Chapter 13
Leverage
HIMS Homo Ferus II, Orbiting At-Tamir V-3
"Miss Takahashi."
Gally almost forgot to respond. It had been so long. Her own name sounded strange to her.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Please, let's drop the formalities," the officer said. "Call me Maki. Do you mind if I call you Naru?"
In truth, like many Japanese, Gally did not like strangers being overly familiar, but she did not think it wise to object. A noble might have some weight to throw around against the military, but a common citizen like her was much lower on the food chain and had little choice but to meekly submit to the whims of her 'betters'.
"Call me whatever you want, ma'am," Gally said before correcting herself. "Ah, I mean, Maki."
Maki smiled. It was surely part of a well-practiced routine rather than actual friendliness. Gally tried not to let her nervousness show, but they were almost certainly monitoring her biometrics, so anything she tried to conceal would be exposed easily enough.
Though it might make things worse by drawing attention to them, Gally nevertheless ventured to ask, "Where are the others, the ones you brought in with me?"
"They're being processed," Maki said. "The fact that you tried to defend them told us that you were neither being held against your will nor being mistreated, unlike many of the citizens we have rescued, and so long as they are compliant and non-hostile, they will be treated with every consideration we would afford any other civilian."
Given some of the stories people would tell about the military's treatment of civilians, Maki's assurances were not all that assuring.
"Let's go over the basics first," Maki said, swiping through a tablet. "Takahashi, Narumi, born 12 October 409, serial number 3218-Kilo-Zulu-Lima-Bravo-2957. Address: Parkside Hills Plaza, Room 1214, Giacchino 4-17-6, Villavicencio, Venturetti. Employed by Ekko-Anwine as an administrative assistant since 16 March 432. Father: Takahashi, Shougo; Mother: Takahashi, Nagomi; Sibling: Takahashi, Naruhiko. Everything sounding correct so far?"
Gally held her forehead while nodding.
"I'm pretty sure that's all right. I... I don't remember everything."
"It's a consistent pattern with the people we've recovered so far, a side effect of your... ordeal, shall we say?"
"Curse," Gally said.
"We'd like to avoid such unscientific terms," Maki said. "As I understand it, the current inhabitants have become quite primitive since the Skyfall Calamity."
"Is that what you call the Cataclysm?"
"Cataclysm, calamity... Everywhere we go, they have their own name for it."
It should not have surprised Gally that this was not the only world where this sort of thing had happened, or that there were others the Empire had visited before.
Without being prompted, Maki began to explain, telling her, "Fleets like this one, we're part of a project called Reclamation, where we go around reasserting the Emperor's claim on Lost Worlds and integrating them back into the Empire."
"And how do these Lost Worlds feel about being 'reclaimed'?" Gally asked.
"Some take to it better than others. Our job is to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible."
"And if things don't go smoothly?"
"Surely I don't need to explain the principle of carrots and sticks to you, Naru."
Gally did not much want to think about the sort of sticks at their disposal.
"This word is unique in that it has Imperial citizens from the time of the Skyfall Calamity preserved to the present day," Maki said. "It was fairly recent that people like yourself were up and moving around. The planet's Core Unit was reactivated and you know something about it, Naru. Tell me, what were you doing so far from home, in the ruins of the most highly restricted area on the planet?"
Gally did not say anything. She did not know how much she ought to say, so it seemed best to say nothing. This, however, was not what Maki wanted.
"Now, now, Naru. We were getting along just fine. Surely you understand that as an Imperial citizen, you have an obligation to tell me everything. You're a good daughter of the Father of All Humanity, aren't you, Naru? If you weren't, I'd have to use the rod of the Father's discipline and you don't want that, now do you?"
It certainly did not take much for the mask to drop. Gally was not particularly eager to learn how technology had advanced in the past three hundred years when it came to extracting information. Even if she thought she was protecting anyone by resisting, they could take whatever they wanted. She was not quite brave or foolish enough to resist just for the sake of saying she tried.
"I don't know anything about Core Units," she said, "but there was something people call the Star Seed, the Heart of Disaster, the cause of the Cataclysm. I thought I might be able to learn something about who I am if I saw it for myself. Giger, the man who found me, he took me to a place called Nylos, across this barren patch they call the Hollow Sea. We found a city in ruins and we went underground and there it was, the Star Seed. Something happened... It woke up, I guess, reactivated, whatever you want to call it. That was when the others woke up. The whole world got turned upside-down because of it, and now you're here."
"Those are the broad strokes of the story, but I want specifics," Maki said.
"I don't know what to tell you," Gally replied. "I'm not a mage—er, Arcanist, I mean—and I'm not a scientist. I can't be much more specific."
"I would very much like you to try."
"I didn't see most of what happened. I was told to run if things went bad and things went bad."
Maki's fingers stroked her cheek, an apparent tic of hers when she was thinking.
"There's more you can tell me, I'm sure, but let's move ahead for now. What happened after the Core Unit reactivated?"
"The Cerberus Guild, the mages occupying that area, they basically had kill on sight orders and with all these statues suddenly turning into people, they were just going to wipe out everyone."
"We've found the mass graves," Maki said, "both for the more recently deceased and a few hundred years' worth of less recently deceased. Men, women, children, even infants..."
Gally could feel her stomach seize up and she clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting everywhere. She had not seen any of it for herself, but she knew it had happened. She could not look at the other Ancients without thinking about it. It had grown more distant ever since she got back to Vigau, but it would still creep onto her from time to time.
"And you just stood by and let it happen. Is that right?"
Maki's tone was neutral and did not indicate an explicit accusation, but it was enough to put anyone on the defensive. In Gally's case, she actually had a good excuse, or at least that was what she wanted to believe.
"There wasn't anything I could do. Of course I objected. I went half-crazy when I heard what they were going to do. Giger had to put me out to keep me from doing anything that would've gotten me killed, him killed too. By the time I came back around, it was already over. Mordekai had at least managed to convince the Cerberus Guild to spare some of them."
"Who's Mordekai?" Maki asked. "You haven't mentioned him before now."
Gally nearly bit her tongue. She knew talking about Mordekai would only make things more complicated, but now that she let his name slip, there was no avoiding it. How little could she get away with telling?
"He was Giger's teacher," Gally said. "I guess you could call him the leader of our group. He knew one of the Cerberus Guild masters and he handled all the negotiations with them. You have him to thank for all the people in Nylos who were still alive when you rescued them."
"In that case, on behalf of His Majesty the Emperor, I would like to thank him very much, and I know the Lord Admiral would, too. Only there's something curious about your story.
"Based on the DNA evidence we collected from the containment area, you had two unregistered males with you, one 28 years old and another who was 12 years old. Now, as you described this Giger as the man who found you, you could not possibly be referring to a 12-year-old, yet it wouldn't follow that a 12-year-old would be the teacher of a 28-year-old either. How do we unravel this conundrum, hm?"
"Giger would call him 'old man' a lot, so I guess he's older than he looks."
"The Arcana can fool the eyes, Naru, but DNA doesn't lie, though you may have helped explain something. An Arcanic reading of the samples show that the 12-year-old has the greater potential and is already manifesting at a higher level for his age that anyone ever recorded thus far. Mind you, I'm no expert myself, but that's what the report says.
"And then there's the real meaty part. We picked up another sample, female, whose genetic pattern is a hybrid of the 12-year-old and the Core Unit. How would you explain that?"
Gally may not have fully understood the ramifications of what had happened that day, but she was quite sure that the military would not be happy to hear about it. She knew she would get caught if she tried to lie, so if only she could get away with not saying anything. Of course, that would not work either.
"O~h, Na~ru~," Maki said in a singsong voice. "Don't hold out on me, Naru~. You'll make me so very sad, Naru~."
Gally closed her eyes. She would not accomplish anything by resisting, but at least she might console herself by saying that she tried. However, perhaps because she knew her efforts would be futile, any courage she may have been able to muster up evaporated like a thimbleful of water in the desert at midday.
"When the Star Seed awakened, it merged with Mordekai," Gally said. "Something about its mind being underdeveloped."
Maki folded her hands and smiled.
"We suspected as much, but thank you for confirming it for us, Naru. You are a good and faithful subject of His Majesty the Emperor and surely you will receive your due."
If that was meant to be encouraging, it certainly did not sound like it.
Maki leaned forward and said, "Now for the real question. How important are you to this Mordekai? Enough to make him hesitate?"
So this was what she was looking for, leverage to use against Mordekai. They probably had a fair idea of his power and wanted every advantage they could get. On the one hand, Gally feared what might happen to her if they thought she was of no use to them, but it would probably be worse if they thought they had a use for her and the reality on the ground proved otherwise. Honesty is the best policy, right?
"I don't think I mean that much to him," she said.
"Then how about one of the others we brought in with you?"
Gally started to feel sick again.
* * *
The straps on Kamellia's wrist tightened again as she tested them. They would loosen up a little if she was still for a few minutes. She wondered what magic was used to make them work. Even if she could figure out the principle of it, there was not much she could do bound as she was with no materials to work with.
She eyed the woman standing still as a statue across the room from her. Even though the collar on Kamellia's neck seemed to be interfering with her powers, she could still sense the touch of magic from the woman. Any attempt to speak to her was met with no response. If the woman breathed any more shallowly, Kamellia may have been fooled into thinking she really was a statue.
Though the door was out of sight, Kamellia recognized the particular hissing sound it made when opened and it was accompanied by clear footsteps as someone approach. When the person came into Kamellia's field of vision, she saw it was a dark-skinned woman who appeared to be somewhere around Kamellia's age. Her uniform seemed to indicate a higher rank than the one keeping watch over her.
"How are you enjoying our hospitality?" the dark-skinned woman asked. She touched her throat as she spoke and the way her lips moved did not match what Kamellia was hearing.
"It's a bit chilly, to be honest," Kamellia replied.
She of course meant that both literally and figuratively. The room was cold enough that the goose-pimples on her exposed skin were quite prominent, and she had a lot of exposed skin at the moment.
Kamellia took a calculated risk heeding Gally's words when the shadow men appeared. It may well have saved their lives, but it did not mean they were treated especially well. Kamellia and the girls were fitted with these collars right away and then hooded while they were being transported. At some point, Kamellia was rendered unconscious and when she came back around, she found herself naked and strapped to this metal table. There was no reason for her not to imagine the same thing had happened to the others.
She was not so much of an innocent maid to be embarrassed by her current state, but she was concerned for the others. She did not expect them to be as resilient. She needed to know more about her current situation before she could do anything.
"I hope you're a better conversationalist than my current companion here," Kamellia said to the dark-skinned woman.
"Oh, you'll find that I'm quite the chatty sort," the dark-skinned woman replied, "especially when I have a partner with a lot to tell me. I'm Maki, by the way. Might I have the pleasure of your name?"
"Kamellia."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kammie. Do you mind if I call you Kammie?"
"You can call me whatever you like."
"I imagine you have some questions for me. I know I have plenty for you."
"And which of us should go first?" Kamellia asked. "According to the customs of your people, that is."
"That's most gracious of you," Maki replied. "As you're my guest, I'll let you start."
"Where are the others?"
"They are being processed."
"Like this?"
"Except for the two Imperial citizens, yes."
"Imperial citizens?"
"Ah, yes. I believe you would know them as Ancients."
So it would seem Galatea and Perseus were being treated differently, presumably better. If so, that narrowed the scope of her immediate concerns.
"Those girls are only children. Don't you think it's a little cruel to subject them to all this? They're no threat to you."
"You can never be too careful with Arcanists out in the wild," Maki replied. She glanced to the other woman silently standing watch and added, "Honestly, you can't be too careful even if you think you have them properly trained."
She moved in closer and said, "Also, I can't help but notice that you excluded yourself from considering this treatment cruel... and from being counted as no threat to us."
Kamellia tilted her head to emphasize the collar on her neck, even if it made the band around her forehead tighten.
"I can't do much with this on, now can I?"
"You're quick on the uptake," Maki said. "I like that. Some Lost Worlders take so much effort to sort out. You haven't even asked who we are or what we're doing."
"You came for us not because we were mages but because of the two Ancients we had with us. You called them Imperial citizens, which means you have some connection to the Thirteenth Kingdom."
"The Thirteenth Kingdom?"
"There are Twelve Kingdoms in the world and the one from before the Cataclysm is the Thirteenth."
"So some memory of us managed to survive," Maki said. "That will be helpful."
"I take it the Thirteenth Kingdom wants to claim its throne again."
"That is precisely our intention, but your world is a little unstable at the moment. A stone has been cast into the waters and is making a lot of waves. We wish to do something about that stone before it can disturb the waters any further. I believe you can help with that."
If he was making good on his intentions, then it would be Mordekai who was making the biggest waves at the moment, but how did Maki know that Kamellia would be particularly useful for dealing with him?
It only took her a moment to make the connection. Ancients. Imperial citizens. Galatea. Whether it was out of loyalty to her people or forced out of her under duress, Galatea had revealed information these people would now use against Mordekai. Part of Kamellia tried not to judge her too harshly, but another, less pleasant part of her was sowing the seeds of resentment and plotting out how to render unto the traitor a traitor's due.
"My cooperation is dependent on your intentions," Kamellia replied.
"Your treatment and the treatment of those with you is dependent on your cooperation," Maki said in turn.
That would be effective against most people, Kamellia imagined, but the girls did not make for good leverage to be used against her. It was true that she developed some fondness for them in the time they had been together, but there was no comparing their value to her with Mordekai. She had made herself an Abomination for Mordekai's sake once before and she would do it again without hesitation. It was a sad reality that her years of penitence really did not count for much when she was put to the test.
She drew in a deep breath to calm herself. These people meant to use her, but she would use them to get back to Mordekai. With his new powers, certainly he could do something to turn the tables.
"Let's talk terms," she said.
Maki smiled.
"You really are quick on the uptake."