Victoria examined the stump of Elpida’s right arm.
The bomb had annihilated everything south of her elbow; the joint itself survived only as a shredded mass of skin flaps, shattered bone, and mangled cartilage. Melyn had done her best to tidy up the damage, slicing off any bits of flesh which lacked circulation, pulling out chunks of minced tissue, and extracting shards of blackened bone. Pira had assured everybody that zombies could not suffer gangrene — tissue death did not work the same for nanomachine biology. But Melyn had operated as if on a real live human being, debriding cauterised flesh, suturing severed arteries, and discarding unsalvageable meat. None of that meat had been wasted, of course; every scrap was recycled, straight back into Elpida’s mouth. One grim advantage of being undead.
Now the stump was slathered in thick ointment, wrapped in dry gauze, and dressed with several layers of clean white bandage. The infirmary still reeked of cooked human flesh.
Vicky had seen worse wounds in life — gut wounds, head wounds, sucking chest wounds; brain damage caused by pressure-wave concussions; soldiers blasted apart by artillery barrage, cut in two by high-powered autocannons, melted by white phosphorus, or burnt to cinders by the clinging jelly of napalm. She’d seen worse wounds on Elpida before — she’d watched over Elpida’s seemingly lifeless corpse, shot through the heart by the monster they’d fought outside their own tomb. Vicky herself had suffered almost as badly from that fight, her own arm mangled beyond mortal recovery, only saved by the horrible miracle of zombie biology.
But there was something different about Elpida’s arm just gone, just like that. Nothing left to stick or stitch onto the end of the stump.
Vicky had personally scraped the charred remains of Elpida’s forearm off the floor of the tomb, picking morsels of burnt bone out of the twisted wreckage of the bomb-vest. The resulting handfuls of blackened meat had not seemed large enough to account for a whole human arm and hand, let alone the right arm of the Commander.
That had gone down Elpida’s throat as well, bones and all.
Six inches further up from the dressing was the start of Elpida’s bionic upper arm — a ‘pass-through’ bionic, as she had once explained, passing blood and lymph to her biological forearm. The bionic was a sleek collection of bio-plastic plates, in the exact same copper-brown as Elpida’s real skin. Apparently she had woken with it, back in the tomb, upon resurrection. All too easily forgotten. Vicky rubbed at her own chest, over her heart — her bionic heart, another easily forgotten advantage.
What was the point in the pass-through bionic now? Would Elpida regrow the limb as a full cybernetic arm? Would she abandon more of her simulated flesh?
Victoria looked up and met Elpida’s gaze.
Purple eyes were ringed with dark circles, pinched with echoes of pain, but not the least bit clouded.
Elpida was sitting on one of the two slab-beds in the infirmary, stripped to the waist, holding out her stump for inspection. Her mouth was curled in a subtle smirk.
“Had enough of a gander?” she purred.
Vicky cleared her throat and straightened up from the infirmary bed. “Yeah. Yeah, looks good. Thank you.”
“Looks good?” Kagami echoed from behind Vicky. “How can you even tell? Since when were you a field medic, Victoria? Did I miss that particular chapter in the story of your life, or have you been holding out on us this entire time?”
Elpida’s smirk grew wider.
Victoria turned to look over her shoulder, glad for an excuse to avert her eyes from Elpida’s naked body, away from that knowing grin.
Pheiri’s infirmary was very crowded. Kagami floated close to the bulkhead hatch, suspended on an invisible gravitic field from a trio of her little silver-grey drones, her black hair hanging down in a dark wave; she had her arms folded across her chest, lips compressed with irritation, eyes glaring daggers at everything and everybody. Pira was sat in one of the two fold-out metal chairs attached the walls, wedged at an awkward angle between dead medical machines and blood-stained countertops, her boots planted amid the dried blood on the floor; Pira wore her usual shuttered expression, giving away nothing, but giving Victoria plenty of cause for caution. Shilu — the Necromancer, thankfully still in her human guise — was standing about as far as possible from both the others, at the other end of the infirmary, which was not very far, considering the limits of the cramped space; she held her hands behind her back, feet braced at parade rest. A compliant captive.
The girl for whom Elpida had sacrificed her right arm was laid out on the second of the two slab-beds.
Sanzhima’s body was a wreck. She had been cut out of her clothes, intestines crammed back into her belly, stomach stitched shut. Her chest wounds were stuffed with gauze, right hand swaddled in a mitten of bandages, face plastered with ointment and dressings. She was wrapped in more bandages than the infirmary could spare. Long dark hair was still matted with her own blood, raked back out of her eyes, glued to her scalp. Her face was so puffy that Victoria couldn’t really judge what she looked like beneath all the damage.
Melyn had spent over two hours working on Sanzhima, after Hafina had carried her into the infirmary and lowered her onto the slab. Three times Victoria was certain that they’d lost Sanzhima, but Melyn was a miracle worker — three times the girl had gasped and screeched back to this unkind afterlife, clawing at the slab, writhing to get away, Haf holding her down, everybody shouting and screaming and slipping in the blood. All but Melyn, who had worked in busy silence, sure footed as a mountain goat.
Sanzhima was mercifully unconscious now, covered with a scratchy blue blanket. Her chest rose and fell with each ragged breath.
A half-empty empty cannister of raw blue nanomachines stood next to her head — the secret ingredient to her recovery.
Melyn had not fared well. Life-saving surgery seemed to take an emotional toll on the diminutive Artificial Human. She was slumped in the other fold-out metal seat, wedged into the narrow gap next to Sanzhima, bloody hands curled in her lap, big dark eyes staring at a point on the wall.
The distant shriek and wail of the hurricane whispered far beyond Pheiri’s hull, out there against the black walls of the tomb.
Victoria gave Kagami a look. “Kaga, don’t. We’re all too tired for this. Can it.”
Kagami glared back. “‘Can’ what, Victoria? You’re the one who said it ‘looks good’. Go on, tell us, why does it look good? What’s good about any of—”
Melyn said: “Dressing’s good. Good. Dressing’s good. Clean wound. Wound. Clean. Mm.”
It was the first time Melyn had spoken in over an hour. Her voice was robotic and sharp. She did not look up.
Victoria spread her hands in a shrug.
Kagami cleared her throat. “Yes, well. I’m not trying to disparage Melyn’s work, of course. That wasn’t what I was doing! It wasn’t! Okay?” She glanced down at Melyn. “I wasn’t insulting your work. Do you understand? Melyn? Melyn, are you … ? Tch!”
Pira said, “We get it.”
Kagami rounded on Pira instead, eyes spitting fire, jabbing with one finger. “You don’t have the right to give input, you insect. Shut—”
Victoria raised her voice. “Kaga! She does, we’ve been over this. Any of us—”
“She’ll probably suggest we finish the job!” Kagami snapped. “Pull the rest of the arm off, beat Elpida over the head with it. Why not?”
Victoria sighed, closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was developing a headache. Not surprising. How many hours had she been awake?
Pira said, “Where’s Hafina?”
“How should I know?” Kagami snapped. “Do I look like Pheiri?”
Victoria opened her eyes again. She said, “Uh, crew compartment, last I checked, getting all her armour off. But that was … what, an hour ago? Why?”
Pira nodded a silent acknowledgement, got out of her chair, and walked over to the hatch. She turned her back to Kagami without flinching, which drew a silent snarl from Kagami’s lips. Victoria resisted another sigh; she couldn’t lose her temper right now, they couldn’t afford that. Pira stepped out into the crew compartment. A few moments later she re-entered, followed by Hafina. The six-armed giant was stripped out of her armour, mostly naked, her skin a slow kaleidoscope of shifting colours.
“Hello hello?” Haf said, swinging her head left and right. “Nasty times in here, yeah? Hear you lot shouting.”
Victoria tried to smile. “Don’t worry about that, Haf. Unless you want to give your own input. Everybody’s got a right to, uh, participate?”
Haf shook her head.
Pira gestured at Melyn. “Look after her, please. We can call you if either patient needs further medical attention.”
Hafina nodded and squeezed forward, massive in the cramped space of the infirmary, but graceful and careful despite her size. She plucked Melyn out of the little metal fold-out chair with four of her six arms, cradled the smaller ART to her chest, and carried her back into the crew compartment. Pira gently pulled the hatch almost closed.
“Good thinking,” said Victoria. “Good idea. She probably needed that. Melyn, I mean. We take her for granted.”
Pira shrugged and returned to her own seat.
Kagami tutted. “One problem down, three hundred and sixty five to go. Where do you want to start, Victoria? All the extra mouths to feed? Sleeping arrangements? How about a headcount, see if we’ve picked up any extra passengers? I’m sure we can find a nook or cranny to squeeze in another half-dozen.”
Victoria wanted to cross the room and drag Kagami out of her gravitic suspension field. She entertained a fantasy of slamming Kaga up against a wall and telling her to get the fuck back in line. But she knew that wouldn’t work, not like it worked for Elpida. Victoria could not do what the Commander did. She didn’t have it in her to do violence to Kaga.
Instead she took a deep breath and counted to ten inside her head before she spoke. “Kaga, I know you’re wound up. We’re all wound up. We’re all tense. We’re all uncomfortable. But I can’t deal with you doing this, not right now. I just can’t. Reel it in, or … ”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll head back to my bunk and crash for eight to ten hours. And you can deal with this by yourself.”
Kagami let her eyes slide to Pira, then to Shilu. “By myself? I wish.”
Shilu said, “I can go sit out on the hull, if you prefer.”
Kagami rolled her eyes. “Not what I meant.”
Victoria gestured at Shilu — at her eyes, then her feet. “No, you … you stay here, you stay where we can see you.”
Shilu nodded. “Understood.”
Kagami launched off again. “And what’s to ‘deal with’, anyway? The damage is done. Our suicidal moron of a Commander nearly achieved the glorious martyrdom she so obviously craves, we have yet another badly injured mouth to feed, and a crowd of malnourished charity cases outside who think she’s their cannibal messiah. Great! Wonderful! Let’s have a debriefing, hm? Shall we start with, oh, I don’t know, lessons learned—”
“Kaga—”
“—then we can move onto tips for future operations, swap some knowledge. Compare recipes for cooked arm meat—”
“Kagami, stop—”
“—and get some clarity on not setting off fucking bombs next time!”
Kagami stopped, red in the face, breathing hard.
Pira looked up and met Victoria’s eyes; she didn’t need to say anything to make her message clear — let her rant, she needs this.
But Victoria wasn’t having it. The anger and fear was one thing, but the critique was another.
“What else was Elpida supposed to do, huh?” Vicky said. “What other options did we have? She was right about that part, Kaga. We were in front of a crowd out there, a crowd to which we’d made promises. We had to pull that off, or all we’ve done here would be for nothing. She made the right choice.”
Kagami snorted. “All we’ve done here? Pray tell, Victoria, what exactly have we ‘done here’? Attracted a crowd of hangers-on who we can’t feed? Painted a great big target on our foreheads? Oh, I suppose we’ve spread the name ‘Telokopolis’ about, for all the good that does. Great work, really worth doing, certainly won’t be taken apart the moment this fucking storm ends!”
“None of that changes that Elpida did the right thing.”
“In the most stupid fashion possible!” Kagami shouted. “She could have used a drone, I’ve got plenty of them now! They’re expendable, that’s what they’re for! Or ask Hafina to do it, she’s got a few arms to spare. Hell, Ilyusha has armoured limbs, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten turned into chunky mince! Or Shilu, you — you can regenerate yours, I assume?”
“Within certain limits,” said Shilu. “But I had to do the cutting. And that had to be from the rear, there was no way to hold the vest together from the front.”
“Tch!” Kagami hissed. “Whatever. Bottom line, Elpida didn’t do any of those very sensible things, oh no. She just had to do it herself.”
“Yeah,” Victoria said. “And I still think that was the right choice. I’ll stand by that. You heard that crowd, you heard them cheering. It worked.”
“I also heard half of them screaming! And more than half fleeing the chamber. Shouting and screaming and a lot of running away. Was that part of Elpida’s plans?”
“That … that was inevitable,” Victoria admitted. “But the ones who stayed—”
“Want free meat!” Kagami snapped. “And they’ll stop getting it soon enough. Do you think they’ll keep on cheering then? Do you really think—”
“Elpida only heard the cheering,” said Elpida’s mouth.
Victoria braced herself before she turned back around. She was glad she did; Elpida was still wearing that weird little smirk.
But it wasn’t Elpida.
The Commander had not been present for hours, not since she had slumped into Pheiri’s rear airlock, clutching her stump, howling encouragement at the crowd beyond the picket line. The moment the ramp had thumped shut, Elpida had stumbled sideways as if passing out from pain and blood loss. She had caught herself with an awkward lurch, then straightened up, blinking like she was surprised to be there. It was not Elpida who had walked to the infirmary and sat down to wait. It was not Elpida who had hurried off to the control cockpit to give dangerous suggestions to Iriko. It was not Elpida who wore that smug look. Elpida would never have made that face.
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She sat there, naked from the waist up in her tomb-grey trousers, face dirty with blood and soot, white hair raked back with her grimy left hand, the bandaged stump loose at her side.
Howl looked back from behind those purple eyes.
Kagami tutted. “Then she’s even more delusional than I feared. Great news, thank you.”
Howl let her eyes rove over Kagami, then Pira, then aside to Shilu, looking her up and down. Finally she returned to Victoria.
“What’s the matter, Vicky?” she said, still with that smirk. “Do I give you the creeps? Got you all itchy?”
Kagami sighed, loudly. Pira shifted in her seat.
Victoria shook her head. “No offence, Howl. It’s just really weird seeing you … piloting her, like this, in control. Like she’s here, but she’s not. She’s really not there, not at all?”
Howl shrugged with a little coquettish tilt of Elpida’s head. She raised Elpida’s left hand and wiggled the fingers, as if testing. “Nah, Elps ain’t here right now. You got all me, all the time. But hey, don’t sweat it, this is weird as shit for me too, no joke.”
Pira said: “Where is she?”
Howl tapped Elpida’s forehead with Elpida’s left index finger. “She’s no Necromancer, she hasn’t gone anywhere.”
Victoria sighed. “Yeah, but, metaphorically. Where is she? What’s she doing?”
Howl puffed out a bored sigh and rolled her eyes. “Sleeping. Unconscious. Down and out for the long count.”
“Have you tried ‘waking’ her?”
“Sure. She’s not ready to wake up though.”
“This has never happened before,” said Victoria. “Unless you’ve been up and walking around when she’s been sleeping.”
Howl gave Victoria a sullen look — another expression Elpida would never make. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, grease-head, but this is a bit fucking different to usual.”
“Ha!” Kagami barked. “At least Howl has a sense of humour. Hopefully more instinct for self-preservation than our ‘Commander’, too.”
Victoria closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, Howl was still right there.
“How long?” she said.
Howl grunted. “Eh?”
“How long is this likely to last? When is Elpida going to be back?”
Howl smirked. “Miss her already, huh? It’s okay, I can pretend for you. Snap out some commands, pat you on the head, all that shit.”
Victoria counted to ten inside her head, slowly. “How long?”
Howl dropped the smirk. “Search me, pussy-cat. I don’t fuckin’ know. She’s out. That’s all I got.”
Victoria stepped back, leaned against the other slab-bed, and raised her face to stare at the low grey ceiling. The infirmary was so cramped, there was nowhere else to go. She let out a deep sigh.
Kagami said, “You’re showing surprisingly little pain for somebody with a missing arm. More Necromancer trickery?”
“Yeah, I can block some of that. Stings a bit!”
Shilu said, “You should be able to speed up the regeneration process.”
“Pfffft,” Howl snorted. “Nah, I ain’t got that level of access. Might just pull the whole stupid bionic off. Start from scratch. Enrichment for Elps! Maybe that’ll wake her up, ha!”
Pira sat up in her chair. The metal creaked. “I think you know more than you’re letting on.”
Howl stared at Pira.
Kagami hissed, “Oh for fuck—”
Victoria said, “Let her speak.”
A moment of silence passed, filled with storm static. Pira said: “I think you know why she’s retreated, Howl. We need to talk about it.”
“Oh yeah?” Howl sneered. “And what’s that?”
“She’s all fucked up.”
Howl broke into a smirk. “Sorry, carrot-top, but the only one around here who gets to fuck Elps right now is me.” She raised her left hand and the ragged stump of Elpida’s right arm. “Though I’m down to only one set of fingers. Might need some help to make her squeal. You offering?”
Pira didn’t rise to the bait, but Kagami snorted with blushing laughter.
“Kaga,” Victoria said.
“Are you serious?” Kagami asked. “Is that what you two get up to, alone in the night, when she slinks off to some empty compartment? Does that count as sex, or masturbation?”
Howl stuck her tongue out and waggled it at Kagami. “Definitely sex.”
Kagami laughed again, a little too shrill for Vicky’s comfort. Bad sign. Everyone was fraying.
Howl went on: “You’re welcome to try your luck if you’re ever up and awake and ready for the five-knuckle piston—”
Vicky slammed a fist on the edge of the slab-bed. “Stop!”
All eyes turned to her.
Kagami opened her mouth, but Victoria pointed at her. “Not a word. Shut up, right now.” Kagami scowled, but shut her mouth. Victoria took a deep breath, and said, “We need to talk about her.”
“Elpida?” said Pira.
“Who else? Kagami is right, even if we might disagree on the details. The way she handled that bomb. The fact she’s out cold. Even the decision to save Sanzhima here, it was … messy, yeah, I’ll admit that. All of it. You’re right as well, Pira. She’s all fucked up. She’s been fucked up since the hunt, since we killed Eseld and her friends. At least since then, if not before. That did something to her which she’s never come back from. We all know it, we can all see it.” She glanced at Shilu. “You weren’t there, but I take it you can follow this?”
Shilu nodded.
Kagami muttered, “Why the hell is she in here, anyway?”
“So we can keep an eye on her,” Victoria snapped, then turned to Howl. “Is Elpida going to remember anything we say right now?”
Howl shrugged. “If I tell her.”
“Are you going to?”
Howl closed her eyes and stuck her tongue into her cheek. “Hmmmmmmm. Who knows? I think you bitches need to concentrate on the practical shit right now. You don’t got time for playing fifty questions with me.”
“Practical concerns?” Pira said.
“Yeah!” Howl opened her eyes again and smirked. She lingered on Pira for a moment, then skipped across Kagami, and landed on Victoria. “Vicky, hey. Where’s everybody else right now, huh?”
“Pardon?”
“Everybody else. The others. Your girls. Your bitches. Where they at?”
Victoria frowned, trying to focus through the haze of exhaustion and post-stress energy crash. “Why? What does that matter?”
“Just gimme the run-down. Imagine I’m Elps, if it helps you. Chop chop, hop to your orders! Double time! Woo!”
Victoria sighed. “Other than us in here? Alright then. Mel and Haf are in the crew compartment now, I assume. Sky, she’s still unconscious, we moved her into the bunk room, right?”
Pira said, “She woke for a few moments. Asked where she was. She wasn’t coherent.”
“Right,” Victoria said. “Uh … Eseld and Cyneswith, they’re in the bunk room too. Illy and Amina are meant to be in there with them, keeping an eye on them, but who knows for sure? I wouldn’t be surprised if half the crew is asleep by now. We’re burning the midnight oil here.” She sighed again, feeling the heavy drag in her limbs and head. Howl just kept nodding along. “Atyle went to the control cockpit. Ooni … ”
“Asleep,” Pira provided.
“Thanks. Ooni, sleeping. Serin, whereabouts unknown. She vanished after the bomb and now she’s beyond comms range. And we can’t raise Iriko, either. That’s probably your fault, Howl. You filled her head with orders and she ran off to hunt the Death’s Heads.”
Howl shrugged. “I said no hunt.”
Victoria tutted. “As for the rest, there’s a small crowd of zombies still out there in the chamber. Pheiri’s watching over them. About twenty-something of them, all the ones who didn’t run.” She glanced at Kagami. “Speaking of which, who’s on the drone picket, if you’re here?”
Kagami rolled her eyes and gestured at the ceiling. “Who do you think?”
“Ah, Pheiri, right. Okay.”
Howl flashed Elpida’s teeth. “Huh. Cool. Alright then, Victoria Volcano, what’s your plan?”
Vicky blinked. “My plan?”
“Is there an echo in here?” Howl cackled. “Yeah, bitch. Your plan! What you gonna do now?”
Victoria spread her hands and felt like laughing. “Hunker down? Wait for Elpi to—”
“Ehhh-errrr!” Howl made a noise like a buzzer. “Not good enough!” She waggled her stump. “You get blown up by a bunch of shit heads, you don’t retreat into your shell, that’s a signal they can push their advantage. You gotta strike back, fuck ‘em up, make ‘em know there’s consequences for this shit. Make everyone know we’re not to be messed with.”
Kagami grunted. “That’s what I would do. I’m glad we can agree on something.”
Victoria sighed and raised her hands in the air. “Then why ask me?”
Howl said, “‘Cos you’re in command now, cunt.”
Victoria’s stomach lurched. “What? No, no, I’m not in command.”
Howl gestured at Vicky’s face. “Then why are you wearing the headset?”
Vicky raised her fingers to the comms headset still wrapped around her skull, earphone still covering one ear. “In case Pheiri needs to alert us to something. Kagami’s wearing one too! It doesn’t mean anything! And I can’t take command! I don’t know the first thing about that. I know guns, preferably big guns. I don’t know how to do what … what Elpida does. No.”
Howl snorted. “Weak.” She glanced at Pira.
Pira said, “Me neither.”
Kagami sighed. “I could—”
Vicky turned to her. “Kaga, no—”
“—if everyone was a wire-slaved drone,” she finished, voice brimming over with sarcasm. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, Victoria. Really, thank you so much.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You mean I’m an incompetent. I know exactly what you mean.”
“I mean you’re not her! You’re not Elpida!”
Howl cackled and kicked her legs against the side of the slab-bed. “You girls are not dropping this to me, fuck no, no way, I ain’t taking that wheel.”
Victoria said, “You’re not her. You’re not Elpida. You’re not the Commander.”
“Damn right I’m not!” Howl snapped. “I’m not made for it! One of you bitches needs to step up, ‘cos you’re the closest thing she’s got to a command staff!” Howl glanced at Shilu. “Cheese grater here excluded.”
Shilu nodded.
Kagami snorted. “What are you made for then, Howl? Insults and profanity?”
Howl cracked a grin. “Killing big things, fast and dirty, in small spaces.” She stared at Elpida’s missing arm. “If I had two hands I’d go after those shit-fuck bitches myself. Take one of those super-compact combat shotguns from the armoury. A ballistic shield. Armour, grenades. Take Illy with me, she knows how to rock. Let me do it, I’ll get it done in an hour tops. Bring back a string of heads, mount them on Pheiri’s front.”
Pira said, “You’d get taken apart.”
Howl stared at her with sudden pinched anger — then grinned. “Oh yeah, cunt face? I never forgot that you mag-dumped into Elps’ belly. You’re one of us, you’re one of her girls, but that doesn’t mean I can’t knock some teeth out, even one-handed. You wanna take that bet, you—”
“You’re in the wrong body,” Pira said, calm and slow. “I saw it earlier. The way you walk, how you hold yourself. Or rather, how you hold Elpida’s body. You’re not familiar with her gait, her body weight, her height, her reach, all of it. Normally, when you use her mouth to speak, you don’t actually take over her whole musculature, only what you need. You did control her whole body once before, to fight Lykke, but Lykke was so incompetent at close quarters combat that your imprecision didn’t matter, you could just brute force with Elpida’s muscles and win anyway. But if you arm up and go after the Death’s Heads, they’ll take you apart.”
Howl’s grin died. She sighed through her nose, eyes sliding away, across the infirmary. All the fight seemed to go out of her.
Storm-static filled the silence, roaring far beyond the walls.
Victoria wasn’t sure what to think of Howl.
Intellectually she knew that Howl and Elpida were separate people. They just happened to be sharing one body. One brain, two occupants. This was no more impossible or bizarre than anything Victoria had witnessed since bodily resurrection three hundred million years in the future. But over the last few weeks, as the crew had settled into new rhythms of life inside Pheiri, Victoria had found it hard to consider Howl as distinct from Elpida. In practice Howl only came out when she wanted to say something that Elpida would not. This habit made Howl feel like simply another side of Elpida herself — a mood or an emotion, rather than a separate individual in her own right. It didn’t help that Howl generally kept to herself; Elpida liked to talk to everyone, sometimes at great length, taking interest in every member of her new ‘cadre’. But Howl hid inside Elpida’s mind, emerging only to emit the occasional cackle or comment. She was an enigma to the others, most of the time.
But now Howl was right in front of her, looking back from inside Elpida’s purple eyes.
Everything about Howl was different — mannerisms, microexpressions, even the way she modulated her voice. The motion of her eyes was different to how Elpida looked at others, or examined a room, or made contact. Elpida’s gaze was often slow and methodical. When Elpida looked at Victoria, Vicky felt that Elpida saw her in full, inside and out, in a way few others had ever done. But Howl’s gaze was quick and jerky, always darting off to some other point in the infirmary. When she looked at Victoria, she seemed to see something amusing, a joke Vicky did not share.
Elpida would never have slumped in defeat, either.
Elpida wasn’t here; Vicky had to step up.
“It’s … it’s alright, Howl,” she said, slowly, testing the words. “I think I get it now. You’re deflecting, trying to protect Elpi. I get it, I really do. We need to take some of the weight off her shoulders. It’s the only way.”
Howl sighed. She swung her legs up onto the slab-bed, then lay down on her naked back. She rested Elpida’s stump on the slab and covered her eyes with her other hand.
“Yuuuuup,” she grunted. “Because Elps is alllllll fucked up.”
Silence crept back, filled with the static of the storm. Victoria didn’t know what to say.
Eventually, Pira said, “She rarely lets others take real responsibility. She doesn’t delegate anything she can do herself. Admirable, but not sustainable.”
“Mmhmm,” Howl grunted.
Vicky weighed her words carefully. “Was she like this with the … the ‘cadre’? You and her other sisters?”
“Nope.”
“You know her infinitely better than we do. You grew up with her. In her own … your own time and culture, right? Has she ever done anything like this before?”
“Nah,” Howl grunted. “Even in the worst of times, she’s never crumpled like this.”
Kagami snorted. “Then what the hell is she doing?”
Howl didn’t answer. Beyond the tomb’s walls, dark winds screamed across the black metal. Victoria could barely think.
Shilu said, “From what I’ve seen of you lot so far, Elpida has sole command responsibility here. But this group is small, easily led. Internal friction is common, but you’re all working for the same goal, mostly. That’s not the problem. The problem is more abstract. I don’t know her well enough to say more.”
Kagami rolled her eyes. “Can’t believe we let you inside the hull.”
“Once again, I can leave, if you want.”
“Shut up,” Kagami grumbled.
Howl drawled from her bloodstained slab, speaking to the ceiling. “Deep down, Elps still thinks of you all as civvies. Or maybe Legion, at best. You’re all her responsibility. This whole fucking situation — the whole world! — all her responsibility. She’s the only one of us, the only Telokopolan. She’s got all the weight. And she won’t give it up, not for shit. S’why she saved that girl. S’why she won’t ease up, not even for a second.”
A long silence. Pira swallowed. Kagami looked sullen and guilty. Victoria didn’t know what to say.
Shilu said, “Her burden is a moral one.”
Howl snorted, still hiding Elpida’s eyes behind her one remaining hand. “Could say that. She always avoided that kinda thing, back when we were alive. Moral burdens, big choices, all that rubbish. She kept us away from the big decisions, the politics, the stuff that could have gotten us in bad, in deep, where we couldn’t get back out. Kept us focused on training, on our skills, on each other. Made us stand apart.” Howl shook her head. “She could have rallied the Civitas, the parts of it which liked us. Or even just the people, at least the fucking Skirts. They loved us! Lapped up the fiction, the news, all of it. She could have used us as a symbol. But she didn’t.”
Howl paused. Victoria shared a look with Kagami, then Pira. She opened her mouth, but suddenly Howl was carrying on.
“We almost did it ourselves, without her say so,” she said. “This one time. We were gonna take a combat frame without permission, a rip and run. The Stargazer, little fucker who would have behaved good on camera for us. We were gonna walk it out onto the plateau and make sure we got on all the newscasts, declare against the Covenanters.” A grin grew across Howl’s lips. “Mad plan. It grew as we went. From one frame to three. From putting our case to the public, to calling for a round-up of those fucks. Civil war inside the Spire. Would have worked, too.” Her grin died. “But Elps, we couldn’t keep shit from her. She got wind of it, shut it down.”
Pira said, “Why?”
Howl sighed. “Because she was afraid it would paint a target on us. Because she thought we could stand apart from all the shit going on.”
Silence, storm-static, black winds raging. Howl pressing that hand to Elpida’s eyes.
Victoria said, “But she was wrong.”
Howl nodded. “Ohhhh yeah. She was wrong. You gotta remember, she watched all her sisters die ‘cos she got it fucking wrong. Me too. And now she’s doing the opposite. She’s made herself into a symbol and she can’t let it fail. She can’t let a single soul go, even if we’re all already undead. She can’t do it all over again.”
Howl lay there for a moment, saying nothing. Then she quickly drew her hand across Elpida’s eyes and sat back up, red-rimmed gaze darting across the others.
“Don’t tell her you saw me like this,” Howl said. “It won’t help her.”
Victoria said, “Can you get through to her?”
Howl shrugged. “Probably not.”
Silence returned again, filled with the tiny sounds of Pheiri’s body, the clicking and whirring of his innards, the distant nuclear heartbeat down in his core — all drowned beneath the howling hurricane outside.
Kagami was staring at Sanzhima’s unconscious form. “That girl didn’t even want to be saved,” she muttered. “You all heard her, begging for mercy. She didn’t even want this. She wanted a bullet.”
Pira straightened up. “That doesn’t matter.”
Kagami squinted at her. “What? What doesn’t matter?”
“Elpida never leaves anybody behind,” Pira said. “She never abandons anybody.””
Kagami snarled. “Perhaps she should have left you behind! You saw what that girl—”
“It’s the only way any of this continues to work,” Pira said, cold and calm, face shuttered. “Without that promise, all this falls apart. Nobody is left behind. Not even the dead.”
Howl grunted, growling with sarcasm. “Right.”
Victoria stared at the ceiling again. This was exhausting. How did Elpida deal with this, all the time, this pressure and this burden?
She shouldn’t have to.
“Look at us,” Victoria said, glancing around at the others. “We’re paralysed without her. This is absurd. We can’t rely on one point of failure like this. We can’t keep putting this on her, that’s part of why this has happened, why she’s … retreated. She’s burned out.”
“She takes it on herself,” Kagami grunted. “That’s not our fault.”
“Doesn’t matter who’s fault it is,” Vicky said. “We gotta step up anyway. Are we just Elpida’s … minions?” She shrugged. “Or are we … are we … ”
Victoria trailed off. All the words she could think of felt inadequate. Are we a team? Are we comrades? Are we Pheiri’s little helpers? Nothing she could say seemed right, everything seemed silly, especially when said in her voice. She felt the moment slip away from her. Maybe they really should hunker down and hide, until Elpida woke and the storm passed. She wasn’t cut out for this, none of them would have survived without Elpida, none of them-
“We are the children of Telokopolis,” said Pira. “Even if she was not our birth mother.”
Pira raised her eyes to look at Howl.
Howl held that gaze, without any hint of a smirk. She nodded and swallowed. “Sure. Sure, yeah. Sure.”
Shilu said, “Even me?”
Howl swung a grin toward Shilu. “If you wanna be, cheese grater.”
“Then I am.”
“Telokopolis is forever,” said Pira, though her voice lacked all conviction.
The others echoed the refrain. Kagami muttered it under her breath. Howl thumped herself on the chest with Elpida’s left hand. Shilu said the words slowly and carefully. Victoria whispered, drowned out by the storm.
After a long moment, Shilu spoke up again. “Victoria, I have to echo Howl, but with a slightly different emphasis — what’s the plan?”
Victoria shook her head. “Whatever we do, we all have to agree on it. And we should get Pheiri’s input too, he’s the closest thing to a command position we have right now, outside of ourselves. We don’t take any decisions unless we agree. No unilateral action.”
Kagami snorted. “I sense a ‘but’ on the way.”
“But,” Victoria sighed. “But I think Howl has a point. We can’t cower. As long as we’re stuck in this tomb, we need to hunt down the Death’s Heads, show some spine, put heads on spikes, all that. I mean, metaphorically. I’m not putting heads on actual spikes. Anyway, Serin and Iriko may already be on it, but they’re acting without support. It’s time we stopped doing that.”
Howl grinned, wide and toothy, in a way Elpida would never.
“Let’s go take some skulls, bitches!”