By the Sea of Sand Read online

  “Yes.” Jodah crossed his arms over his chest. “Anything else?”

  “Your eyes. The pupil of the left is a little larger than the other. It opens wider. Closes smaller. It’s recording everything you see, isn’t it?”

  Jodah hadn’t thought about it, but now that Rehker had pointed it out, all he could notice was how much clearer the world seemed looking through his left eye. When he looked at the other man, the data stream brightened, white and glaring, but Jodah could do little more than blink at it as the string of words and images flashed past him.

  “And you’ve got a lot going on in that brain, I bet. Oh, you can calculate the trajectory of a hornet as quick as that, can’t you?” Rehker snapped his fingers. “You wouldn’t even have to think about it. All the work would be done for you. They give the officers the best advantages, don’t they? Of course they do. Not for the rest of us, of course, not the under soldiers. The SDF couldn’t possibly do that.”

  Jodah had a memory of pain, vivid and yet welcome. He wanted to hold onto it, but it slipped away before he could. Even so, the flavor of it remained. The smell of something burning. An ache deep in his bones. An extra weight inside him as he got used to his new skeleton.

  “Nothing comes without cost, Rehker. The SDF gave me what I needed in order to lead.”

  “And in the end, Jodah-kah, you ended up the same as all the rest of us. Didn’t you?”

  Kah. The honorific was an old one, appended to the end of his name in the fenda style. The use of it had fallen out of favor years ago, then resurged in popularity in the viddies as a slang term, usually faintly insulting. Rehker had said it without a flinch, a simper, or a snide look, but somehow Jodah knew the man hadn’t intended it as respect.

  “Yes. I ended up just the like the rest of you. So there’s no need to call me kah.” Jodah looked at Pera, who hadn’t moved from her spot on the lounger. Her eyes wide, her grin wider, she couldn’t keep her adoring gaze from Rehker, who at last turned to face her.

  “Sweet Pera. The past is a shadow to you, isn’t it?”

  “Mostly,” she said.

  “And you’re glad of it?”

  “Mostly,” she said, this time with a pause before replying.

  Rehker frowned. “We don’t remember who we were or what happened to us, but we can look at each other and see the truth. I look at you, Jodah-kah, and I see a man who must’ve done great things. I’d have been proud to serve under you, I’m sure.”

  “Thank you,” Jodah said, not sure he could believe Rehker, no matter how sincere he sounded. There was something off-putting about the other man. Something sly. Or maybe it was simply the way he allowed Pera to dote on him, keeping her close to him and feeding her just enough attention to fan the flames of her desires, yet never, so far as Jodah could see, giving her what she wanted.

  “You’re welcome, Jodah-kah.”

  Irritated, Jodah frowned. “You don’t have to call me that.”

  “But it fits you so well,” Rehker replied with another of his wide grins that didn’t reach his eyes. “It suits him, doesn’t it, Pera?”

  “Oh, it does. Absolutely.”

  Jodah looked from one to the other, knowing the pair of them were somehow mocking but unable to figure out a way to say so without sounding too sensitive. He put a hand on his belly and gave each of them a formal half bow. “Thank you, Rehker-kah. Pera-kah. I’ll say the same for you.”

  This brought a sour giggle from Pera, but Rehker only looked at him with that same flat gaze. Jodah stared at the other man until he looked away. What they were up to, he couldn’t be sure and didn’t really care. Both of them were not well in their minds, which he could forgive. But disrespectful, that he had no time for.

  “Another time. I look forward to getting to know you better, Jodah-kah.” Rehker returned the formal gesture, though as with the use of kah it had a flavor of mockery. He turned to Pera. “Pera, a game of Golightly?”

  Rehker’s dismissal of Jodah was so clear it almost made him laugh, but he took the chance for escape, instead.

  Chapter 12

  The simple food had been expertly prepared. Several courses of grains and greens with sliced milka and milka pudding for afters. He dove into it like a starving man, savoring every flavor as though he’d never tasted it before. And maybe, he thought, watching the others at the table, he hadn’t. Or at least had not in so long that they might as well have been brand-new.

  The table conversation was lively and disjointed, but as with the other meals he’d shared at the table, nobody seemed to care if he joined in. Instead, he sat back and watched the others. Gathering information. Observing. Details formed patterns in his brain, making shining strands of color that became rapidly scrolling lines of analysis he could barely decipher.

  Venga, the old man. Not dressed appropriately, moving slowly, but faking much of his decrepitude. He also hoarded food beneath the heavy robes, a sure sign he’d been held for a long time in near starvation.

  Adarey and Stimlin, the women. Partners. Adarey spoke for Stimlin, but it was clear if you watched them how she relayed her needs and thoughts through subtle hand signals. Where would she have learned them? Data he hadn’t been aware he had filtered into the stream of details and patched them together, but he still didn’t know.

  The chatty and vibrant Rehker, who kept up a neverending stream of jokes to hide the constant tremor in his voice that didn’t come from fear. The sullen Pera, who looked with hidden longing at Rehker, but only when she thought he couldn’t see. Pera was the only one with visible scars, burns across her face and on her arms, exposed by the sleeves of her robes when she reached to serve herself.

  They were all military except for Vikus, Billis and . . . Teila. The woman. And of course her son and the ancient Fendalese female who served as the boy’s amira. All were soldiers, none of them as high ranking as he, though there was no way for him to know that for sure. It was just a feeling.

  He’d started having a lot more feelings.

  None of them treated him like an outsider. If he stood off from them, they didn’t seem to notice, or at least not enough to care. Nor did any of them try to pull him into the discussion, for which he was grateful. His head had begun to ache from the noise of conversation. Too much stimulation. He couldn’t stop collecting and compiling details into his mental data stream, even though none of the information made sense or triggered any responses.

  “Enhanced,” he said aloud, suddenly, startling himself and causing everyone else at the table to fall silent and stare at him. “I’m enhanced.”

  “In my day, we called it built up,” Venga said after a moment. “Got a chip in my brain, supposed to help me take pictures with my eyes like a camera. Never worked right.”

  Rehker laughed and struck an exaggerated pose. “Take a picture of this.”

  Venga snorted. “Like I’d want that stuck in my brain, no thank ya.”

  Jodah pushed away from the table, his head spinning and his meal unfinished. The chair clattered to the floor behind him hard enough to break. Rehker’s laughter stopped.

  “It was an old chair,” Teila said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I think I should go upstairs,” he said.

  “Everyone cleans their own plate from the table,” Vikus said.

  Teila gave him a stern look. “Vikus.”

  “Well,” the younger man said, “we do.”

  This time, Pera spoke up, the first time she’d said a word the entire meal. “A Rav Gadol wouldn’t clear his own plate from the table.”

  Rav Gadol. The term lit up something in the part of his brain that was constantly calculating. A sudden flare of agony caused him to press his fingertips to his temples. A chittering sound blocked out everything else for a moment, but then passed along with most of the pain. He straightened and looked at all of them.

  “I was the Rav Gadol. But now . . . I’m just a man.” With that, and a significant look at the now-sulking Vikus, he picked up his p