Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)
Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre
DEDICATION
For everyone who marches to the beat
of a different drummer.
Prelude: Nadim
I feel the stars.
Energy pulses against my skin, murmuring secrets about this small galaxy, about orbits and alignments and asteroids streaming in space. Impulse makes me want to dive and cruise those currents, but I control these urges.
I shift my attention to the flutters of life within my skin.
Marko glows orange with crimson streaks. He is warm, always the easiest to find. Just now, he stands and stares at the blue-green orb swirling below us. I cannot swim down to see what he remembers of this place. The planet’s gravitational pull would break my bones. But he shows me flashes: smiling faces, a field of flowers, an old woman with eyes like slices of sky.
“I’ll miss you,” I tell him.
He flinches a little, surprised to hear me, as if he’s ever truly alone. “Me too. It was a good run.”
He once told me that it’s strange when we talk; he thinks I should find him as insignificant as he does the bacteria in his stomach. But I have had time to acclimate to the strangers in my system. I safeguard the small voices, as is my privilege and duty. There will be more to my life, but only when I’ve proven myself.
The stars sing again, this time in sleek, seductive harmony. I resist their melody, but the call is growing stronger.
Despite my passengers, I am empty in a way I cannot name. Marko tells me it is because our voyage is over; he calls this sadness. Perhaps I have learned this feeling from him. My first Honor gave me a human name, Nadim, and I have kept it safe, along with the other words and shapes and colors that shade my new existence. Like sadness.
I do not like this low orbit, but I must wait. I have been ordered to wait.
My new Honors will come.
Will they be warm and orange like Marko, or crisp and gray like Chao-Xing? She is harder to find, a shadow in my skin, and her silence feels like scraping. Yet her thoughts tap at me endlessly, asking questions I am not permitted to answer. Some answers have not even been given to me, so she can scratch as deep as she wishes. There will be no sudden brightness at the bottom. She is an itch I cannot shake out and I will not be sorry to see her leave. Marko touches where my skin is thin. Such gentleness, I should not feel it, but his feelings amplify at the point of contact. Warmth rolls through me, through layers of muscle and bone, until there’s a happy shiver in my depths.
“Please take care,” I say in his native language.
“You too. Bye, Nadim.” With a final pat on the surface near him, he turns.
A mechanical ship buzzes about me; I check the urge to play. Their constructs are fragile, they have no instinct, and a nudge from me would destroy the craft. I must be docile. I must comply to complete my training. I’m close now. I’ve learned so much.
To my other Honor, Chao-Xing, I say nothing. She has no words for me, no spare feelings either. Only questions, still, questions that I can’t answer. I open so the shuttle can land. There is a burst of cold, swirling energy, which compensates for the minor discomfort. I think this is what yawning must feel like. The humans speak, but not to me. And then they go.
For the first time in one solar year, I am alone. No warmth. No shadows, either.
The elder makes contact, stern and determined. Be mindful. Stay alert. Now, we wait.
Yes, Typhon.
I am ready.
PART I
Transcript from Good Day, New Detroit, with hosts Kephana Washington and Saladin Al-Masih, August 12, 2142
WASHINGTON: Welcome to today’s show! We’ve got news from the Honors Selection Committee about upcoming picks, footage of the Leviathan arrival in the solar system and Mars flyby, the latest on that new Heart of Fire release. . .
AL-MASIH: . . . Plus, a fantastic, fresh, local-grown farming co-op right in the city center, the Kanda School choir, a special profile on returning Honor Marko Dunajski, and a cat who might be the next Pawcasso. So let’s get to it!
WASHINGTON: Our first guests this morning are Sarah Simms and Ivor Johanssen—that’s right, we’ve got two of your favorite Honors!—who are going to walk us all through the exciting process inside the notification and training of this year’s new set of those chosen to represent humanity with the Leviathan. Sarah and Ivor, hello and welcome. You were both chosen four years ago. Can you each tell me, what did you think would happen, and how did it differ from the reality of going out aboard one of the Leviathan ships?
SIMMS: Well, for my part, I’d been training for this my entire life. Hoping for a chance, I should say, but working for it too. I had pursued a doctorate in biology, and I was really hoping that if I was lucky enough to be chosen, I’d get a chance to study the inner workings of these living ships in a way no one had before.
JOHANSSEN: [laughs] How did that work for you?
SIMMS: [laughs] Not very well, I admit. But the experience was breathtaking! These creatures truly are beyond classification, beyond anything that I can describe, especially once you’re close to them and living within their bodies. I’m a little chagrined to admit I didn’t get too far with my research. There’s too much to keep you busy with assigned duties, and once you’re out there seeing other worlds, experiencing what these Leviathan do . . . It changes your perspective.