The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(124)

Seeing the thing change shape was somehow even more disturbing, but she refused to step back, even though she wanted to. “Not really. And I don’t mind spiders at all. It’s just, this looks so… so organic.” Except in a wrong, squishy, itchy sort of way.

“Well, yes,” said Captain Uisine, standing square and stolid by the open crate. Entirely unbothered by the spidery thing beside him. “A lot of it is. Some people find it unsettling, and apparently you’re one of them, but it’s just a bio mech. You’ll get used to it after a few days, or if you don’t I’ll keep it out of your way.” He touched the control panel and the smooth surface of the pod broke open with a click and slid aside. For just an instant Ingray saw a person lying naked and motionless, submerged in a pool of blue fluid, unevenly cut hair a tangled mass over half of eir sharp-featured face, thin – thinner than she remembered pictures of Pahlad Budrakim – the long welt of a scar along eir right flank.

Then the smooth, glassy surface of the preserving medium rippled and billowed as the person opened eir eyes and sat convulsively up, choking, one outthrust arm smacking hard into Ingray. Captain Uisine grabbed eir other arm. “It’s all right,” he said, voice still calm and serious. The person continued to choke as blue fluid poured out of eir mouth and nose, sheeted away from eir body back into the pod. “It’s all right. Everything’s fine. You’re all right.”



The last of the fluid drained away from the person’s mouth and nose, and e gave a breathy, shaking moan.

“First time?” asked Captain Uisine, reaching down for the blanket the spider mech still proffered.

The naked person in the pod closed eir eyes. Gasped a few times, and then eir breathing settled.

“Are you all right?” asked Ingray. In Bantia this time, the most commonly spoken language in Hwae System, though she was fairly sure Pahlad Budrakim would have understood Yiir, which Captain Uisine had used.

Captain Uisine shook the blanket out and laid it around the naked person’s shoulders.

“Where am I?” e asked, in Bantia, voice rough with cold or fear or something else.

“We’re on Tyr Siilas Station, in Tyr System,” said Ingray, and then, to Captain Uisine, “E asked where e is, and I told em we are on Tyr Siilas.”



“How did I get here?” asked the person sitting in the suspension pod, in Bantia. By now the blue fluid had all drained away to some reservoir in the pod itself.

“I paid someone to bring you out,” said Ingray. “I’m Ingray Aughskold.”



The person opened eir eyes then. “Who?”



Well, Ingray had never really met Pahlad Budrakim in person. And e was ten or more years older than she was, and not likely to have noticed a very young Aughskold foster-daughter, not likely to have known her name when she had still been a child, let alone her adult name, which she’d taken only months before e’d gone into Compassionate Removal. “I’m one of Netano Aughskold’s children,” said Ingray.

“Why,” e asked, eir voice gaining strength, “would one of Representative Aughskold’s children bring me anywhere?”



Ingray tried to think of a simple way to explain, and settled, finally, for, “You’re Pahlad Budrakim.”



E gave a little shake of eir head, a frown. “Who?”



Ingray suppressed a start as another spider mech came skittering out of the airlock. This one held a large cup of steaming liquid, which it passed to Captain Uisine before it spun and returned to the ship. “Here, excellency,” he said, in Yiir, offering it to the person still sitting in the pod. “Can you hold this?”



“Here,” said the first spider mech, in a thin, thready voice, in Bantia. “Can you hold this?”



“Aren’t you Pahlad Budrakim?” asked Ingray, feeling strangely numb, except maybe for an unpleasant sensation in her gut, as though she was not capable of feeling any more despair or fear than she already had today. The Facilitator had said this was Pahlad. No, e’d said e’d examined the payment and the merchandise and both were what they should have been. But surely that was the same thing.

“No,” said the person sitting in the suspension pod. “I don’t even know who that is.” E noticed the cup Captain Uisine was proffering. “Thank you,” e said, and took it, cupped it in eir hands as Captain Uisine stopped the blanket from sliding off eir shoulders.

“Drink some,” said Captain Uisine, still in Yiir. “It’s serbat – it’ll do you good.”



“Drink it,” said the spider mech, in Bantia. “It’s serbat – it’s good and nutritious.”



What if there had been a mistake? This person looked like Pahlad Budrakim. But also, in a way, e didn’t. E was thinner, certainly, and Ingray had only seen em in person once or twice, and that was years ago. “You’re not Pahlad Budrakim?”



“No,” said the person who was not Pahlad Budrakim. “I already said that.” E took a drink of the serbat. “Oh, that’s good.”



Really, it didn’t matter. Even if this person was Pahlad, if e was lying to her, it made no difference. She couldn’t compel em to go with her back to Hwae, and not just because Captain Uisine would refuse to take em unless e wanted to go. Her plan had always depended on Pahlad being willing to go along. “You look a lot like Pahlad Budrakim,” Ingray said. Still hoping.