135 - First Owner's Plan

It was another late night but this time it was Mariush who sat awake, with the baby nursing.  Homa, though too young to realize how close she’d come to having her so-short life snuffed out, was clinging and fussy as though to insist that her mother hold her, care for her, protect her.

Mariush was about to scream with exhaustion but she could barely let the baby out of her sight, so they kept each other awake in mutual fear and love, both needing and wanting one another and neither willing to let sleep intervene.  The great bed was filled with snuffling noises of an urgently nursing baby and Diryish’s snores.  Mariush rocked in place with her eyes closed as if she could sleep while upright, broke Homa’s suction and shifted her to the other side before she could do more than mew the beginning of a complaint.

Then she let herself lean back against the cushions, after patting them down for dust.  She was terrified of any dust or dirt that could harbour mico-assassins and was too disorganized in her sleep deprived thinking to frob more than the most basic of protections, her ants diligently patrolling the floors and walls of the bedroom, as the drones kept the upper walls, curtains and ceilings safe.

With a snort and a cough Diryish’s snores stopped.  Her eyes popped open, afraid of what she’d see, to find his open as well, watching her nurse the baby.  He smiled and she burst into tears.

He eased himself up higher on his pillows, with some effort and opened his arms to them both.  “Shhh, shhh Mariush, Mai mai maiush... shhhh.  Beautiful, strong woman, shhhh. You’ll wake our daughter.”

Homa had only suckled a moment or two before sliding into sleep the way babies do, and Mariush pulled an enormous, quivering breath and then a second to control her sobs before she scooted over on the krashnall silk and laid her head on his shoulder.  He adjusted the pillows to cradle her there and then settled with a sigh.  It was so hard to do the simplest things.  He was so tired.  The bees buzzed down and those that didn’t check the people settled to touch feelers with the ants on the perimeter of the bed.

“It’s all right little sisters.  You can help me, or Mariush but don’t wake the baby, hmmm?”  The droning buzz rose and fell as if in answer to his words.

“Diryish... since... since you’ve said Homa’s your siwion... one of your siwion... you’ve never said she was yours but...”

“I realize that you lied to me, Mai.  I’ve seen a few pregnancies in my life and I realized about the same time you did.”  He raised his hand and drew the tears from her eyelashes with one finger, gently.  “You and your Emir-al did a wonderful job of confusing things for this court and I’m glad you did.  We’ve found one assassin and gotten rid of him.” Lorchan had gone to his exposure in stony silence.  He’d fought to stay awake and hang on, for three days before the sun shone through the bars of the empty traitor’s cage.

“But not all of them.  Why do they all want to be Emperor?  Don’t they know how hard you work?”

“No, Mai.  They think I sit at my ease up here, being waited on hand and foot, with every delicacy and every zardukar at my beck and call.  That’s why all of the nasty stories being linned around that my decaying tastes have made me include boys in the ranks of zardukar and make the sexing of one’s own sex no longer tapu.  They believe I am up here, bloated with water and food and sex.  Like they wish to be.”

She laid her forehead against his bony old shoulder and he sighed.  “I’m sorry my dear could you shift?  Thank you.  My bones hurt me all the time now.”

“Sorry.  Diryish... since you’ve been in bed, Shashi has been overseeing the terrace rebuilding and a dozen other projects.”

“Good.  I realize you cannot go down to the offices, as long as I insist on keeping you here in the safest room in the Loggia.  But I cannot get up yet and you are not going anywhere where someone might seed you with more killer bugs.”

“Yes, Diryish.”

He ran his hand over her hair thoughfully.  “I’m starting to regret introducing this LIN rather than a press.  A press is just so much more controllable.  But the information is out and in free fall, we’ll have to see where it all lands.” He chuckled slightly.  “I begin to see what the First Owners thought when they first came.”

She raised her head to look at him.  “First Owners?  Like what that neo-zardukar is linning about?  Mother is sending someone to the Endarkened to inquire about her and her training, now that they’ve de-bugged her enough.  She’s obviously stumbled on some long lost data.”

“Hmmm.  Yes.  She’s actually the mother of my grandson... did you know that?  Shashi told me just the other day.”

“Really?  But... but... oh.  She was a failure?  Went to just sex work?”

“Say rather that someone hacked her work as a zardukar and tried to burn her out or kill her.” Mariush said nothing, her mouth pursed thoughfully.   

“Hmmm.  I’m glad she found herself in the mess then.”

“So am I.”

“First Owners?” Mariush went back to that.  “What exactly did they think?”

“That they should be the only ones with knowledge.  They brought their builders with them... who had to know enough to run the programs... but once the planet was livable people who wanted to live here had to stop teaching their children, stop communicating with one another except face to face... in short, to give up the very abilities that let them start to re-make this world into a new home.”

“That... seems wrong.” She wiped her own face and dropped the handkerchief over the side of the bed where it was carried away by her ants.  “Certainly not what you are doing.”

“No.  Its the first reason we are out here... as free Lainz and not under the Prime’s total control.”

“Do any of the Hive Lords know this, Diryish?”

“I’ve mentioned enough that they could have asked me.  But they seem to think that warbirds and loot are the sweetest honey.”

She sighed and closed her eyes as he rested his head against the top of her head.  The baby smacked her lips in her sleep, on her mother, with Diryish’s hand on her bottom to keep her from sliding down between them.  “It seems...” she yawned.  “Very short sighted.”

“It is.  Rest, my dear.  For tonight, we are defended well enough.  Sleep.”  Though she fell asleep almost immediately, he lay contemplating the warm darkness behind his own closed eyes for a very long time.