Kin was staring at her, the memory of a hundred dead Guildsmen swimming unspoken in his eyes. Yukiko licked her lips, feeling her skin crawl as the False-Lifer’s limbs shivered. She ran one hand along Buruu’s neck, fingers deep in feathers’ warmth.
I don’t trust her.
SENSIBLE.
It’s too good to be true that there would be more like Kin.
IN ALL HONESTY, THAT PART OF HER TALE IS EASY TO BELIEVE.
A rebellion inside the Guild? No, they’re just telling us what we want to hear.
THOSE OF THE GUILD ARE BORN TO IT. NO CHOICE. NO CONTROL. NOT SO HARD TO IMAGINE SOME WOULD RESENT THAT YOKE.
I don’t believe one of them would just tiptoe out of a chapterhouse and come all this way to find Kin. It’s probably just a survivor from the fleet we burned. Lying to save its skin.
WE LEFT ONLY ONE ALIVE, YUKIKO. YOU KNOW THAT.
This doesn’t make any godsdamned sense. It’s lying.
YOU MEAN “SHE” IS LYING.
I mean “it.”
She eyed the False-Lifer up and down, lip curling.
“Is that why your leaders are backing Hiro? Because they’re too spineless to come here themselves now? They’d rather risk men with wives and children in the battle to bring me down, right? Better to see them die than more of their precious Shatei?”
“I am from Yama.” All nine of its functional arms rippled, and Yukiko was appalled to recognize the gesture as a shrug. “I do not know the politics of First House, or why the First Bloom bids Shateigashira Kensai to support the Tora boy. But I know seventy percent of our Munitions Sect were requisitioned by Kigen four weeks ago.”
Yukiko stared blankly.
“The Munitions Sect build machines that require human control,” Kin offered. “Motor-rickshaw, shreddermen, sky-ship engines and so on. Like I used to.”
Yukiko narrowed her eyes. “What are they working on?”
“I do not know, Stormdancer.” Another grotesque, multi-armed shrug.
“Don’t call her that.” Kin plucked three transistors from the mechabacus. “Her name is Yukiko.”
The boy snipped a final set of wires, gathered up the contraption’s guts and stuffed them back into its housing. Sealing the device closed with a few hasty screws, he stepped back.
“Done.”
The False-Lifer looked at Atsushi’s blade poised against its throat. The boy shifted his grip, one word from a bloodbath. Kin was watching her with pleading eyes. Yukiko stared for a pregnant moment, arms folded, eyes narrowed. The rain was falling harder, fat, clear droplets pounding the leaves around them and soaking everyone to the bones.
Everyone except the False-Lifer, of course.
“I have never seen rain that was not black before.” It turned its palms to the sky, droplets pattering upon its body, beading and running like quicksilver. “It is beautiful.”
Yukiko’s eyes were on the blade gleaming in Atsushi’s hand. The raindrops glittering on the steel like polished jewels.
We should just get everything we can from her, then bury her.
Buruu growled.
WHAT IF SHE SPEAKS TRUTH? WHAT IF SHE IS WHAT SHE SAYS?
No one leaves the Guild. Everyone knows that.
EXCEPT YOUR KIN.
Don’t call him that.
I DID NOT TRUST HIM EITHER, REMEMBER? YET WITHOUT HIM, NEITHER OF US WOULD BE HERE.
I know that.
THEN YOU KNOW WE CANNOT END THIS GIRL ON MERE SUSPICION.
Yukiko hissed, rubbed her eyes with balled fists. The Kenning headache was slinking forward on fox-light feet. The noise. The heat. Lurking in the back of her skull with leaden hands and bated breath.
“Take off your skin,” she said.
“What?” Kin raised an eyebrow. “What for?”
“If we’re taking it back, we’re not bringing a tracking device with us. It takes its skin and mechabacus off and we bury them here.”
“The mechabacus won’t work anym—”
“That’s the bargain, Kin. We bury its skin, or we bury it.”
“She’s not an ‘it.’” Kin frowned. “Her name is Ayane.”
Isao scowled, shook his head. Yukiko turned to the False-Lifer, eyes and voice cold.
“Your choice. And I don’t mean to sound cruel, but I could sleep either way.”
The False-Lifer glanced at Atsushi’s blade, then to Kin. Without a word, it began twisting the wing-nut bolts studding its suit. Reaching back with its humanoid arms, it tinkered with the silver orb on its spine; the melon-sized hub from which the spider limbs sprang. It fumbled around for a moment, hissing softly.
“Can you help please, Kin-san? It is difficult to do this alone.”