:?:?:? SIXFLAME ?:?:?:?

  Emissar. As if this moon wasn’t weird enough, now there was this…I didn’t know what it was. A drone, perhaps. We had those monitor drones on Enclave II, but they were more annoying than anything, easily dodged and fooled.

  But this was no drone. It had shape, it had sense. It was eyeing me with those tiny illuminated eyes. It knew why I held the axe, it knew the axe wouldn’t hurt it, and what’s worse, it knew that I knew.

  Perhaps it had intelligence?

  “What do you want from me?” I asked

  “Measure thought shadows,” it said.

  Or perhaps not. I lowered the axe. If Emissar’s gleaming body had escaped the tide without a scratch, there was nothing I could do to it.

  “Uh,” I said, “let’s just leave each other be, okay?”

  A flicker of eyelights. Then, “You carry the weight of four shadows. Why?”

  “I…what?”

  “Prithee, have you considered the implications?”

  “No, not yet. This has been a nice chat, but I’m going now.”

  As I turned, it grabbed my wrist with cool, hard fingers. The grip wasn’t painful, but it was firm. I tried to pull away, but it held fast.

  “The soil dreams of consumption when the light bends,” it said, its voice more urgent and its eyelights brighter.

  “Okay.” I let my arm go slack. “I can tell something is important to you. Can you maybe explain a bit better?”

  “Time flows backward in the presence of sufficient gravity.” Emissar tugged at my arm. “The plants know this. Do you?”

  I offered a big, dumb shrug. “Look, pal, I don’t know anything at this point.”

  It moved closer, bringing us nose to…face plate.

  “The answer,” it continued, “hibernates in the third echo of tomorrow’s question.”

  I stared at it, frustration building. My leg was throbbing, and somewhere out there the others might be injured or trapped, if they were even still alive.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying. People are hurt and they might be dying out there. I need to go find them.”

  “Hurt is a color that exists only in certain spectra. I have counted these spectra. Would you like to know the number?”

  “No,” I said, yanking harder at my arm.

  “The number is puce.”

  “Enough,” I snapped. “Let go. Now.”

  Something must have registered because Emissar’s grip loosened. I pulled my hand free, and it stood motionless, its eyelights dimming.

  “No more. Goodbye.” I stalked away, trying not to favor my injured leg too obviously. I couldn’t help glancing back. Emissar hadn’t moved, it just stood there, watching me go.

  It’d better stay there, I thought, then turned my attention to the mess in front of me. Not a soul in sight.

  “Hello? Anyone?” My voice sounded pathetic against the vast, silent devastation. “Sisters? Brothers? Ootu?”

  The only sound was the squelch of my own footsteps. Moving forward was harder than I’d expected. My injured leg protested with each step, and as I stumbled over ridges and skirted small chasms, I came to a troubling realization: the tide must have carried me far from our camp. Nothing looked remotely familiar. The others could be kilometers in any direction.

  I paused atop a lump to catch my breath and look around. I didn’t know when morning would come, and the only light I had to go on was the gas giant, now high in the sky. It wasn’t the best light for searching in, giving everything a ghostly pall.

  Including Emissar, which still stood where I had left it. Fat lot of good that thing was. Why didn’t it—

  There. Movement. Behind that tangle of torn vegetation.

  “Hold on!” I shouted, scrambling down the slope, leaping and hurtling over to where I had seen two lumps moving.

  There were two figures, caught in a fold of biomass that had buckled upward, then settled back down. One was partially visible, their upper body emerging from the ground as if they were standing in waist-deep water. The other was worse off, with just a head protruding from the surface, neck-deep in the compacted mass. Both were struggling furiously.

  “I’m coming!” I called, vaulting over the last fold. “Hold on!”

  Neither responded. As I got closer, my steps slowed. Yes, they were moving, but something was wrong with their faces. Both had the same vacant stare, eyes clouded and skin ashen.

  Sister Coralweft and Brother Dawnchaser were both dead, unmistakably dead.

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  And yet they were twitching. Sister Coralweft’s upper body jerked back and forward, the movement flinging her head loosely from side to side. Brother Dawnchaser’s head wobbled.

  I took a few deep breaths, then turned and started retching.

  “Navigate by absent stars,” said a voice behind me.

  “Not now,” I said, spitting out bile.

  “That path terminates where beginnings collapse into endings,” said Emissar as it bent over Sister Coralweft. It gently peeled back her cloak at the shoulder, and I saw what was making her move.

  Cables. Long, , hungry cables eating their way through her corpse.

  I had another retch. It had been a bitter sort of day.

  Emissar straightened, its eyelights brightening again.

  “Prithee,” it said, “consider the mathematics of forgotten doorways.”

  “I’m really not in the mood for your riddle,” I said, watching Brother Dawnchaser’s twitching face slip down into the ground. “Are these…eating cables everywhere?”

  “Accidental thought-structures echo in reverse.”

  “I suppose that’s a yes,” I said, climbing onto a nearby plant tangle to scan the area again, hoping to see any sign of movement.

  Well, movement that

  dead Torchers being puppeteered by hungry cables, anyway.

  But nothing. No one. Only a silver being that spoke nonsense and corpses that wouldn’t stay still.

  Then Emissar’s fingers found mine again, cool and smooth against my skin.

  “Obsolete paradigms taste of copper when deconstructed properly,” it said, giving my hand a firm tug.

  I glanced once more at Sister Coralweft’s twitching form, then at the vast, torn terrain stretching in all directions. The tide had destroyed everything. I had no food, no shelter, and no idea which was the safest direction. Whatever Emissar was, it had survived the tide unscathed. It probably knew things about this world that I didn’t.

  And it was offering to take me somewhere. Away from here, at least.

  I weighed my dwindling options, which took about three seconds. Stay here and wait for the cables — or worse — to find me, or follow the only thing on this moon that might know a safe path.

  “Fine,” I said, exhaling slowly. “But I swear, if you’re leading me to more riddles instead of safety, I’ll find a way to dent that shiny head of yours.”

  It was an empty threat and we both knew it. The entire moon had practically turned inside out, and Emissar didn’t even have a scratch on its gleaming coat of metal. Meanwhile, I was bleeding, exhausted, and one stiff breeze away from collapse.

  “Do we have to hold hands? I’m quite capable of following you.”

  “Breathing fractures,” it said, then let go.

  “Thank you.” I pointed at it. “Lead on, then.”

  ?

  I followed Emissar through terrain that made no sense and past sounds I chose to ignore. My injured leg had gone blessedly numb, but hunger gnawed at me and my throat was parched.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I asked at one point.

  “The threshold between manufactured order and organic chaos teeters on a fulcrum of necessity,” Emissar replied, continuing its relentless pace.

  I didn’t ask again.

  Not long after dawn had crept over Kabus, Emissar stopped abruptly at a vertical wall of tangled vegetation.

  “Appearances oscillate,” it announced.

  I stared at the wall. “Is this it? We’re here?”

  “Nevertheless.” It parted the vegetation and slipped through. I followed…and stopped in awe.

  We were in a garden. The feral tangle of Kabus had been tamed into submission. Dare I even say cultivated? I mean, the ground was not only still in one piece after the catastrophic tide, it was Sections of biomass had been cut, flattened, and arranged to look…attractive, I guess.

  In the middle of this garden was a structure, standing tall on a single fat support column that looked like a twisted bundle of fibers. Its walls and roof were a patchwork of panels and parts, transparent sheets and vegetation, giving it a rough yet homely feel.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “Effervescent,” said Emissar. Then it took my hand again, and this time I just let it.

  The structure’s hatch was on the underside, reached through a ladder fixed to the column, and the air inside was cool and surprisingly dry. The ever-present organic smell of Kabus was far fainter. It felt sealed, protected.

  Comfortable.

  The dim interior was lit by the shafts of light that filtered through translucent sections. The space was larger than I had expected, and every surface was covered with stuff.

  So much stuff. Shelves piled high with containers and cases. Walls lined with drawings, writing, diagrams, and maps. A desk, covered with tools and half-finished projects. A chair, pulled back as if someone had just popped off to get something. A tough-looking jacket hung over the back, its dark fabric faded but preserved in the dry air.

  From the ceiling, a collection of devices hung suspended by fine filaments. They looked like they’d been disassembled and rebuilt multiple times, with mismatched parts and improvised connections. And against the far wall, a low platform. A bed.

  My head was spinning from hunger, exhaustion, and the absurdity of everything. This perfectly preserved bubble should not exist.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Who built this? How did it survive the tide?”

  “Forgotten languages lie expectant between heartbeats.” Emissar’s response was oddly jolly.

  “Sorry, shouldn’t have asked.” I sat down on the bed, closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. A monster of a headache was mounting. I heard Emissar clattering about, then wedged something into my lap.

  A plate. With a moldy brick on it.

  “Gravity’s melodies,” said Emissar, stepping back. Was it giving me space?

  “Right.” I prodded the brick. “Is this food? Is it safe to eat?”

  “Yesterday’s decisions ripen to tomorrow’s harvest.”

  “I suppose that’s your best yes.” I bit into one. The taste was bland but not unpleasant, with a texture like compressed protein rations but moister. My empty stomach immediately demanded more, and I wolfed down half the brick before forcing myself to slow down.

  “The texture of silence.” Emissar was suddenly beside me…damn that thing could move fast when it wanted to. It started fussing with my leg, picking at the dried blood and teasing away the torn fabric.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ve had worse.”

  It continued fussing. “Probability wears the disguise of certainty until challenged by paradox.”

  “Yep, I was saying that just the other day.”

  It reached for a square container on the desk while still crouched beside me, and I nearly jumped backwards. Its arm simply kept going, extending segment by silvery segment.

  “Simple triangles,” it said, opening the container to reveal something that might once have been a medkit.

  “Simple would not be my first choice of word in this situation,” I muttered as it began applying the medkit to my leg. I let it because I was too tired to argue, and because it seemed to know what it was doing. An antiseptic and a bandage later, it replaced the medkit on the desk, then lifted the jacket from the chair and presented it to me.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, waving it away. “I’m not cold.”

  Emissar continued to hold the jacket, its eyelights bright and fixed. When I continued to not take the garment, it gently laid it on my lap, then rose and stepped back, its head tilted as if waiting.

  It was a quality jacket, the kind we’d have killed for on Enclave II. Thick fabric in a deep navy that hadn’t faded with use. The pockets were actually functional, not decorative. The jacket itself could give orders without its wearer saying a word, indeed had authority sewn into every stitch.

  There was a faded name patch on the chest.

  “Gyllon, S.,” I read.

  “The air elicits salt.”

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said Emissar was sad. I nodded slowly, then set the jacket aside.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not that person.”