Upon the World Serpent's head rests a city, whose Doom some said would transpire anon. Perhaps not by the Brood terror, but by the seething greed of the Devourers. The people, I mean. The people there, mostly human, would Seek the meat of the sad, dying colossus-snake, they Fed upon the Great Dragon and felt no remorse. They poisoned it. And perhaps it, in return, poisoned them back. My visit to Wyrmdov was so very brief, and because of this brevity, I believe I saw something no local could have. Wyrmdov is Eating itself, just as it Eats the beautiful creature upon which it rests. – Tol'sis, Chronicler of the Celestial Arbiters, 718 DE (Doom Era)

No one had come for her. Not yet. Nor had anyone sent word about this Argument she was meant to have. But Kirek had been released from hospital and they were all safe aboard Veringulf. For now. And along with Kirek, Dorja had learned to connect Veringulf’s AI to the local computer network the locals called the Weave. The bots, Newpik and Joshua, trundled around the ship on their own errands—Dorja had asked Turtle to dial back their personalities to be mostly focused on their maintenance duties.

And so, Dorja, Kirek, Turtle, and the bots all sat and waited for something to happen.

They were unofficially detained. For days now, Dorja and the others had sat inside the cramped confines of Veringulf, waiting for Wyrmdov Space Traffic Control to grant them permission to leave. So far, all their requests had been denied, and the reason for it was always read the same: YOUR PARTIES ARE NOT YET DEEMED SAFE TO LEAVE. Safe to leave? What does that mean? she wondered, when reading the same message every day.

Dorja had spent her first days of what was essentially a quarantine being vigilant, watching the ship’s sensors, glancing out the cockpit viewport to see if any KOPs would approach the spot in the hangar where they were parked. So far, no one had even shown the slightest interest in them, it was as though they had been forgotten. But that is not so, she knew. No powerful man who is defeated ever forgets the one who bested him.

She watched other pilots come and go, the hangar bay’s ceiling opening overhead to admit new ships and allow others to lift off. But Veringulf remained clamped to the docking claw, and would not be able to leave until the clamp was removed.

And so, as the days crawled by, Dorja relaxed, but only a little. She and Kirek took turns sleeping, taking watch, and set the two bots’ vigilance settings to high-alert. To Dorja, it was important that Turtle not live in fear, and so she made sure to return the girl to her structure. Waking up, stretching, eating breakfast, training Form One and Form Two for an hour or so, then tending to her studies before meditation and breathing exercises. She now treated Turtle less like porcelain. Dorja had inwardly admonished herself for not recognizing the steel in Turtle’s eyes, the resolve that a lifetime of tragedy had instilled in her. The girl was a survivor, and Dorja ought to have recognized it in time—she could be harder on the girl in training, she could push Turtle to take the learning more seriously. She is not porcelain. Turtle is made of something stronger.

She decided to push Turtle harder, give her something to focus on.

And that meant Dorja must also take her training more seriously.

Just as he’d promised, Master Korvix had not made a reappearance since pushing the essence box to do what it did. So, for several days, she waited, practicing on her own in the cargo bay, until at last his ghostly hologram made a few weak appearances. Mostly, he spoke out of his mind, seemingly not remembering her at all, at least at first.

Master Korvix would sometimes appear freeze-framed, staring out at her, not speaking or emoting. A few times, his voice would emit out of nowhere, random excerpts like “—if I had only known what Blademaster Krusian was planning—” and “—had I known you were her discipline, I might’ve avoided being—” and “—the Eight Forms of Supreme Malice cannot be defeated with only—”

And then, with each passing day, Korvix seemed to come up to speed. Not only did he recall the events leading up to his essence box’s disablement, but he also conjured up more exercises for Dorja to train.

Starting with what he called Khu’un’dun.

* * *

“What is Khu’un’dun?” asked Dorja, walking around the hologram standing in the cargo bay and casually spinning her glaive from her weeping-hands to her reaching-hands. “Dorja knows not this word?”

“Khu’un’dun is the Second Fist. And the most devious,” said the rippling holographic form of the dead Blademaster.

“How is it devious?”

“Because it isn’t actually a technique, it is more of a—” The hologram flickered out of existence, then rematerialized several feet away, wavering, the Master’s hooded face coming across incredibly distorted before normalizing again. “—more of a philosophy,” Korvix finished. “Similar to how J’ing exercises restructured your shoulders and arms, preparing them to deliver harder strikes, Khu’un’dun strengthens the overall frame of a humanoid body type.” Korvix lifted an eyebrow. “I’m assuming it will work on you well enough. But Khu’un’dun prepares the body to receive more aktules of chi.”

“Aktules?” Dorja said, pausing her glaive mid-spin. “What are aktules?”

Now it was Master Korvix’s turn to look nonplussed. “You can’t be serious. Gods above and below, please tell me you know the proper way of measuring chi.”

Dorja shrugged with her weeping-arms. “Master Jerrod always said much of the study of chi was lost pre-Doom. The only method of measuring it is within each individual.”

Korvix sighed a burdensome sigh. “There were whole technologies based off of chi, the conduction from a wielder into the machine. Chi-powered mechanized suits, power generators that ran off chi, even complex medical procedures that could not safely be conducted without chi-inducers.”

“And what are aktules?”

“Aktules were the basic form of measurement, but could only be registered on a proper qi’tsoc.” When he saw Dorja’s quizzical face, he clarified. “A qi’tsoc is—or I suppose was a device created by the Kattaratai scientist Memner Sloan, a former bladesman and seeker.” Korvix sighed again. Doubtless, the AI trapped inside the essence box was lamenting the loss of such knowledge. “We will have to conduct your training without a qi’tsoc. But we will have to find one in time. For now, let’s begin with Khu’un’dun.

“There are various approaches to this, any one Master might tell you to start with different breathing exercises—the Blademaster Tow’lachik would say to begin with Iron Breath, for example, and Vivian Swordsaint would advise starting with Ballooning Lung. But I will start you with Ratcheting Breath.”

Dorja stood before the Blademaster’s specter. “Dorja is listening.”

“This entails holding your arms loosely out in front of you, taking in short bursts of air, and with each bursting exhale, pulling your hands inwards to slap your own chest, belly, thighs, even your face. You ‘ratchet’ the breath, filling up your lungs in short bursts, and exhaling the same way, striking your own body as you do. You want to build up heat in the body, and feel it radiating from the places on your body that you hit. You want to listen to your breath. Chi literally translates to breath, so the energy that stems from the zero-field is conducted through us via the breath—”

“Not us,” Dorja corrected him. “Dorja. Not you. You can no longer breathe. You are not organic.”

There might’ve been begrudging respect for the correction, but the Blademaster’s eyes also flickered in what might’ve been a glitch, but also could’ve been contempt. “You are right. How thoughtless of me. Yes, through your breath you may conduct your chi in this fashion, in bursting ejections, radiating throughout your body.”

“And what will this do?”

“It will harden your body, particularly the fascia.”

“The what?”

“The connective tissues that separate muscles and enclose organs. Gods below, did your Master teach you nothing?” He hove another sigh. “All known animals have fascia, so I’m sure you do, as well. Now, follow me.” Master Korvix lowered himself into a horse stance, and took deep (simulated) breaths in quick bursts. Then, upon each hissing exhale, he let out his air in powerful bursts at the same time he slapped his belly and chest with his hands. He demonstrated this ten times before he stood to his full height, and said, “This is merely the warmup. Once you are done with an hour of this—”

“An hour?”

“—we can talk about how you conduct this newfound energy to strike. You literally hit with your whole body, slamming your head, chest, or shoulders into your opponent.” He held up a finger, as if to underscore a salient point. “The key for you to remember is that your goal is to master all ten of the Exalted Fists, which, when performed in concert, produce a powerful conduit of chi. You will become a transceiver/receiver of it. The goal is attainment of power through a greater absorption of chi. Now, begin.”

Dorja lowered herself into a horse stance, but it wasn’t deep enough to Master Korvix’s liking. He told her to go so low that she could lay the shaft of her glaive across her thighs and it should not fall off. Master Jerrod had once done something similar. She lowered herself as low as she could go, tried opening up her hips. She inhaled in this “ratcheting” method, taking in more breath on each quick inhale, then hissed it out in bursts, slapping her ribs with all four hands.

It was a long hour of warming up.

* * *

If we could imagine ourselves as a small dog tossed off a boat by a cruel owner, and then lifted back up out of the sea by a strange underwater monster and tossed back onto the boat, we might have some idea of what it was like to be Turtle. Quivering and wet, frightened of uncertainty, unwanted by man or monster for so long, subsisting off of scraps, the dog would be grateful of any kindness visited upon it. Now imagine that, after existing this way for as long as you can remember, a single friend comes along. They have a kind touch, and a teacher’s patience. This friend introduced you to one or two others who also accepted you with friendly smiles. Your heart might begin to hope: I’ve found something here. Something greater than treasure.

And for a moment, you nearly lost all of that. And would have, too, if not for your friendly teacher.

That was how Turtle felt now, quietly returning to the structure that Dorja had introduced her to. She awoke each morning, ran through her training, her school lessons, ate the meals Kirek made for them, looked up at his smiling face and tried to offer a smile in return. She ate, she trained some more, meditated alongside Dorja, played some games with Newpik and Joshua, and went to bed.

She woke up. Repeated the same cycled. Back to bed.

The days were a tense gray blur, in which she went about her daily routine, glad of it, and yet also with this idle sense of dread, just at the back of her mind. A sense of foreboding, that anything might take this away from her. It had almost been taken when Lullock came for her…

She took her training bokken in hand each day and tried to focus on it. Her memories were a scattered nothing—she didn’t remember where she came from, not clearly, nor who exactly her parents had been. What memories she did have were getting fuzzier by the day, the years just falling off, so that all there had ever been was her time being traded from one pirate to another for no good reason.

And then she was here, with Dorja and Kirek and Joshua and Newpik. Would she be tossed back out to sea again? She didn’t think so, Dorja seemed safe and caring, even loving, but the bad men that had come into Veringulf and taken her hostage—

I have to be ready for them. Next time, I have to be more prepared.

It was a child’s thinking, as much a wishful dream as watching a vid full of space heroes toting plas-pistols and thinking, That’ll be me someday. Dorja made training look easy. Turtle had watched her plenty of times as she twirled her glaive between her four arms and moved like a dancer through the cargo bay. That’ll be me someday. Someday soon. She was too young to know how hard it would be. She didn’t know that the better someone was at something, the easier they made it look—Dorja had been doing this for more years than Turtle could yet imagine.

But she was determined. Because she loved Dorja. She hadn’t said it yet, and her child’s heart hadn’t really realized it needed to be said, but she felt it in every way that resonated. The door would open every morning and Turtle would roll out of bed, groggily stretching before she followed Dorja into the cargo bay. She sometimes smiled when Dorja give her a new martial exercise, and sometimes Dorja smiled back.

And Dorja’s eyes had taken on a strange look of late: a look of fondness. Turtle knew this instinctively, though she could not have described it.

Once, when Turtle had complained about training, and said she just wanted to break early to go play a game with Joshua, Dorja had frowned down at her. Turtle didn’t know why, but the frown looked funny on Dorja’s face, and she’d cracked a smile. “What’s funny?” Dorja had asked. Turtle just shrugged. “Tell Dorja what is funny.” Turtle had tried to explain it, that Dorja’s face sometimes looked funny when she was thinking. Dorja looked somewhat offended, and said, “Tut! Dorja is Dorja!” and held up an admonishing finger. They had both kept stony faces for as long as they could, until at last Turtle cracked. She started giggling, and Dorja, low and behold, cracked a smile. “Fine. You may break early. But make sure to see to your maths, Turtle—”

“I will!” she said, hugging Dorja’s waist. “Thanks, Dorja!”

“We do not hug at the end of a lesson. We bow.”

They stood apart and bowed, but Turtle thought she could see a certain glow in the alien woman’s eyes. Of course, Turtle knew that Dorja wouldn’t mind a shorter lesson, since it would give her time to train the new Khu’un’dun technique or whatever it was called that Master Korvix was teaching her.

Turtle neither liked nor trusted Korvix, but she trusted Dorja to do what was right, and if she believed it was safe to learn from the Blademaster, then so be it. It gave Turtle an extra hour or so to go play.

Exactly as she was doing now.

Turtle had been going through the bot user’s manual for weeks before they ever reached Wyrmdov, and she had learned all about how to carefully unscrew the underside panels on the two maintenance bots and rotate circuit breakers so that they created alternating settings. She could set them to quasi-randomization, which allowed for a bit of individuality to naturally bleed into bots’ personalities. Data, as she understood it, was received by bots in what was called priority/compartmentalization tendencies, and if she allowed them to prioritize and compartmentalize on their own, then both Joshua and Newpik could develop systems of trial-and-error.

They were constantly working on problems. And, as it turned out, that was what sentient and sapient beings did to create personalities. Their own subjective experiences in solving those problems (such as “Why is that person looking at me that way?” or “How do I get these pants on?” or “How can I get more jam on this sandwich?”) was what led them to having unique personalities.

Without realizing it, Turtle was learning some of the basics of how people grow by learning how robots become self-aware. By being left alone for long periods without memory wipes, and being permitted to troubleshoot at leisure, with virtually no parameters and only safety warnings.

But she wasn’t necessarily thinking this deeply. To her, Joshua and Newpik were just her friends. By teaching them games, and by simply interacting with them, Turtle was giving herself playmates. They were gauging her behavior, seeing which actions drew out pleasurable responses from her, such as how hard she liked to roughhouse, what signs indicated she would rather be alone, and what made her laugh.

Of the two, Joshua was by far the fastest learner, and also the most eager to zoom around chasing Turtle when it was playtime. Newpik, by contrast, became somewhat more introspective, quiet, always standing back and watching Turtle, as if he was on watch. If Joshua was Turtle’s number-one playmate, then Newpik was her number-one guardian.

Though, both bots did find time to join her in a game of Riddles or Flicks. It was a game she learned from Aleki, back when they used to talk through the bars of their cages facing each other. They were too far away to interact in any way besides touching hands, and so they had to come up with stuff to keep themselves occupied. Aleki had known lots of riddles, and said that he used to play a game with his gran. The game was simple: you posed a riddle to your opponent, and if they couldn’t guess it, you got to flick their ear.

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With Joshua, Turtle had evolved it into a new game. Riddles or Bonks. If you got the riddle wrong, your opponent bonked you on the head.

“Okay,” she said presently, sitting cross-legged in her quarters. “I go first.”

“Yay! Riddles or Bonks! Woo-hoo!” Joshua pumped his pincers up in the air. In the corner of the room, Newpik sat and ruminated on something.

“I’ll present the riddle, and you get ready to answer.”

“Yay! Riddles or Bonks! Riddles or Bonks! You can’t bonk what you can’t touch!” His domed head performed a simulacrum of a bob-and-weave maneuver.

“I can be half without getting thinner. I can shine with no fire. I can be hidden but never taken. I can stay dry while moving through the ocean. What am I?”

Joshua gave it a think. “I give up.”

“A moon!” And she thumped him on the head with the tip of her bokken.

“Ow!” Joshua rubbed his dome as though it had caused him actual pain. An affectation he’d learned made her giggle, as it did now. “Wait, no fair! That doesn’t make any sense. How can a moon move through an ocean?”

“At night, silly!” she giggled. “When it reflects on the water.”

“But what about worlds without moons?”

“What?”

“There are worlds without moons, you know. And worlds without oceans.”

Turtle tilted her head quizzically. “There…there are?”

“Yes, dummy. And also rogue planets, which drift out through space with satellites yet with no star, therefore no sunlight, therefore no light to reflect off any moon to shine on the planet below. Your riddle is in error.” He suddenly reached out with a pincer, fast as lightning, and bonked her.

“Hey! That’s now how it works—”

“My turn. I’m a god, a planet, and a measurer of heat. What am I?”

Turtle scratched the sore spot on her head. Joshua hit hard. I’ll have to dial that back. From next door, there came the sounds of grunting, heavy breathing, and slapping. Dorja’s training in Khu’un’dun sounded painful.

She refocused on Joshua’s riddle. She tried to suss it out, but she was no good with the names of gods or other planets. She’d barely known she was on Herenov, and she’d been there for weeks or months. And though she had traveled, it had mostly been while locked up in a slaver’s ship.

“Give up?”

“Give me a minute,” she snapped back at him.

Joshua folded his pincers in front of him, waiting. “We should’ve agreed on a time limit. Didn’t I say, Newpik? Didn’t I say there should be—”

“Is it…the Stone God?” She’d heard Dorja mention the Stone God on occasion.

“Nope!” With another swift motion, he bonked her, with a bit too much self-satisfaction for her taste. “Ha-ha! You fool! The answer is Mercury.”

“I’ve…never heard of that god. Or that planet.”

“Neither have I.”

“Wait, what? Then how do you even know your riddle makes sense?”

“Your turn!”

Rubbing her head, Turtle suppressed a growl. She tried to remember one of Aleki’s better riddles. She smiled at her enemy and said, “Why did the moon skip dinner?”

“Because it was full!” Joshua exclaimed, and shot his hands in the air. “Jazz hands! Ha-ha, you’re dumb!”

“How did you know that?”

“What, that you’re dumb?”

“No. How did you know the answer to the riddle so fast?”

“My turn! What kind of music can you hear in space?”

Turtle furrowed her brow, going deep into thought. Loud music? No. Some kind of pun about silence or something? She couldn’t figure it out. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said I don’t—” BONK! “Ow!”

“Your turn! This is my game, baby!”

“What was the answer?”

“A Nep-tune!”

She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I. Your turn!”

“This isn’t how the game is supposed to be—”

The door shunted open. Dorja stepped in and Turtle stood to bow to her. Joshua and Newpik both rolled to one side of the room in deference to their master. Dorja gave a curt nod to Turtle and said, “Having fun?”

“We were just giving each other riddles, but I think Joshua may be broken.”

“Joshua ain’t broken, baby!” said the bot, circling her, his rollers buzzing with the effort. “Joshua’s on a roll!”

“Is it time for me to go to bed?”

Dorja wiped her brow. She looked sweaty. The Blademaster’s training was doing her in. “Not yet. Dorja wonders if you would be good enough to sit in the cockpit a while, keep a lookout while Kirek and I search Veringulf to make sure it hasn’t been tampered with.”

Turtle shrugged. “Sure. But you’ve already done that twice.”

“Dorja knows. She just wants to be absolutely sure.”

Turtle looked at Dorja’s worried demeanor. “Are we…expecting more trouble?”

“No, no, nothing like that. Turtle is safe. We are all safe now, the people of Wyrmdov seem to have made Dorja into, eh, some sort of local hero?” She shrugged. “Kirek is on the Weave, and says it is so. So we are safe,” she repeated. “Dorja just needs you to watch the cockpit is all.”

Turtle shrugged again. “Okay.”

“Good. And don’t worry. No need to worry just now.” Dorja left, and the door closed behind her.

After a moment, Joshua said, “You can see through me, yet I am not transparent. You can pick holes in me, yet I occupy no space. What am I?”

Turtle looked at him worriedly.

“A lie,” Joshua said.

* * *

Kirek lounged in a hammock, reading an issue of The Wise Wyrmdov Informant on his omni-pad. Scrolled through it with his finger. The Informant was not so much a collection of well-researched articles written by qualified journalists with integrity as it was a repository of every piece of raging gossip that some editor had slapped together, peppering in a few opinion pieces here and there for good measure, and putting it out on the Weave for ad revenue.

Gods below, the ads!

Everything was tossed into the Informant: reports of murder, wedding announcements, rumors of signs that the World Serpent upon which they all lived was actually coming back to life, people opining that the Ice Miners Union ought to go back to being regulated by the Fane of Inzytt and its priestesses, talks of the Brood spotted at the edge of the sector, and a thousand other political discussions Kirek had little understanding of.

He’d only ever been out this way once before, and had only ever passed through Wyrmdov when, as a scout, he’d helped a group of Free Rangers hunt down a fugitive name Cato Maal. Even then, he’d barely had time to visit a few sites before refueling his ship and leaving Wyrmdov. He’d never gotten this acquainted with its people, its culture, or its politics.

And he felt like he and Dorja needed to understand all of that, if they wanted to have an idea of what this upcoming “Argument” would entail.

What he was putting together was a loose picture of how things worked here. Lounging in his hammock, trying to get comfy (what with all the stitches holding his flesh together), he had discovered a weird, overlapping network between the Hekkites and the women of Inzytt. As far as he could understand it, it went something like this:

The Doom had come, and chased people to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, while pushing others towards the Galactic Core where there were more black holes, neutron stars, and general chaos from so much debris that made space nearly unnavigable, and thus troublesome for the Brood to follow. The people that first settled Wyrmdov were, as he’d known, mostly fugitives and pirates, desperate sorts. But then history diverged from what he thought he knew. It seemed that eventually Wyrmdov had attracted ice miners, who, thanks to their plasma-arc cutters, were also very good at digging deep inside the World Serpent and cutting out nutritious morsels of meat. Huge chunks of it, in fact.

But the Ice Miners Union that started here on Wyrmdov had formed commensurate with something called the Gamblers Society, which was gone now but apparently saw Wyrmdov’s original settlers’ risk-taking behaviors, and found potential for casinos and other entertainment dens. In fact, there was a brief war in the streets between three different sects of the Gamblers Society, before the survivors coalesced, becoming bloodier than ever, battle-hardened, and seeking control of Wyrmdov by creating Ruling Boards and electing themselves as members.

The Ice Miners Union had something to say about that. And, as Kirek knew, whenever one wants more say, they typically get into politics themselves. The ice miners went after the Society members on the Ruling Council.

There were accusations of cooked books, rigged elections, and general corruption, which of course led to more fighting, more bloodshed, paving the way for the arrival of someone else to take advantage of the chaos. Here came the Hekkites from seemingly nowhere, who immediately formed alliances with the women of the Fane of Inzytt, and waited for the Union and the Society to destroy one another, then picked up the scraps.

So, that explained the Hekkites’ presence here. It was as much a testament to the victory of inertia and habit, as much as the power of the Inzytt priestesses, that had kept them in power.

Pirates, thieves, smugglers, traffickers—muscling everyone else out that tried to take over. Got it. But who the hell are these priestesses?

No one seemed to know where exactly they had come from, nor how long they had been here. There were rumors the first Inzytt worshippers who came here were from a commune on a world called Hash, but ever the since the Doom began records had become sketchy, so there was no tracing their origin.

What he did know, and had discovered by perusing forums on the local Undernet (which could get you and your omni-pad permanently banned from the Weave for even viewing), was that they had integrated themselves into the Wyrmdov underworld pretty early on.

Inzytt was some fell goddess referred as Mother of Void, one who must be regularly propitiated to quiet her rage and bring the people favor, and her worshippers were forced to have Graber nodes grafted to their bones, and subcutaneous power actuators surgically implanted as early as age nine. These Graber nodes allowed them to interact with the zero-field, to connect with chi, granting them access to powers Kirek knew to be real, yet had never actually seen with his own eyes.

But Dorja had. Dorja had fought one of them and survived.

So what does that say about the blue beauty? he thought, scrolling to the next article. Kirek’s respect for his traveling partner grew by the day. She took on one of these priestesses and survived, then went at Lullock and pulled out a victory there, too. What does that mean for us now?

Looking further down the article on the Undernet, he found that the Inzytt priestesses also had no true leader, no senior ruler or elder mother, yet the priestesses sought wisdom and advice from someone called the Anymyst, though there was scarcely anything to learn about this person (or persons?) just by reading the Undernet.

So, what were the priestesses? What was their fane all about? Well, near as he could tell, and from what Dorja claimed Lullock had told her during their fight, there was some sort of scheme going on here on Wyrmdov to prolong life. Specifically, the lives of its ruling class. The priestesses knew the method behind such Black Science that the swordsman on Herenov had only been dabbling in, and the Hekkites provided the resources to people such as them, in exchange for sharing said Black Science.

“Immortality and eternal power,” he muttered to himself, rolling out of his hammock, slowly, so as not to upset the stitching. He sighed on his way to the galley. “Same old story, but a new twist.”

When he came to the galley, and found Dorja there, he tossed his omni-pad onto the table and said, “I’ve seen people try to secure their legacy before, to make sure they were revered for all time, but this is on another level. These people are trying to become gods.” He looked over at her. She looked exhausted, perhaps even more so than after her battle with Lullock. “You okay, Lady Dorja?”

Dorja was sitting at the table, staring into her food more than eating it. She wasn’t wearing her armor, just a sleeveless robe, sweat dribbling down her arms. “Yes,” she said, gathering herself. She lifted a weeping-hand and pinched the bridge of her nose, the way Kirek sometimes did to relieve a headache. And when she made the movement, he saw the dark black bruises up and down her arms. “Dorja is just…these have been exhausting days.”

“No, I get it.”

“Master Korvix’s training is…difficult.”

“You need some sleep? I know you and I have been staying up around the clock, a little on edge, making sure the Hekkites don’t send anybody, but if you need some serious sleep—”

“Dorja is fine.”

“—I can take over from here. Me and Turtle, we got this. I’ve watched her in the cockpit, she and the bots keep a good lookout—”

“Dorja said she is fine, so she is fine.”

Kirek’s eyes glanced at the hallway behind her, towards the cargo bay.

Dorja must’ve caught the glance, because she said, “What?”

“You sure you can trust him?”

“You mean Korvix?”

“Who else would I mean?”

“He’s just an AI trapped in a box. But his knowledge…mmm!” She was standing up, and some of her joints popped. She looked in immense pain. “His knowledge is deep, and worth the time to study.”

“You look like crap. Your body…whatever he’s putting you through, you sure you can take it? I mean, his knowledge may be outdated, or he could be tricking you somehow.”

“To what end?”

Kirek shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s an AI.”

“His J’ing technique came in handy against Lullock, as did his advice about how to handle the Seven Vile Blades of the Abyss.”

“I get that. But he’s still an AI. AIs can be deceptive. There’s a reason they were banned most places, even before the Doom. What they did…it wasn’t pretty.”

“It’s just one small essence box. What harm can it do?”

“I don’t know, and that’s what worries me.”

“You are worried about a hologram?”

“You know he’s not just any hologram. And he’s not just any AI. He’s the perfectly preserved consciousness of a Blademaster who has been cooped up for however many centuries. He—it can’t taste or touch anything, yet it has the memories of once being able to. Have you ever read about these essence boxes, and what that kind of isolation can do to a trapped consciousness?”

“No. Have you?”

“No. Never.”

“Then what do you know?”

“What do you know?” he countered. “That’s my point. You know exactly as much as I do, only I’m clear-headed enough to know that that’s why we should proceed with caution here—”

“You think Dorja isn’t clear-headed?”

Kirek folded his arms. “I think you’re beating yourself up. And I don’t just mean in training. You’re feeling guilty about what happened to Turtle, and how you approached this whole Wyrmdov connection. I think you’re worried that you’re not good enough to—”

“Dorja met Syyd,” she said, looking up at him.

Kirek was brought up short by that. “You…?”

“It was just before Dorja entered the spaceport to check on Turtle and Veringulf. Dorja couldn’t enter the spaceport, it was locked, but then Syyd appeared. At least, that’s what he said his name was. He punched in a few numbers on a keypad and the door opened for Dorja. Dorja was only able to reach Veringulf because of him.”

Kirek winced. “He let you in?”

“Yes. And he also said he would find Dorja when she was healed up, when she was more ready to fight him.”

Kirek was stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“We’ve been busy. And Dorja’s mind has been preoccupied by everything else. Syyd’s small part in this seemed…insignificant.”

“But now?”

“Now Dorja is worried. She’s worried that there will come a time when there is a threat so large she will not be able to protect Turtle. Or Dorja’s friends.” She looked right at him. Turned her head away. Was it to hide some emotion? “The Candle has been tested recently. The flame may gutter out still, if Dorja does not start taking this more seriously.”

“Taking what more seriously?”

“Her life. The galaxy. Chi. The universe. Everything.” She walked away and Kirek didn’t pursue it. But Dorja did turn back briefly and say, “Maluri’tuhk. How did you know what it meant?”

Kirek massaged his aching shoulder, and took a seat at the table, looking up at the alien’s striking beauty. “Been through here briefly before, like I said. Saito Sector is just like most others out here in the Outer Reach. They have stories, gossip, tales of folk heroes. One of them was a man named Maluri, some sort of champion who stood against injustice. Exaggerated stuff, a man who could breathe fire, punch so hard a man’s guts would fall out, stuff like that.”

“Was he real?” she asked.

“Not really sure if someone like him really existed and the stories were just embellished, or if he was a complete fiction.” He shrugged. “In any case, a Free Ranger I used to work with once mentioned a moon he was on where someone had done some great deed. People there called him Maluri’tuhk, too. The tuhk suffix is some old Reacher word that means ‘endowed with the power of.’ Or ‘endowed with the destiny of.’ People dubbed with that moniker get special treatment, almost like the mob just up and decides you’re someone special. There’s no law backing it up, no legal precedent, just the people’s say-so. You don’t touch a Maluri’tuhk without damn good reason.”

Dorja seemed to imbibe that slowly. “So, then, Dorja is immune here? She, you, and Turtle are safe?”

Kirek smirked. “Possibly. For now. But I wouldn’t bet on it for long. There are always certain, ah, ‘accidents’ that could befall you, which the Hekkites and the priestesses could arrange and then claim ignorance of. A slip down the stairs, a bit of food poisoning…and bad luck for you.”

Dorja nodded. She started to walk away again, but found another reason to stay. She looked awkwardly at the floor, then met his gaze. “You’ve bled for Dorja. You came to her side when all others in Wyrmdov condemned her. She had not one friend. But then you came. Drunk and half out of your mind, but you came.”

Kirek waited for the inevitable question.

“Why?” she said.

“Haven’t I already said?”

“The Candle?”

“And maybe something else.”

“What else? Turtle?”

“The kid’s safety does concern me, but that’s not all. I don’t know what to tell you, Dorja. You are…if not my friend, then at the very least a person whose honor appears above reproach. The people of Wyrmdov are superstitious weirdos, and the people of Herenov were just trying to outrun the Doom, so I’ve not exactly fit in wherever I’ve been.” He sighed. “Do you know what a ronin is?”

She winced. “Dorja has heard this word. What does it mean?”

“It used to describe a masterless warrior. I don’t know where it comes from originally, but a few of us scouts threw the word around when we were out of work. A warrior without a master, a worthy master, or at least a purpose to serve, is just a wandering fool, a greschka-noi we’d always say, trying to find food and entertainment until his time runs out. Think maybe I’m a ronin.”

“And Dorja is your master?”

“Lady Dorja is worthy, let’s just put it that way.” He shrugged. “Or maybe my landspeeder was out of fuel, and you gave me a push, so I felt like I needed to pay you back.”

She thought about that, then at last left the galley. She called back, “Let Dorja know when you’re ready to sleep, she will take over watch.”

“Will do, Lady Dorja,” Kirek said, watching the beautiful enigma go. “Will do.” He wanted to ask her so much. Wanted to ask her about her upbringing, how long she’d spent with her Master, Jerrod the Unsworn, and what exactly had happened to her sister. Kirek had bled for her, and was surprised that he’d done so, for her and for Turtle. He was even more shocked to find out that, when he asked himself if he’d do it again, he realized he undoubtedly would.

He went to the cockpit to relieve Turtle of watch. He brought his omni-pad with him. The girl sat in his lap, laughing as she played some weird slapping game with Joshua. Kirek connected to the Weave and read an animated comic on his pad. Soon, Turtle fell asleep in his arms, and he stayed awake, watching the viewport and the cam screens.

image [https://i.imgur.com/f6fHUfp.jpg]