To Walk the Constellations Pt. 01

The Veetolls, being beefier, settled on the loading docks proper, where ships would unload food from Agrisland up north. The sides opened and out came the Hegemony shocktroopers. They had their railrifles, but they didn't aim them at the crowd. They instead used their hands -- and considering each was in a kind of armor that covered them from head to toes, their hands were more than enough. They shoved and pushed, shouting in our language. "Make way, you locals, make ways."

The sphere bubbled open.

And out came the Liminal Knight.

THE LIMINAL KNIGHT

The Liminal Knight stepped from the sphere with regal disdain. He was clad in black quilted armor, fitted for easy movement and grace. His shoulders had metal woven among it, stapling a cape that billowed as long and as stark as a starless sky, cracking and snapping in the boiling hot wind blowing off the acid seas. His boots were polished and his gloves were tight and tipped on each fingertip with silver claws, sharp enough that I felt them cutting the skin even from here. His head was concealed behind a mask -- a flat plane of featureless black. It didn't even reflect back. It had no eyes, nor mouth, nor hair. It slowly swung from side to side as he walked -- click click click -- up the pier towards the crowd, which the shocktroops were pushing back to make way.

Tiar Junker had come out of his home in his best outfit. Tiar himself was a Human whose ancestors had gotten jiggered around to work on a world with crushing gravity and fierce pressure. His body was blob fat and hardened, short and squat. Despite that, he carried himself like a handsome man and he dressed the part too -- and so, kind of made it true. His hair was slicked back and he emerged from his home with two of his bully boys flanking him -- both carrying chests full of tax. Did they know how totally stupid they looked, trying to swagger while men in powered armor stood to either side and a Liminal Knight walked forward.

Except...

Was he?

I didn't know. I craned my head, my neck prickling as I tried to see if he was or if maybe this was just how Hegemony taxmen dressed. But in all of Rhales' stories, Liminal Knights were the ones in the sleekest cuts, leading the fray, with fate roiling around them like a storm. And there it was. Right on the black-clad man's belt: A silver hilt. The hilt of a Threshold Blade. The weapon of a Liminal Knight. My whole guts knotted and I wondered; Was he a true knight? Had he been to Home and knelt in the AI Temples? Had he walked all the worlds in the Chain between his birthplace and here? How many suns had he seen? How many constellations?

And why, after seeing all of that, had he bent the knee to Emperor Rehoboam?

It was so very easy to start to hate him, without him even done a thing.

"Sire," Tiar Junker said, his voice carrying in the sudden silence -- silence save for the wind, the snap of the cape, the shift and clink of armor in soldiers standing at attention.

"Tiar Junker," the Liminal Knight said, voice made robotic and husky by the mask. "I didn't come for your paltry offerings." His hand waved and the casket that Tiar's right man held went flying. For just an instant, I saw three shimmering lines in the air, catching a chance light of the sun and the voice that wasn't a void spoke in my head.

Monomolecular wire, extruded from a nanofactury, launched by microdarts and embedded in the casket. Piezo-electric effectors used to impart lateral motion and-

The casket hit the ground, spilling open, and I saw the tax that Tiar had collected: The best bits of plastic, the most shiny STW. Comptech, a gun, a few USB sticks. All of them tumbled and clattered and the Liminal Knight stepped on the comptech and ground it into the ground with a twist of his heel. I had to admit. I kinda loved seeing Tiar's face widen, his jaw go slack, his knees go wobbly.

"S-Sire-"

"Enough," the Liminal Knight said. "We shall discuss this inside. If you have done as I asked..."

How had the Knight asked anything of Tiar? My eyes narrowed as the Hegemony shocktroops followed after. The crowd started to mill about, whispering in awe -- they'd never seen anything like that before, no sir-ee. Rhales was going to get a lot of portions and credit for being right, for saying that Liminal Knights could make gravity and inertia their bitch. Except that he was wrong. All wrong. It had been a trick of wires, like a stage show. Except those wires hadn't been there before the Knight got there. It was like a trick without a trick.

I started forward, gripping my staff to my chest, trying to not think about my plan too much. My eyes were locked on the cape billowing behind the Knight as he and Triar headed for Junker's home. The cape flipped aside and just for a moment, I could see the Threshold Blade and-

Micro nanofactury with unlimited production routines and internal reservoir of-

I shook my head. Get. Stop. Out! Fuck! I put my hand to my temple, feeling a twinging sense of pain. And just for a moment, the Knight glanced back. Like he had heard. I ducked as hard and as fast as I could, rolling behind one of the air processors that made walking around inside of Junker Port halfway close to livable. My back pressed to it and my heart jackhammered. I peeked around after a while minute dragged by and saw the Hegemony soldiers were all around Tiar's house. No way I could slip into the alleyway and listen in.

Or...was there?

GIDDY'S HOUSE OF ILL REPUTE AND LISCENTIOUSNESS

The only building that was close to Tiar's and high enough to make this maybe work was Giddy's house of ill repute and licentiousness. People kept threatening me with her back rooms -- if you don't shape up, Gee, you'll go work for Giddy.

And? If she took a twiggy girl who didn't even turn heads in the communal showers, then she either was crazy, or had a customer with a really specific want in mind. And even that'd be easier and faster and safer than going out scrapping. Also, unlike Tiar, Giddy treated her girls good. People had funny ideas about that, but I'd actually, like, talked to them. Since I knew better than a lot that when someone said 'everyone says', that everyone was usually full of bile and snot.

So, I sidled into Giddy's house and tugged off my mask and was almost immediately assaulted by Giddy herself. Giddy was a four armed human with purple skin and...

Um...

Lots of...you know. Uh.

My eyes darted away as she walked forward, saying: "Venn! Darling, did you see those awful Hegemony creatures, surely, they gave you such a fright!" And then her arms wrapped me up and crushed me right up against the you know and my whole face flushed. I squirmed and tried to make a noise beyond a choked 'gurrrph', but Giddy's hug was relentless and unstoppable. She squeezed and squeezed until she heard my bones crack. Then she let me go, clucking her tongue. "They didn't trouble you, did they?"

Giddy always worried about me.

"No," I said, grinning shyly. "No, I'm good, Miss Giddy. But, I was wondering..." Who was on the second story? "Is Techne in? I, uh, I found something that she might like. Um, while I was out scrapping."

"I think she is," Giddy said. "And she was asking about you -- ever since you fixed her knee, she's been practically singing your praises, Venn."

I grinned, shyly and my cheeks went all red and my dots got real obvious. They always did when I blushed. I looked away and rubbed the back of my neck, but the sick part of me that lived deep in the gut and at the base of the spine grumbled -- rumbled really: Oh, yeah. You fixed a busted pneumatic tube, so fucking special, Gee. Applause! Applause!

Giddy gestured me to the stairs and I headed past all the tables for drinking and past the sitar that rested against the wall, waiting for Rhales to come and start playing it while speaking his stories. Behind me, I heard other people stepping into Giddy's -- it sounded like other people wanted to get away from the Hegemony that had come stomping down on our town. I heard one person say, loud enough to carry to the stairs: "And he made Tiar beg. God, I never thought I'd see Junker do that in my whole life."

Then I was up the stairs. I took the switchback past the first level -- since it went ground floor, first floor, second floor in Giddy's, don't ask me why -- and then stepped out onto the second. My plan was to just go past Techne's room and use the hall window to scramble onto the roof. But as I walked past Techne's room, I noticed her door was closed. My brow furrowed a bit. Techne never closed her door. Even when she was, uh. You know. With. Someone. Uh.

I paused, then put my ear to the door, just to make sure...you know...safe. I bit my lip, but rather than the squeak, groan, moan, slap and tickle I'd, uh, definitely hadn't wanted to hear, honest...I heard only a soft murmuring. It sounded like two voices. My brow furrowed. What the fuck? One of those voices was Tiar, I had gotten good at hearing his jowly growl through walls and around corners, just so I'd be able to hide.

I tried the knob. It was locked. But I accidentally dropped a single bit of scrapper's jell into it using my glue-gun and accidentally set it off. The tiny puff of smoke reached my nose, but Techne's sense of smell was garbage. The knob opened up smooth as butter and I swung in and saw Techne, sprawled on the bed, a gun in her hand and aimed right at Tiar's roof, a pair of headphones on her silvery head, and a look of deep, focused attention on her chrome face.

She looked back at me, and she drew a second gun from under her pillow and aimed it right at my head.

TECHNE

Techne was a synth and some people worshiped her for that.

So, there were Machines and there were Humans. A Human was anything that thought like a human. Some came, originally, from clusters that the original, ancient, 'pure' humans had found. Others were created by jiggering and breeding. Others were random mutations and chances of fate that were now their own kind of Human. But there were also some synthetic beings that, while they didn't breathe and didn't eat, they still thought like humans.

They were called synths or droids or robots or fakes or plastics or replicants or whatever.

Then there were Machines.

The Machines were...

Well, I...

I wasn't sure. People worshiped them like gods, but they also said that they'd left and were never coming back. Some people said that they gave Liminal Knights their powers, and others said that they were vengeful and hateful beasts that despised Humans and wanted us deader than Stumble's orcas. People said a lot of things, but no Machine had ever showed up, all glowing and terrible, and proclaimed: I AM A MACHINE AND YOU ARE PITIFUL ANTS TO ME.

Techne herself looked a lot like a pure human, save that her skin was chrome. All of it. Chrome and perfect. Where I was a twig, she was full and perky. Where I was flat, she had a bubble butt. Where my legs were narrow lines, hers were long but didn't look like they were too long. Her feet were dainty, and she had hair that was permanently perfectly coiled and coiffed and dressed up nice and fancy. Her eyes, though, were the prettiest part of her: Gleaming and blue, like two camera lenses that had been dyed the color of fine plastic.

All of this was hard to notice when a gun was aimed at my face. The barrel looked yawning and huge as the ramscoop I'd walked into, and I stood frozen -- part shocked at the danger, part stunned. Guns were nearly extinct on Stumble, and here I was, looking at my third for one day. Heck, my ten hundredth if you counted all the guns on the Worldkiller I'd seen.

Techne lowered the gun and in one smooth movement came to the door, jerked me in, then shut it. She hissed. "What. Are. You. Doing, Venn!?"

I gabbled at her. "I don- I wha -- you, I..."

Techne hissed, then grabbed up the other gun. She aimed it back at the roof of Tiar's house. I expected a beam to come out of it, or for the house to explode and to take Tiar and his lackeys and the Liminal Knight all up in one big fireball. Instead, voices came from the stock of the gun -- and I saw that in all the commotion, the headphone jack was swaying free. It had come unplugged. From the gun? But then all I had time to wonder about were the words I was hearing.

"-ery disappointed in you, Junker."

Strangling noises. Choked. Gasping.

"Did you think we wouldn't notice? Did you think you could hide what you were doing from the Hegemony?" The Liminal Knight sounded coldly furious, his voice trembling. The choking managed to form into a word.

"H...elp!"

The strangling sound stopped. Then, gasps. Then Tiar: "W-We were just trying to help, sire!"

"You were trying to steal what was mine out from under my nose." The strangling started again. "I should burn this whole pitiful village to the ground."

Somehow, the gun was bringing the words from the room to us. I had no idea how. But deep in my gut, I knew exactly what was happening. Tiar's new tech field hadn't been something he found with hard work and good luck. The Hegemony had slipped the word to him. Maybe it had even said 'go and make sure everything was safe as could be, and we'll reward you.' And now Tiar had gotten desperately greedy and now the Knight was strangling him. Was he using his raw will, like in the stories? But something even deeper hit me.

I didn't want to listen to Tiar die.

BEING A HERO

He'd hurt me, okay? He'd...he'd done so many bad things. He'd left me cold and hungry cause I hadn't brought enough STW. But I...I never wanted to hear him strangling and choking. I had imagined finding a handsome prince and having him sweep me away and getting to see Tiar gnash his teeth and cry as I sauntered around in a dress of spun mana and cloudweave. My fists tightened and I saw the line that stretched between Giddy's and Tiar's. The power cable, since Tiar had the power generator. Before I knew it, I was on the window sill.

Techne, hissing: "Venn!"

I flung myself out, got my staff over the cable, and clung as I skidded on it. The cable bowed and my speed went up faster than I thought possible. I slammed, feet first, onto the roof and rolled. My cheek mashed up against the metal and I hissed, jerking back. The sun had baked it hot and as I stood, I heard a Hegemony voice in my head. Crackling and hissing, but still audible.

"Anyone else hear that?"

"I did," a Hegemony voice spoke back -- this one female. "Checking it."

I froze. They'd heard me. Then there was a chuff and a thump and there was the Hegemony girl. She looked just like the boys -- no chest showed on her armor. It was fitted for a single form, and that form was dominant. Powerful. She had just jumped ten, fifteen feet and landed on the roof without breaking her stride. And she'd see me. And I'd die. I froze. That was the only thing I could do. I froze in place and waited for her to point her finger at me.

Her head swept around, looking left, then right. She walked towards me, casually, then knelt down. Her hand grabbed my staff and my nerveless fingers let her pick it up. She held it, her rifle hanging by her hip like it was suspended in magic. She looked at the staff, shaking her head.

"Some kid hucked trash up here. Anyone see anything?"

"No, but these boonies don't even have steady gunpowder," another voice said. "I'm not too worried."

The woman laughed and, without even flinching, snapped my staff in half and threw both halves over the edge of the building, where they rang off the ground.

NO TIME FOR QUESTIONS

I looked back over at Techne, who was peeking out of her window as nervously as one could. She saw me and was gaping. She looked totally stunned. But I had to save Tiar. I scrambled to my knees and moved as soft and as quiet as I could, padding on the roof, glad for the thick soles. As I came near to the back, I could hear the voices -- soft and muted by drifting through an open window at the back.

"It seems you need more incentive..." The Liminal Knight was speaking. "You see this. Do you not?"

"Y-Yes," Tiar gasped out. "It's your Threshold Blade."

"Do you know why they call them that?" The Liminal Knight said. "A Threshold Blade can cut through a man and it can cut into a piece of comptech. The blade isn't actually a blade, see. It's the hilt. The hilt holds a river of mana -- made small enough to be held in the palm of my hand."

I came to the edge of the roof and I laid on my belly. I craned my head around and saw an upside down view of the office. The Liminal Knight was holding out his hand. Tiar was on his knees, forced down by two Hegemony soldiers, both holding him with the dispassionate casualness that...Tiar's goons used on someone when they stole from him. Tiar's throat looked red and raw, like he'd been, well. Strangled. Duh. The Liminal Knight's blade rested on his palm. Was it just me, or had it gotten larger? Swelled up from single hand hilt to one that'd take two to grip properly.

"But what most people have forgotten is that there's less difference between a comptech you carry in your hand," the Liminal Knight said, his voice grown even softer. "And the brain you carry between your ears. Nerve endings are like copper circuits. Hormones are like programs. Electrical pathways and tricks with calculations." His hand gripped the hilt, suddenly, and he slammed the blunt, swordless front into Tiar's forehead. For a second, I thought I'd see what everyone said Threshold Blades looked like when they were turned on -- a colored beam of light, emerging from the back of Tiar's head.

Red. I was sure this Knight used a red sword.

Instead, gray lines started to spread along Tiar's forehead, bulging, like tiny wires were wriggling under his skin. His mouth opened and he started to scream. He screamed -- and then gasped as the Knight jerked his blade back, shaking his head. "In the Domain cargo transport, huh?" He paused. "But who is this 908-101g?"

"A...scrapper!" Tiar cried out. "I can bring her to you! She was found by the Machine Temple, an orphan-"

I gasped.

Tiar had hidden his fucking stolen treasure in my ship! That fucking asshole!

Gasping was a bad idea. I'd gotten cocky. I thought no one would hear me. But Tiar heard. And the Knight heard. The shocktroops didn't, but when the Knight looked right at me, I knew he could see me. His voice growled out. "Sergeant Matoi, do you see that spy looking in through the window right now?"

"S-Sir?" one of the shocktroopers asked.

"Go primitive. Now." The Knight's hand clenched and a shimmering, golden sword exploded from his hilt with a sheering, snarling sound. Like the air itself was being ripped in half. The helmets slicked back, revealing distressingly human faces and hair the color of the sun. Their eyes widened me and they reached for their guns and I scrambled to my feet and away from the window as fast as I could.

RUN

I leaped off the roof and landed on the wall that ringed around Tiar's back yard. A whirr clang sounded out and the wall to the left of my foot exploded into a spray of powder and the corner of the house built on the far side of the wall vanished in a red shine. I leaped from wall to the roof and went through the cheap built scrap metal, landing right in the middle of a small kitchen nook. A girl with green skin and gills screeched at me, but I was already scrambling out through the window and sprinting towards the wall. Behind me, I could hear chuffs and thumps and chuffs and thumps.