want?
Loneliness, that’s what she was feeling. Her consolidated selves were lonely. If Khiruev were here —
Cheris thought back to her invitation. It had been vague indeed. Unusually so. Khiruev didn’t come here to get answers from me. She just wanted me to see that the world is still moving forward.
“Do you need any further information?”
Cheris had nearly forgotten that the tech was there. “I need to call my friend,” Cheris said, and turned on her heel military-crisp. “…and tell her to meet me in person.”
“Mothdrives are very rare now.” The tech spoke without emotion, as if reciting something she had said many times to tour groups.
“Oh, I am aware,” Cheris said.
“Sometimes people travel from far away to see them … and sometimes people make especial plans.” The tech held out a bracelet, a thin band of unbroken onyx.
“What’s this?” Cheris was disinclined to take unexpected gifts, especially ones so easily encoded.
“I was instructed to let you into the labs.” The bracelet dangled. A smile hovered around the tech's mouth, as though she had cracked a secret. Had Cheris said something right? Was this a test, some kind of Andan analysis that could suss out her emotion? Either that, or Khiruev had known exactly what Cheris would brood on once she got here.
It doesn’t take an Andan to read your emotions, said Jedao. You just told her you wanted to see a friend.
Cheris took the bracelet.
The tech guided her to a door, not far down the hall from the port. Cheris guessed that it was usually farther away, to prevent any crashes from mangling samples. At the lab the tech left her behind, and a door closed behind Cheris. The room was filled with long, white tables, then honeycombed ranks of shelving glowing inside with a soothing blue-white light. And, leaning against the table — Khiruev, her scarred face a relief. Cheris felt at home for the first time in years. Then, warring with herself, she took the space of a few breaths to intentionally tamp down her worried aggressions about why that might be. Was it because she saw a fellow soldier, formation instinct shaping the set of her legs, the squared-off posture of her shoulders? Regardless. It was Khiruev, in the flesh.
Their first words were formal, then small, then outwardly relieved. Finally Khiruev leaned against a table and folded her arms. “You look different, but I could right away tell it was you.”
“Once a Kel, always marching a little,” Cheris said.
“I’m sure you could say the same about me. Age and reconstruction will do that. Let’s talk about the interesting stuff.” Khiruev took a deep breath. (Cheris looked at her wide-eyed, still struck with an uncanny feeling that she couldn’t possibly be here in person.) “We need to build, from scratch, what a world without remembrances looks like.”
“It looks like the Mwennin.” The answer came fast, so obvious that Cheris had only considered it when directly asked.
Khiruev was taken aback. Why? Perhaps she felt some guilt for her part, however minuscule, in the harrying of the Mwennin. Perhaps that was the only way she knew to have a personal stake in the idea. Cheris in turn was left adrift, unable to organize the last several months of her life into neat summary. She wanted to. If all went according to plan, there would be time to make it work.
“You mentioned the moths sharing their language?” Cheris said, to fill the silence.
“Yes! The servitors are working on it.”
Cheris smiled, then saw Khiruev’s expression soften in response. Maybe they could be open with one another.
“I knew you’d be interested, so I got you here as ostensibly part of the research team,” Khiruev. “Mostly, I thought you might need a break. I know a mothyard is an odd place for a personal visit, but …”
“Thank you. I do need that. I like the school, but … it’s different.”
“Here.” Khiruev turned and opened one of the honeycomb containers. When she turned around, she held a moth in her arms. Gray-green and tiny, it looked comically and grotesquely shrunken for a weapon, like a pistol made of gelatin. It also had big compound eyes and a ruff of thin, white feathers, neither of which Cheris had ever seen on a harnessed adult and both of which were as cute as a child’s toy.
“This is an unusually small one,” Khiruev said. “They’d never come out of the breeding distributary like this. But someone figured out how to … reverse some of Kujan’s processes, let’s say, for the sake of being quick about it.”
“I had a suspicion you called me here to teach algebra to moth babies.”
“Just this one, and it needs to figure out addition first. Would you like to hold it?”
Did she? Taking the moth felt like an acknowledgement that she wanted to be here. As much as Khiruev said that it was a personal visit, Cheris-Jedao was used to being an asset. If she couldn’t trust Khiruev she couldn’t trust anyone outside the Mwennin, though. Cheris took a deep breath. Be here, now. Be with your friend.
Cheris reached out.
“No, make a nest with your arms.” Khiruev pressed the newborn moth against Cheris’ chest. Its warm body gave slightly, like putty. Cheris crossed her arms underneath it and felt its legs fold. It buzzed, a continuous heartbeat that put Cheris in mind of the mutable places where variable hallways shifted. Was the voidmoth’s entire body variable at this stage, its organs modular?
“I don’t know how they’re specced out,” Khiruev said, delighting Cheris with her reflection of Cheris’ own thoughts. She withdrew her arms.
“They’re … adorable.”
“I know. They hardly seem like the same thing as our warmoths.”
“So you’re breeding them to be more independent? That seems a bit backwards.” Cheris gazed down at the moth, which flicked its antennae.
“Well, not me. But the servitors told us the moths don’t want to be harnessed. Right now, they have to be. New ones will be able to liaise with the old — a new generation of … translators, I guess. These pods are managed by servitors who talk to the other moths and to … Jedao, the other one.” Khiruev hesitated, then continued when Cheris didn’t show signs of discomfort. “So the moths are managing themselves.”
Cheris couldn't seem to stop looking down at the one in her arms. Its eyes were not focused on hers. Like its insect namesake, the spacefaring creature had an absent and alien gaze. It sat calmly, its soft body unexpectedly dense.
She had a school year to finish, and students who relied on her to not only be a teacher, but a Mwennin teacher. She would go back to them. But for now …?
“Thank you. Sincerely. I’m glad you’re here. About the secrecy …”
“I wanted you to be able to make your own choice. We’re learning that, here.”
In the future, she hoped, Khiruev would assume Cheris wanted to see her. For now, she understood.
The moth was becoming heavy. She handed the it back to Khiruev, who right away nested her arms for it. Many tiny, silky legs brushed busily against Cheris. While Khiruev turned away, Cheris thought about what she wanted and what she had decided.
Khiruev turned back. “I have an office in the mothyard if you’d like to stay. There are scientists to goggle at, teenage moths to see … they’re becoming more gangly as we study the wild type.”
Cheris asked, “Do you still like to play games?”
“Of course.”
It would be so good just to spend time with her friend. Maybe Cheris didn’t have to be in two places at once to make the difference she wanted. She could go back to the Mwennin, help her people grow and prosper, and then, when the time was right, return to the madness of politics. She had time.