When Justice Is Gone, There's Always Force
“There are two ways to deal with problems: ignore them or face them. You might think that one is always the better choice, but sometimes to maximize your own personal happiness, it's expedient to pick the other.”
-from Utility Calculations by Stein Umoa
For all that Sylva was overjoyed to see Yan safe and (ostensibly) happy, there was something freaky about the Mother that she just plain didn't like. Perhaps it was the way that Yan seemed to carefully struggle with herself before reciprocating Sylva's touches, or perhaps it was just the way that she was quietly insistent that Sylva join that group mind. It wasn't going to happen. Sylva could feel the Mother beckoning to her, but that didn't mean she had to answer the call.
They had been in the Mother's home for a few days. Sylva and Iri were both practically glued to Yan. After all, that was what they had come here for. Clearly, the Mother could spare her, or at least most of her.
Yan had shown them all the wonders of this mountainous island: the hot springs, the terraced farms, the little coves and caves along the shore, the birds, the breezes, the fish. They had even climbed a little way up towards the inhumanly tall peak, but Sylva had put her foot down about hiking the whole thing. The cloth shoes that everyone on this planet wore would provide no protection while clinging to the side of the mountain, high above the place where the trees stopped growing.
At first, it had been nice. Now, it was beginning to feel as though they were being shown a careful parade to make them stop worrying. Whatever the show the Mother was trying to put on, it clearly wasn't working. Sylva caught Iri staring nervously at Yan's back, hand going instinctively to a mysteriously empty pocket.
Sylva had noticed them leave, that first night. She couldn't just sleep through Yan getting up, with the sudden lack of a warm body next to hers. She hadn't moved at first, and had trusted Iri. When they had both slipped quietly back into their positions later that night, Sylva assumed she had made the right choice to continue to pretend to be asleep.
Iri hadn't had a chance to tell her what had happened that night, and Yan seemed to be laboring under the assumption that Sylva hadn't known that she had gone. Clearly, though, something had happened.
Sylva kept searching for a moment of privacy in which to talk to Iri, but those were harder to come by than ever. She did want to be with Yan, after all, and even when Yan left the room, Sylva knew that if she reached out with the power, the Mother's eyes would still be on her. The Mother's ears would be listening to her conversation.
The weird thing was, though, that Sylva got the impression that the Mother didn't actually care. From the way that Yan spoke, it seemed that the Mother was a supremely confident being. There was nothing and no one that could hurt her. Who else would take the apprentice of their greatest enemy and allow her unfettered access to her mind? Certainly not Sylva! Which was why she why she was surer than ever that she wouldn't be joining the Mother, no matter how much Yan begged.
There were a lot of thoughts that were constantly crisscrossing Sylva's brain. Yan had told her everything about this planet's history: the original war between the Edden Empire and the loose coalition of colonies to which this planet had previously belonged, the destruction of the planet Edden and the power-caused societal collapse, the Empire's secret war, the Mother's decision to hide this planet from the rest of the universe... To be honest, Sylva probably had the most nuanced understanding of the whole history, having heard it from the Mother through Yan. Yan's perspective of the inner workings of the Empire colored the Mother's perception of history, and vice versa.
It presented a bit of a dilemma for Sylva. Yes, she found the Mother unpleasant, and she wanted to get Yan away and off this planet. But-- and there was always a but-- the arrival of an Imperial ship would almost certainly mean the complete extinction of the population of this planet.
Oh, the Mother could hold out for a while, and the populace for a while after that, but neither Yan nor the Mother was aware of any planet that had successfully withstood the advances of the Empire. From the way that it was described, the Empire had much more in the way of resources than any of the planets they fought against.
Perhaps in the beginning, it had been much more of a fair fight, back when both sides of the conflict had plenty of ships, and plenty of planets, and plenty of people. But things collapsed relatively quickly. The planets the Empire was warring against were not even aligned in any capacity.
To hear the Mother tell it, during the first fight against the Edden Empire, they had banded together, but that alliance had collapsed once victory seemed assured. The populations of each of these planets grew somewhat distrustful of leaders who would cooperate only to destroy an entire star and wreck the minds of planets full of people. Fair enough, Sylva thought.
And so, when the new Empire came back for revenge, the group of colonies was fractured, most of them preferring to manage their own affairs, and unwilling to give military aid or launch an offensive. When it became apparent that one planet alone could not stand, and that there would be no help coming from the others, most planets decided to fortify themselves, send their citizens away to new colonies, or hide as the Mother did.
Fortifications didn't work; the Empire had the strength of many planets at its command, and had the time to break any defense. Spreading out into new places might work for a time, hopping from planet to planet, living a nomadic lifestyle, but the same problem would always return. Hiding worked until people got careless.
And people had been careless.
That was the real problem. The Mother was trying to stop Sylva and Iri from thinking about leaving, because if a ship ever came, the Mother would have to destroy it. None of them could ever go home. That was the Mother's goal, anyway.
But Sylva and Iri had left a message, and they knew it might only be a matter of time before help came. And when it did, nothing around here would ever be the same.
So Sylva tried to enjoy her time with Yan, even if the Mother was there, too. She put that out of her mind, and ignored the odd turns of phrase that would come out of Yan's mouth, and the hesitation with which Yan moved, and the way that her mind seemed to always be half-elsewhere, and the way that she would look at her with such possessiveness and longing. Actually, Sylva would have liked that last one, if she hadn't known its source wasn't Yan herself, but the many minds inhabiting her.
They lay idly on the bank of a small stream that wound out of the mountainside and down towards the sea. The grass was tall and bright green around them, and the trees were taller and greener above that, with the pale sky barely showing through. The air was warm, and the salty breeze tickled Sylva's face and rustled the air of the island like a shiver. Sylva was propped up on one of her elbows, bare feet dangling in the cool water, holding Yan's hand and stroking it with her thumb. Yan lay on her back, staring blankly up at the sky with a slight smile on her face. Iri was off on the opposite bank of the stream, keeping one sharp eye on their surroundings and looking up every time she heard a rustle in the grass or a bird call in the trees.
“Are you there, Yan?” Sylva asked, almost a murmur.
“I'm always here,” Yan replied in the same tone. That was the biggest lie that Sylva had ever heard, considering that the last few months of her life had been defined by Yan distinctly not being here, but it was a comforting thing to hear Yan say nonetheless.
“Can we talk?” Sylva asked.
“Of course.”
Sylva considered what she wanted to ask. It wouldn't be a good idea to say anything that would upset Yan. Not because she thought that the Mother would kick them out or anything, just because Sylva didn't want to make her sad. After all, Sylva had a tiny thought that she might need to make Yan choose between her and the Mother, and she needed Yan to make the right choice.
If it came down to that.
It probably would come down to that.
But at the same time, even if she didn't want to upset Yan, she still wanted to know the answers to a few questions. Those questions necessarily involved unpleasant topics.
“Can you tell me what happened to you? Before you got to the Mother?” Sylva asked.
“I don't really like to think about it,” Yan said.
“Talking about it might make you feel better.”
“I've already gone over it with everyone.”
“But not with me.”
Sylva ran her thumb over Yan's knuckles, listened to the bubbling of the water below them.
“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I guess. It's okay,” Sylva said. She tried not to be grudging. She wasn't owed the story, even if she had come all this way. But she did want to hear it, if Yan would speak. If Yan didn't tell her anything, how could she ever understand her again?
It took a long, long time for Yan to decide to talk.
“I don't remember the first part of it,” she said. “When I was first taken, I mean. The pirates kept me drugged.” Yan paused for a second. “Probably for the best.”
“Why?”
“I don't remember anything that happened to me,” she stressed. “Anything could have happened.”
Sylva understood, and nodded. Yan probably couldn't even see her from their positions on the ground, so Sylva squeezed her hand. After a half-second delay, Yan squeezed back.
“And then what?”
“Then the Green King took me,” Yan said. “He put me in this room...”
Sylva could tell sometimes that it was Yan speaking and not the Mother, because she would use pronouns correctly. The Mother had difficulty with it, and would call people 'child' or 'daughter' a lot of the time when speaking New Imperial to Iri. Sylva and the Mother could have spoken in the native language of this planet, but it was much better that Yan was speaking New Imperial.
Yan's other hand waved around in the air over her head, sketching out a rectangle. “It was six steps across, and I was chained to the floor, and locked underground, and there was nobody. Just nobody.” Her voice cracked slightly, and Sylva remained silent, just petting Yan's hand as comfort.
“I couldn't use the power because he put this chip inside my neck,” she reached back to touch her neck, pressed into the soft yellow dirt. “Every time I tried it would hurt like... Hurt like someone was pulling my eyes out.”
“Is that what happened to your neck?” Sylva asked. “The Green King putting something in you?”
Yan laughed, a tiny, bitter sound. “No. I did that. I tried to get it out.”
Sylva was involuntarily reminded of herself standing over Keep, slicing her open, warm, sticky blood everywhere. The image was not the same, but Sylva could only imagine the same kind of desperation.
“How?”
“There was this garbage can. I don't know why they left it there for me. Maybe just to see what I would do, or because they didn't know anything about running a prison. I was the only prisoner, I think. And so I smashed it, and I used the sharpest piece to dig out the chip.”
“And that's how you escaped?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Sylva waited for Yan to elaborate.
“Even when it came out, I couldn't use the power. So the Green King caught me and put it back in. Deeper.” Yan pointed at her jaw, where Sylva could see a faint white line against her brown skin. It was far smaller than the knotty lump of scar tissue that crossed the back of her neck.
“So how'd you escape?”
“I was in there for so long, Sylva,” Yan said. “You don't understand.”
“I want to. If you'll let me.”
“You could if you'd join me,” the Mother said. Sylva felt the touch of her power. It felt almost like Yan's, now that she knew what she was looking for, but completely different at the same time, like the similarity between snow and rain.
“Let Yan talk,” Sylva said.
“You're upsetting her,” the Mother said, then departed. Sylva frowned. Yan was silent for another moment as she took back control of her body.
“I don't know for sure,” Yan said, her voice sounding slightly more speculative and lively, “but I think the chip was based at least a little on what the Fleet uses.”
“What?” Sylva wasn't following.
“The Fleet. They need to keep their work a secret,” Yan said. “But everyone has to go home eventually. So they use a couple combinations of things to stop people from talking. Chip is just one of them. But the chip can, I don't know how it works, but it can stop you from being able to form words about certain things. I think it scrambles your language centers whenever you try, when certain conditions are met.”
Yan wasn't making a lot of sense, at least in the way that this connected to the rest of her story, but Sylva let her continue, trusting that she'd get to the point.
“I didn't pay that much attention when it was explained to me.” Yan laughed that short, bitter laugh again. “I thought it was distasteful enough that I didn't want to think about it.”
“Understandable.” Sylva said. She looked across the water at Iri, who was definitely listening to the conversation, even if she wasn't joining in. Iri caught her eye and nodded, tapping her temple. Sylva nodded back, understanding at last why Iri had been unable to tell her various things. It didn't matter at this point; Sylva had more than enough information.
“But I figured out kinda that it only can deal with conscious thought.”
“So does the power,” Sylva said. “That's always been my problem.”
“No,” Yan said. Her hand squeezed Sylva's. “No, it doesn't.”
“What do you mean?”
“I went a little crazy in there, when I was by myself.” Yan's voice was so forlorn, and she closed her eyes, scrunching up her face.
Sylva lay down completely, nestling up next to her. “It's okay. You're fine.”
“I'm not fine.”
Sylva leaned her head on Yan's shoulder, and her other arm snaked up to pet Yan's head. If she could have, she would have laid and embraced Yan for all eternity. She would have done anything. But Sylva wasn't going to say that out loud, because statements like that attracted the Mother's attention. And Yan lay there as stiff as ever. Sylva knew she couldn't help it. It would get better in time. At least she thought that Yan took some pleasure from having her there, even if she could barely show it, fighting with the Mother for her body. She didn't ever try to push Sylva away, and her breathing was slower and deeper when Sylva was close like this. Was it strange for her to notice little things like that? Like the way that the sunlight caught on Yan's eyelashes, or the dappled patterns of the leaves danced over her cheekbones.
“I kept seeing and hearing things that weren't there. I had this whole world I would go to. In the beginning I just tried to pray and keep myself busy, you know, but it was like God wasn't there. There was this empty place in my brain and in my heart. All of the things that always made me feel better, like after my mom died, none of that worked anymore. I couldn't meditate, I couldn't pray, I could only sing so much, and I just kept walking back and forth in that room over and over and over.”
Yan's voice was weirdly calm, and her words came out in a confused jumble, but Sylva didn't interrupt. It was maybe a good thing for her to try to put it into words, at least. She knew that the Mother definitely had picked through Yan's brain, but that wasn't the same as communicating, right?
“So I guess I started to imagine that people were there. Mostly Halen, you don't know him, but he's First Sandreas's bodyguard.” Yan's voice was slightly clearer when she realized she had to explain this salient detail.
“You'd be surprised,” Sylva said. “Halen this, Halen that is all Iri ever talks about.”
Yan laughed a real laugh this time. “I don't know if you'd like him,” she said. “I didn't at first.”
“If you like him, I like him,” Sylva said. “I trust your judgment on people.”
“Oh, really?” And that was the slight tone of the Mother's voice creeping back in, always listening. Sylva could tell. She shook her head slightly, nestling further into Yan's shoulder.
“Keep telling your story,” she said.
Yan clearly had to bring herself back into her previous mindset. “I talked to Halen a lot. I think I thought about him because he told me this story once, about what had happened to him when he was I guess in a similar situation. And there was enough room inside that story there for me to use my imagination to make up something. It took my mind off of things. A little.”
“I don't think that's crazy,” Sylva said. “I think anybody would have done the same.”
“I guess I figured out that if I spent enough time in that imaginary world, I could trick my brain into doing things for real, without me being there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could use the power without the chip in my head noticing that I was, so it couldn't punish me.”
“So that's how you escaped?”
“Not yet.”
Sylva waited, and Yan eventually continued. “The Green King caught me trying it, and...” Yan raised her left hand to the sky, holding her fingers spread out far above her face. They cast a shadow down onto the both of them. “He caught me,” Yan said again. There was definitely something there, but Sylva wouldn't pry, not on that.
“Then he drugged me some more, in my food, and I just... I tried to escape.”
“Did you that time?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I almost didn't. Etta saved me.”
“Etta's that girl you said? The one who brought you here?”
“She used to be the person who would bring me my meals when I was pretending to be asleep,” Yan said. “And when I escaped, I tried to use her as a hostage.” That bitter laugh came out again. “It didn't work. But when the Green King came, and he tried to kill me, he almost killed me, Etta stopped him. And we escaped.”
“Is there a reason why she helped you?” Sylva asked.
“I think she's just a good person,” Yan said. “I wish--” She stopped.
“What?”
“I'm not a good person.”
“You're good enough for me.”
Yan was silent, and that was where things ended.
That night, Sylva and Yan were curled up on the floor, Sylva had her arm tossed casually over Yan's shoulder. Iri was sitting up by the door of the little room, eyes open. Sylva wasn't sure if she ever slept. She seemed to be perpetually on edge.
Yan's breathing was calm and even, and occasionally she twitched a little bit in her sleep. It was endearing. But it gave Sylva and Iri a chance to talk semi-privately, so long as they didn't wake her up. And so long as the Mother wasn't listening in, which she probably was. The Mother had to know exactly how Sylva and Iri felt already; they hadn't exactly made a secret of the fact that they were here to take Yan away.
“I need to get out of here,” Iri said, voice barely above a whisper.
“We all do.”
“Like, tomorrow, I mean,” Iri said.
“Why?”
“I need to find a way to get in contact with any ship that comes into orbit,” Iri said.
“And how do you think you're gonna do that?” Sylva asked. “This planet doesn't even have SatCom, for God's sake.”
“The Bellringer does.”
“Are you serious?”
“Someone's going to come eventually,” Iri said. “We need to be ready when they do, or they'll have no chance of finding us.”
“I'm sure they'll find us just like we found the Mother,” Sylva whispered. “I don't want you to leave. It's not worth it.”
“Use your brain for one second,” Iri said. “The minute an Imperial ship enters orbit, this planet is fucked. The Mother will be crazy, and either we'll be able to escape up into orbit or we won't. That'll be a lot easier if we have a way of contacting people.”
“Then I should go,” Sylva said. “I know the language.”
Even in the dark, Sylva could see the deadpan look that Iri gave her. “You'd leave Yan? I'd love to see how well that would go over.”
If Sylva had had something to throw at Iri, she would have done so. “And what is even going on between the two of you?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You've barely talked to her at all. It's like you came all this way and then...nothing?”
“Number one, everything about this freaks me out,” Iri said, then stopped.
“And number two?”
“I still feel bad, okay?” she hissed. “Seeing her like this feels like my fault.”
Sylva rolled over and scooted slightly away from Yan so that she could talk to Iri more easily. “Get over it, okay? You being shitty about it isn't helping her.”
“Well I'm leaving, so it's a non-issue”
“You're not going to leave without at least saying goodbye,” Sylva huffed. “I can't believe I have to be the voice of reason around here.”
“Trust me, you're not.”
“Leaving is an idiotic plan, no matter how much you justify it to yourself.”
“You're allowed your opinion.”
“And what am I going to do if you leave and never come back? What then? Because I sure as shit don't have a way to go after you once you've gotten to who knows where.”
“Look, Sylva, worst case scenario, you stay here with Yan. You'd be fine and happy, even if you are stuck on this planet forever.”
“You're lucky that I'm trying to be quiet or I'd slap you,” Sylva said. “You think I'd be happy if you went off and died somewhere? You think she would be?”
“I'm not going to die. I'll be back as quickly as I can.”
“Are you seriously going to go try to steal more things from the Bellringer?”
“I don't have any better plans.”
“Isn't this planet littered with radio beacons? Wouldn't it be easier to work with one of those?”
“At least the Bellringer's shuttles will have technology I'm familiar with,” Iri said. “I'd know how to work their radios.”
“A radio's a radio. Try the ground beacons first.”
“Do you think those have receivers?”
“Maybe? Look, the Bellringer is a safe bet.”
“Your definition of safe must have gotten jostled in the crash.”
“I'll try the beacon first,” Iri conceded. “But no guarantees.”
“I'm not gonna say some dumb shit like 'if you die I'll hate you' because with my luck you will die and I'll feel guilty forever.”
Iri stifled a laugh. “Go to sleep. I'll tell Yan in the morning.”
Iri did tell Yan the next morning. Sylva gave them some privacy as they walked through the fields towards the mountain. The two had a long conversation. Out of politeness, Sylva stayed upwind and out of hearing range, kicking a rock morosely down the path. She glanced behind herself occasionally, just to make sure they were both still there.
She was pretty sure Yan cried at one point, though that wasn't exactly unusual.
And then, like that, Iri was gone, headed down to the shore and to a boat with a motor that the Mother loaned her. Iri must not have told her the full truth, or the Mother didn't care, or Yan wanted to help Iri even if it wasn't in the Mother's best interests. One of the three was true, and Sylva wasn't going to press as to which, just in case it was the first option.
Iri didn't come back the next day, or the next, or the next, or for many days after that.
Sylva's life fell into an almost comfortable pattern with the Mother. She wouldn't join her, but they could exist along side each other peacefully, so long as the Mother let Yan continue to exist. That was a worry that haunted the edges of Sylva's existence here: would the personality that was Yan someday become so overwhelmed by the Mother that she stopped having control of her own body?
Maybe Sylva needn't have worried too much. After all, the more time she spent around the Mother, the more she got to know some of the quirks of some of her other bodies. Even if those ones had far less reason to be independent than Yan did, they still had their own likes and dislikes and ways of doing things. This one didn't like spicy food, this one loved to weave, this one loved to tend to the sheep, this one liked to jump off the cliffs into the ocean, and so on and so on. Sometimes she had to guess at which mind was in which body, and she would occasionally find someone else looking out of Yan's eyes, or Yan looking out of another's, but it didn't trouble any of them.
Yan seemed to be happy. Or at least she seemed to be distracted, which was maybe enough. Sylva brought up the future at one point.
“Do you think you'll ever want to leave here?” she asked.
“I don't know,” was all Yan said.
“If I leave, will you come with me?” Sylva asked.
“There's nowhere for you to go,” the Mother said.
It was clear to Sylva that the Mother was in denial about the coming storm. Perhaps that was something that Yan brought to her. Yan had always been good at ignoring things she didn't want to think about. Perhaps she and the Mother were a good fit in that respect.
The peace was interrupted when two things happened, nearly simultaneously. Before the month was up, Iri returned, towing a shattered beacon behind her in her boat, and the Imperial warship jumped into the starsystem.
