Stolen Fire
Chapter 5
INGRID
It happened impossibly fast.
Ingrid backed up in fright and hit the coffin she’d been transported in and instinctively moved her finger to hover over the trigger, readying herself to shoot. The man reached for the weapon he’d stupidly left in her reach, and just as his hands closed on hers, she squeezed the trigger.
The gun, if it was that, made a noise she’d never heard from a gun before. It sounded like a fizzly, electric screech. Bright light shot out of the muzzle and hit the man point blank in the chest.
His face contorted in agony, but he didn’t let go of the gun. Ingrid stared in horror as he fell to the ground, her nerveless fingers releasing her hold on the weapon.
She’d done it. She’d killed a man for her freedom. She’d shot him in the chest and he was dying, now, right in front of her. How could she do such a thing?
She looked away, unable to face what she’d done, and suddenly she was looking up and into the eyes of Tall Stuff. The woman had taken the opportunity to get close to Ingrid in the confusion, and now her hands were on Ingrid’s shoulders, on her face, and she was doing something to Ingrid.
Ingrid didn’t care anymore. She’d killed a man. Let them do whatever they wanted to her. She didn’t think she could live with herself anymore.
Even if he was kidnapping her.
Her eyes locked with the tall woman’s, and she felt herself lost in the woman’s gaze. Ingrid was lost in an ocean but she wasn’t panicking; she felt calm. Who was this strange woman, with the actually-blue skin?
The woman’s third eye blinked, and Ingrid came up for air.
“Can you understand me?”
The words were watery, somehow, but Ingrid understood them. They were overlaid on top of other words that she didn’t understand — like an interpreter was speaking at the same time as the woman.
“What?”
A blue-skinned hand came under Ingrid’s chin, tilting her head up to force eye contact, and the woman repeated the question. Ingrid did understand her, but what she didn’t understand was how the woman had a hand under her chin, two hands on her shoulders, and yet more arms that Ingrid could see….
“Who are you?”
Her own words were watery and doubled — the English she spoke, and then whatever language they were speaking over top. It gave her whiplash.
The tall woman released her. “My name is Constable Yashodevi Kulamahis. I’m with the Indriya-mandal Police Force. The man you just shot is my partner, Oris. Can you tell me your name and how you got here?”
“Oh God, I shot him,” Ingrid whispered, remembering that horror. She dared to look at the body.
It wasn’t there.
Ingrid looked around the room frantically, and there was Oris — leaning against the far wall, clutching his chest and stomach.
“I didn’t kill him?”
Yashodevi looked over at her partner, then back at Ingrid, a small smile on her face. “Takes more than one Disrupter shot to put an Ajiva-Pudgala down.”
Ingrid frowned and shook her head. There were words that weren’t translating properly into English.
Yashodevi grimaced. “Sorry, the translation is not precise.”
“What…what did you do?”
“I gave you my people’s blessing, the Svasikapas. It’s a bit of jiva that will let you communicate with any Prani.”
Ingrid held up a hand. “Stop. Slow down. What’s…what?”
Did she imagine the sigh of frustration from Yashodevi? Probably not. The tall woman was exactly the sort who would find Ingrid very frustrating.
“I’m sorry, Constable. I just…I’ve been kidnapped and I’m very confused. Please explain what’s happening to me, ma’am.” She kept her head tilted down, avoiding eye contact.
Yashodevi didn’t seem to notice. She launched into an explanation that didn’t make any sense to Ingrid at all, and further confirmed the sneaking suspicion she’d begun to have that this was actually all a very detailed, vivid dream brought on by her drinking too much and passing out on her futon.
“Got it?” Yashodevi’s voice was impatient, and she didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m going to go check on my partner. Don’t do anything stupid.”
The tall woman stalked off across the room, and as she left Ingrid saw she hadn’t imagined things: Yashodevi really did have multiple arms. Eight, in fact, all waving about. And her skin really was blue.
Deciding that was exactly enough to think about, Ingrid’s brain chose that moment to faint.
ORIS
He needed to sit up.
The waves of current travelled up and down his torso, making him twitch and convulse. He was sick to his stomach and if he didn’t sit up soon, he’d begin to vomit.
Oris waited for a lull in the waves of twitching, then got his hand flat on the stone ground and pushed. His torso swayed upwards and then he was semi-upright, still sitting on the ground. It wouldn’t last. He’d fall over. He had to get to the wall.
He pushed himself back, taking breaks for his body to twitch & pain to travel over him, and eventually slid his butt along the floor long enough to feel the rock wall along his back. Now he could relax, and wait out the Disrupter’s unpleasant effects.
He took the opportunity to watch Yasho perform the Svasikapas on the offworlder. It was a lengthy ritual, and one Yasho didn’t like performing. In fact he’d never heard of an Apas who did like it — it was always done grudgingly, and only in times of absolute need. That Yasho was doing it now spoke a lot to what she had assessed of their situation.
He didn’t understand it fully, himself. Whether that was because he was Visesa or because he was Ajiva, Oris didn’t know. But whatever it was, it allowed communication between offworlders and all Prani, no matter what language barriers might exist.
It had been the main way Prani had communicated with offworlders before they’d been able to trade for translator chips.
Which raised the question — why didn’t the Aradian have a chip? She should have; they were ubiquitous in the Aradian Empire. Even a small colony would have been outfitted with them.
Unless she was from one of the Lost Colonies, those worlds lost in the early days of the Empire’s expansion.
He grimaced. His head hurt with all these implications. And he didn’t truly understand all of them. He knew about the Aradian Empire and its history, its culture, because it was part of the curriculum at the police academy —hells, it was probably part of the curriculum at every specialty school in every Maya country.
The Aradian Empire was the closest neighbour of the Chaya System and also one that the government of his planet had been trying to diplomatically court — mostly unsuccessfully — for decades now.
But to go from that to trying to figure out the various diplomatic implications from this situation…no. His brain couldn’t do it.
All his brain could do was recover from the blast of his Disrupter, and watch the ritual be performed in front of him.
He took this chance to study the offworlder woman, now that he could see her better in the light of the glowpods. She stood much shorter than Yasho, but possibly only a few inches shorter than he was—he couldn’t tell for sure with her standing at the other end of the room and him sitting.
She wore a tattered red gown that hid details of her shape, but there was a softness to her he found quite alluring. Actually, he found her gorgeous, but he wasn’t going to let himself think that in more than a detached, observational way.
Her hair was the pink of the malyagni, which grew only in Agniksetra, and her flesh was a pale shade similar to that seen on some Agnijiva. Oris began to wonder if she were Agni, somehow. Did Aradians connect to the elements as his people did?
Even if they didn’t, she surely had some fire in her, which he found as alluring as her looks. He thought of the way she’d immediately turned his weapon on him, then fired when she thought she was in danger — even though she hadn’t wanted to. That had been clear by the look of horror on her face.
He wished he could have reassured her. Maybe there’d be time for that once Yasho was done the Svasikapas and they could communicate.
As if cued by his thoughts, Yasho completed the ritual and stepped back from the offworlder. He listened as they exchanged some words — the offworlder confused and scared, Yasho impatient. He frowned at that.
Yasho was usually incredibly patient — maybe not with him, but certainly with any victim of any crime they investigated, or witnesses. Why was she being so short with the offworlder?
And why was the offworlder being so demure with Yasho? Where was the fire-flower who had tried to shoot both of them and succeeded once?
Oris didn’t like this at all.
He tried to get up, wanting to join them so he could explain things better for the other woman, but his body rebelled. He sighed and pushed himself firmly against the wall, feeling the power of the earth under him.
Yasho was walking towards him, apparently done trying to talk to the offworlder.
He frowned at her. “She needs care, not impatience.”
“Don’t you start with me,” Yasho growled, squatting beside him. “How are you doing?” Her voice changed to a tone of concern. Oris was partly touched, partly irritated by the sudden sea change in his partner.
“I’m fine. I’m more worried about her,” he said, gesturing to the offworlder. “She’s got stasis sickness….” He trailed off. The offworlder was staring at Yasho with a look of complete terror on her face, and she was swaying dangerously on her feet.
She was going to lose consciousness onto the hard stone floor — and unless Aradians were very different from Prani, that could cause a head injury. A severe one, if she fell just wrong.
Oris couldn’t get to her in time, couldn’t warn Yasho, but something in him pushed him forward and he leapt towards the offworlder, reaching out with his hand as if he could stretch the length of the room to break her fall.
He couldn’t.
But before his stunned eyes, the earth, as if in answer to his plea, rose up to gently catch the falling woman. Stalagmites formed a staircase beneath her, and a bed of moss grew underneath her head before it made contact. She fell as if she were flopping into a chair, and the earth cradled her in its grasp.
Oris stared incredulously at the sight before him. His eyes fell to his hands, then back to the newly formed earth under the unconscious woman.
Had he…no. He couldn’t have.
Could he?
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