Dust

Samael waited while the resurrectee brought Rien clothing, in which she dressed as quickly as she could, even to the paper shoes. Then the resurrectee took her wrist again and led her to a door. From the silence of the medical bay, Rien emerged into soft-spoken chaos.

She had known Engine was a city, but a glimpse of its vast spaces while being borne in on a stretcher was profoundly different from stepping out the hatchway, flanked by a resurrectee on one side and the Angel of Death on the other, and being confronted by the sweep of unfettered space. Her earlier head-spinning glimpses could not prepare her for this.

The holde might have rivaled a small city on Earth, she thought, though neither she nor Ng had personal experience to compare. Still, she felt she stood at the bottom of a bowl—but she would have felt that no matter where she stood. The space was a bubble, and the gravity must be directional, because she could see the structures rising from the walls as if from solid deck, all of them shining in pearlescent pastels, each tapered and prickling toward the center, so the whole bore a resemblance to a pin cushion turned inside-out.

And the streets, and the space between the walls, were filled with traffic. For the first time, the existence of Perceval's wings made logical sense to Rien; she watched Engineer after Engineer flit from one side of the void to the other, and thought how long it would take to walk around.

There were spanning cables as well, and cars moving along them, but why walk (or drive) if you could fly?

She would have expected noise, echoes filling the cavernous space, but the structures must have been designed to absorb sound. If anything, the street was hushed, voices falling off within a few steps, footsteps inaudible. It made the bustle eerie, like watching vids with the sound turned down to a whisper.

The resurrectee tugged her wrist gently, and Rien realized she was stuck in the doorway. Stepping away from the shelter of the wall made her knees tremble, but she was too shamed by her fear to show it. Especially in front of Samael.

She walked into the traffic and after a few steps it grew easier. The way was crowded, but in that crowding lay anonymity, and in that anonymity, Rien found security. She walked among the weirdly modified: angels and devils and someone who looked rather like a pagoda. There were persons who were chromed to quicksilver mirrors, or whose skins reflected the iridescent colors of the city. There were persons with eight limbs, scurrying along walls, and there were tiger-striped persons with wings and lush pelts.

When she had been Mean, Rien could vanish into any crowd.

She relished being able to do it again.

She was still relieved to come to the end of the walk. They stepped through a sliding door into a cool, dim room, and Rien bit back a sigh. She stepped to one side, not wanting to stay silhouetted against the light while Samael followed, amused by her own paranoia but not amused enough to stop herself. Once she was within, her augmented eyes adjusted.

The first person she saw was Benedick, Gavin on his shoulder, and she could have sagged against the wall in relief. Instead, she made herself step forward, freeing her wrist from the resurrectee's grasp, and went to her father.

He touched her shoulder lightly. She leaned into it, just enough to let him know she appreciated the gesture, not enough to admit she needed it.

'Where's Tristen?' she asked.

. 'Still in the tank,' he said, with a wince that made Rien feel guilty for letting Samael make her doubt her uncle. 'He was worst off. I'm here to feed you and lead you to our improvisational council of war.'

'Perceval,' Rien said.

He nodded. 'I will make her a priority. Come and meet your mother, Rien.' He looked over her shoulder at Samael. 'Nothing is decided.'

Samael said, 'May I accompany you?'

Benedick had a steady gaze, when he wanted it. 'Could I stop you?'

Samael's shrug was oddly self-effacing, for an angel.

Gavin hopped onto Rien's shoulder. He didn't say anything, so neither did she. But she leaned her cheek against his wing, and he huddled into the curve of her neck, warm and feathery, smelling of sunlight and dust.

Benedick turned away, and Rien followed. The resurrectee was left behind, as unregarded as an old shoe, and Rien gave her a regretful glance.

The place he brought them to, finally, suited Rien's perception of what Engine should be. It was a long wide room, divided into near-corridors by rows of pillars and banks of interfaces. Engineers sat, sprawled, or curled in bowl-shaped chairs, some with eyes closed and fingers twitching in concentration, others in hushed conversation with their neighbors.

Despite this, Rien's attention was drawn inexorably to the image in a central hologram tank. The waystars shone and twisted at its center, illuminated in gradations of color invisible to the naked eye, and Rien realized that in the tank, she could see pressure and temperature readings, maps of convection currents, real-time diagrams of changing stellar structures, and estimates of the time remaining before the system collapsed into supernova. She realized also that she could read those numbers and gradients, by the courtesy of Hero Ng.

Arianrhod stood beyond the tank, her white hair shining in the light of the conjured stars.

Rien could not walk forward, as if maintaining her distance from the information in the tank could protect her from the reality of their danger.

'Days,' Rien said. 'That's just days.'

Benedick touched her elbow. He was tall; she tipped her head back to look up at him. 'It could be instants,' he said. 'Or a month. We won't have much warning, once the conflagration starts.'

Rien shook her head. 'We can't survive that.'

'Not without a unified A.I.,' Samael said quite calmly. 'And a captain. And a mobile ship. And a crew that can fly her.'

'None of which we have.'

'All of which we can get,' Rien said—or her voice said for her, though the intonation and the words were not her own. She pressed her fingertips over her mouth; her lips kept moving. 'If you will trust me.'

'Rien?' Benedick, staring at her as if he expected a possessing demon to rise up from her.

'I was Conrad Ng,' she said. 'Chief Engineer. Your daughter consumed me. She is my vessel.'

When Perceval returned to her body, and Dust reclaimed his avatar, Perceval asked to talk to Rien. She expected a negative answer, some temporization.

She didn't expect Dust to spread his made-up hands helplessly and say, 'I am sorry, beloved. Engine is beyond

my grasp.' But he did, and—perhaps foolishly—she believed his admission of defeat.

And then he tilted his head and said, 'But with your assistance, I hope my reach may soon exceed.' 'It's all you think of,' she said. 'Seducing me.' 'Your acquiescence,' he said plainly, 'is my survival.' And then he dusted his hands against his waistcoat and finished, 'But if you prefer to wait for Ariane, or for a supernova, that is the lady's privilege.'

Rien understood everything Hero Ng was saying, which surprised her either more or less than it should have. The knowledge was there, deep knowledge, divorced of his personality. As if she had once upon a time studied and learned it herself.

There were other things as well, memories she would rather not pursue—a wife and children and all the bits and bobs a life was made of. Ac least he was a good man, she thought. A decent man. And a brave one.

She would have hated to share her head with someone like Alasdair or Ariane, no matter how wickedly smart they made her.

Maybe it took a monster to run things. Maybe you could only be a princess until you were in charge.

She could believe that. But she didn't want to think about it. Instead, she listened to Hero Ng explain his plan.