Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (e books free to read txt) 📗

not the time to leave her heart naked; this is not the time to be any other than impregnable. “I did not anticipate that the Seven-Sung captain would reinvent emself and obtain a whole new body so that I’d court em for a wife, that’s true. Is it a fetish of yours, Erisant?” Over and over she will say it, the name Erisant, to separate what was and what now is: to separate the artifice from the truth, to reinforce that Xuejiao never existed and thus to forget.

A sneer. “Everything’s a fetish with you, Admiral. Power. Flesh. Genocide. Do you ever think about the blood on your hands?”

“Do you? In our profession, measuring blood by the liter seems pointlessly obsessive; where is the use? All that plasma is long evaporated.” She is control—limitless calculation, perfect result. Time and space bend to her desires, and planets and people. That has ever been true; it will be true now. “And perhaps I knew, or began to notice. Why do you think there are things I tell only Numadesi?”

“You’re not bluffing your way out of this. You forget how well I’ve gotten to know you. Learned your behavior, studied you inside and out.”

Anoushka smiles. She makes it unpleasant, a grotesque mask. “You’re correct that power pleases me, and what could be more piquant than to have my enemy facedown in bed while I make em beg for what I can give? It did surprise me, that you’d debase yourself so, to surrender to me utterly. To the point you let me remove your limbs and make you a doll for my gratification. I will say this much—you were a fine lover, a most delightful treat in bed, and your husband must have enjoyed you very well. A shame he’s not around to do so anymore, but I should like to think I was able to take up the slack—”

Erisant charges. She lets her gauntlet overflow and thicken around her hand, and swings her fist into eir midsection. Ey staggers but does not fold—armored torso; Anoushka’s overlays provide the calculation of how much force connected and how much was dispersed—and kicks out at her. She dodges, diagonal, and slams her foot into the small of eir back. Again it does less damage than she would like.

Ey leaps away, adjusting eir stance. Wary now, less gloating.

Anoushka unsheathes an ischemic knife, the type she’s had custom-made a few years ago after learning what Krissana became, that haruspices might soon range beyond the confines of Shenzhen Sphere. Erisant would not recognize what it is; even from her wives she has kept a few secrets. “I thought,” she goes on, “that I could bend your will, bind your body. For despite our dispute, you were a worthy soldier, one I could turn into my asset. And your performance was most convincing in that regard, I was convinced that you’d acceded to be mine, a creature whose desire was leashed and biddable to my requirements. That much you did fool me, I will concede.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yes,” Anoushka says softly, “we did that rather often, didn’t we?”

She blocks eir blade with her arm—she knows her enemy’s augments intimately, and her overlays yield numbers that suggest none were concealed from her; as Xuejiao, ey had to submit to a full body scan periodically. When she first met Xuejiao she always thought the way the lieutenant moved was odd, as though she was used to having a taller frame and broader physique, and was not yet used to the shift in sacroiliac joint, the lower center of gravity. Back then she did not pry; she let her recruit have this privacy. She understood the need and the process well, the skinning and flensing, the wholesale unmaking so that muscles can be snipped and rewired, ribcage and tibia rearranged. The sacrifice of oneself to the divinity that lies within.

Erisant has adjusted long since. Ey slashes at her with precision, as used to her patterns as she is used to eirs, defense and offense matched by deep familiarity.

“So,” she says, breathing even, “I have an idea, Erisant. I understand you lost many loved ones when I charred your world and crushed your fleet, but that can be remedied. Word is that some Mandate AIs are experimenting with a new enterprise where you send them a memorial of your beloved and they lease you one of their proxies, who will behave and adore you just like the genuine article. The price is high, the practice contentious within Shenzhen. Nevertheless I’ll foot the bill. Call it blood compensation, though to be perfectly forthright with you, I can’t recall your husband’s name or the names of your lieutenants . . . ”

She sidesteps another slash, judges again, is satisfied with her assessment of what Erisant can and can’t do. Next is the test of what damage Erisant can absorb, a test of whether her knowledge of Xuejiao—who does not exist, who never did—holds true. She gets close, reverses her grip, stabs down. Serrated alloy opens a seam in cobalt armor.

Erisant pulls away, alarmed. Eir eyes focus on the ischemic knife.

“I did say,” Anoushka murmurs, “that you don’t know everything about me.”

They exchange blows, their shadows like puppets in frenetic performance, darting and distorting across the floor. Adrenaline replaces emotion. In times like this she can fight forever, moving like divine choreography, the bonfire of her unconstrained by mortal limits. Pain is a secondary concern; in this seductive state she does not feel. Still she keeps an eye on the data that flowers in a corner of her vision, counting and forecasting and calibrating.

Erisant feigns right, low. She pays it no heed: she is a large target, ey is much smaller, there is no point in attacking her flank or hip. She waits. When eir foot comes up she has her blade in position and it sinks, clean and sweet as fire through wax, into eir ankle. Xuejiao has never shielded this spot as well as she shields her torso, her arms.