The horizon distortion began to clear, and Ca’aed came into focus. Something was wrong, though, and Br’sei couldn’t quite make it out. He strained his eyes. He saw the gold shadows of the citizens flying about their business. He saw the wake villages, but why did they look like they were being towed by their people?
What am I seeing? Br’sei angled his wings to find more speed in the wind.
Voices touched him. The faint voices of people called to each other through the air. Between them came the strong voices of the city, directing, arguing, reassuring. Under it all, Br’sei heard pain. Pain restrained with great strength, but it was there.
At last, his eyes resolved portions of the panorama in front of him, but for a long, agonizing moment, his soul refused to believe his eyes.
He saw a gleaming white bone, as broad as his own torso, laid bare to the wind and a cluster of people layering it over with something pink and translucent.
He saw six people rise from the city with a quarantine net held between them. Inside the net hung something misshapen and patched with gray.
He saw that what surrounded Ca’aed were not its wake villages. Those hung in the distance, like children afraid to come too close. These were great segments of coral wall, tangles of muscle, tendon and ligament, sections of skin and flesh gone colorless with fungal tumors, air sacs, intestines, veins, even a heart. One of the city’s huge, precious hearts hung, blackened and distorted, in a quarantine blanket with a flock of tools inside the blanket, and a flock of engineers outside.
They’re cutting the city. Life and breath, they’re cutting the city. Horror drew his bones together.
The delicate perfume of disease touched him, and it was all Br’sei could do to keep going.
As he drew near the very edges of the furious activity, a female flew toward him. For a moment, Br’sei thought it was Ambassador T’sha. But as she reached him, he saw she was older than the ambassador, although they shared a coloring of crest and skin. She and T’sha were birth family though, that much was clear.
“Good luck, Engineer Br’sei.” She raised her hands in greeting.
“Good luck, Speaker Pa’and,” replied Br’sei, reading her tattoos.
They touched hands, but Br’sei could not keep his gaze focused on her. It kept skittering over her back to the surgery, the desperate butchery, of Ca’aed.
“I didn’t know,” he murmured, shrinking in around his apology.
The speaker just dipped her muzzle. “How could you, Engineer? But perhaps you see now why the ambassador cannot speak with you.”
Br’sei lifted his muzzle. Sounds and scents filled him—strained voices, blood, rot, pain, the sounds of knives in flesh and saws in bone. He could not escape it or turn away.
I should leave, or I should help. Ca’aed was one of the first cities, an ancient life, a good soul with irreplaceable memories and knowledge locked inside it. He should not be scheming to take away its ambassador at the time she was most needed.
Even knowing that, he spoke. “Let me see the ambassador, Speaker Pa’and. I swear to you, this is not a small thing. It affects the entire future of New Home and it needs her voice. Our future, our hope, Ca’aed’s hope, needs her voice.”
Speaker Pa’and pulled back. She fanned her wings to rise a little above him. Br’sei worked to hold his bones still.
She will refuse. She will not believe me. Tension sang through Br’sei’s soul. I will have to go back alone.
“She is consulting with some of the other speakers and the archivers,” said Pa’and. “I will take you to her.”
“Thank you,” replied Br’sei fervently.
Pa’and gave him no answer. She just turned on her wingtip and led him along a curving path around and over the edge of the ruined city. People dived in and out of its body, calling to one another. Br’sei saw engineers, harvesters, and conservators, and dozens of others whose tattoos he could not make out, all borne up by hard purpose and fear as much as by the wind underneath them.
They do feel the death. They will not say the word to themselves, but they feel it. Br’sei kept his muzzle closed and followed the speaker.
Around a bulbous outcropping in Ca’aed’s wall, Br’sei finally saw T’sha. She hung swollen between the city and three males, as if she sought to protect Ca’aed from their approach.
“We cannot promise them any of our people until all the vectors for this cancer have been analyzed,” T’sha was saying. “We can promise them full and free use of any knowledge their people discover, and surely there are some futures they’d be interested in.”
One of the males deflated. Br’sei thought he might be a brother, for he shared his colors with both T’sha and Pa’and. “We’ve spread the offer of knowledge too thin, Ambassador. It’s losing its value. We are going to have to offer people or, at the very least, skills.”