Now:
Clere sits on the marble bench in the echoingly large marble-and-bronze Grand Hallway of the Transplanetary League headquarters. Her hands are clasped between her knees as she leans forward, elbows on her thighs. Her eyes are fixed on a point somewhere miles past the wall she is staring at.
That wall is covered in a huge bronze frieze. Central to it is the figure of Shae Duvane, cast in fierce metal many meters tall. She stands boldly, holding up a metaphorical lantern illuminating the sculpted planets and stars around her, and her wings arch behind her, a bit more butterfly-like than they actually were. Artistic license, Clere thought. Her delicate antlers are well-crafted by the long-ago sculptor, but are not quite the right shape either. Down by her ankle is a spot where hands have rubbed the patina from the bronze and it still shines.
“Ahem,” comes a voice from behind her.
Clere turns. There’s a diminutive and bookish Gertan woman there, looking nervous and lost. She wears enormous round-rimmed glasses as an affectation, and clutches a box overflowing with materials clearly destined for a desk.
“I’m new here… it’s my first day? I’m supposed to find Commissioner Bunten’s office? And I know there’s a ton of offices there on the other side of those doors, only I can’t find a directory anywhere, and the hallways are endless?”
Clere grins. “It’s a maze, alright. But Commissioner Bunten is out at lunch anyway. Your best odds of finding her are when she walks right past here in about half an hour.”
“Oh!” the Gertan squeaks. “I suppose I may be early? I didn’t want to be late on my first day?” She gingerly sets down the box, a glowing potted mushroom wavering out of one corner. Then she sits on the bench primly, staring forward.
Clere leans her elbows back on her thighs. Had she ever been that young? Ever?
“Is that Commissioner Duvane? The Founder?”
“Yeah,” Clere says.
“Wow.”
“They unveiled this a couple of hundred years ago, I guess it was some anniversary of the TPL’s founding.” Clere squints at the dates on the bottom of the frieze, but honestly, she doesn’t really pay much attention to dates anymore.
“She’s so…”
Imposing? Stern? Not like Shae at all. Clere suppresses a grin, remembering.
“Big.”
That gets Clere to laugh. “She wasn’t, you know. Not at all. Shorter than you. Shorter than most. But when she came into a room, you knew she was in charge. Her twin was the big one. I think that when they shared their mother’s womb, he stretched out and got all the space.”
The Gertan looks at her curiously. “You seem to know a lot about her.”
Clere shrugs. “I know a lot of history,” she says. Easier that way.
The Gertan looks back up at the sculpture. “She did so much? And she saved us all? She must have been such an amazing person? So noble and high-minded!” The look on her face, her mouth just slightly open is one of awe and worship. Another true believer, Clere thinks.
“She was,” she says noncommittally.
“And she looks so regal and beautiful and put together and her dress drapes just perfectly and… oh, what am I doing here?” the Gertan exclaimed, throwing her hands out and nearly knocking her box off the bench. “I don’t deserve to be here, and I can’t live up to… to something like… like her!”
Clere laughs again, then reaches out an arm to steady the girl, who is clearly having a nervous crisis about her first day in the Department of Special Projects. “You shouldn’t worry. Here, let me tell you a story…”
*
Then:
Shae Duvane wiped the sweat dripping into her eyes from her unruly mop of lanky hair. It didn’t work very well; all she managed was to smear more engine grease across her face. It was hot in the organic metaformation chambers, really fucking hot, and if she leaned against any of the nutrient vats she’d probably blister within minutes.
The heavy clanking sound of a Servitor workerbot hex-wobbling across the chamber deck grew louder, then began to fade again as it rounded a corner past the next row of vats.
“Bram!” she hissed. “It’s gone. We have five minutes and twenty seconds. Hoist me up.”
Her enormous twin said nothing, as usual, just unfolded his huge bulk from the floor where he had crouched to hide. He was dripping with sweat even more than she was. His small translucent wings drooped in the heat.
She scrambled up his back, careful not to tug the wings too hard – they were surprisingly sturdy for all they looked like gossamer – and balanced her tiny body on his shoulders, as he lumbered up to stand tall. From here she could see over the edge of the nutrient vat. It was bubbling and purple, fragrant with the scent of protein. “Perfect,” she whispered downwards. “We picked the right one, it’s the purple goop.”
“Yum,” Bram said, and handed up the first of the buckets. Shae bent over the edge of the rim carefully, laying her belly on the heat-proof cloth they had brought. It was a stretch to reach the surface of the goop. And if she fell in, why, then someone else would get to eat her later.
She scooped out the warm liquid with a ladle, filled buckets and twisted the lids tight so none of the precious food would spill, then passed them back to Bram. As she did so Shae ran down the list in her head. Three scoops for the little ones that lived in the air vent, the ones whose mother was blinded by that laser matrix last year. They were always underfoot, and after she got stepped on by one of the granary Servitors, the mother was literally underfoot too. Oh, that was terrible, shame on her for thinking that up.
She giggled to herself, then flapped her wings a bit to keep her balance as she kept scooping and keeping count. Seven for the elders who huddled by the grates where the gases vented. Bucket full, hand it down. Five for the clannish folk over near the gearshafts. One for the brownie-fella in his hidey-hole, even though he was such an asshole. And two for her and Bram to share, though he’d slurp most of it and she’d only need half a scoop because she was only half-size…
A massive grinding sound began just as she dipped the ladle for the last time.
“Shae!” Bram rumbled from below her, reaching up with his huge arms. Too late though — all around them the vats were corkscrewing down into the ship’s bowels, giant lids sealing them off to keep the goop enclosed on its journey to… somewhere else in the ship. Shae clung to the rim of the vat and was swept away from Bram’s shoulders.
She was still leaning half-in to reach the liquid’s surface, folded over the rim. She flapped her wings frantically – by Goedwig, if they only actually worked – and watched the rapid approach of the crushing metal. Nothing to push against, and one hand was full of the ladle anyway. She tried pushing up with the other against the interior of the vat but all she managed to do was slide it down the hot metal and burn her hand. Too slick. She popped her fingers into her mouth, licked the goop off, and tried not to get too dizzy as the world whirled around her.
The lid was a handspan from her face. She stared the edge of the metal down. It didn’t retreat. She was going to get sliced in half, and one half of her would go to the stars in purple soup and the other half would fall to the floor and get cleaned up by a robot janitor later.
Then she felt a strong grip around her ankle, and Bram tugged her from the vat. She flew backwards, crashing into his face and chest. She tried to hold the ladle tight, but couldn’t keep hold of it.
They went down together on the floor, and purple goop went all over Bram’s face.
“Yum,” he gasped.
She started to laugh, but the new vats were descending already, blurring down from the ceiling. They rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being decapitated by the fresh vat, and came to a stop against the buckets.
Shae lay there, staring at the ceiling, panting. Above her, the incomprehensible pipes and gears of the Servitor ship made a vast ceiling.
Bram groaned and clutched his head.
“What’s wrong, are you okay?” She quickly checked him over. He wouldn’t take his hand from his head. She peeled his fingers back gently; he let her.
One of his antlers had gotten caught under the descending vat. Some had snapped off. It was gone into the vast machinery. He’d have a fierce headache, for a while, and it probably twisted his neck, but the vast force had made it happen quickly, with a clean break. Luckily, he was not in velvet.
She hugged her twin brother fiercely. “You’ll be fine,” she said, putting on a brave face. “It’s mysterious and handsome.”
Bram just groaned, sat up, and grabbed the heavy buckets.
Together, they walked. Or rather, Bram walked, eyes tight with pain, and Shae limped after him, wings drooping. They walked through mechanical tunnels, past grates and the sound of hex-wobble feet, under angular arches and through vents with hinges grown loose with frequent passage. Through the vascular system and the bronchial tree of giant mechanical life.
Beyond it all, there was probably a starry endless sky, but she wouldn’t know. She was a ship Fae after all. They lived like fleas on the back of the Servitor ships that tended the countless planets of the Old Ones. And sometimes they got crushed into red goop to go with the purple. She wiped her face angrily. The slime on her sleeve would be her only dinner.
A few days later, there was a Rendezvous. A Servitor meeting a Servitor, each of them full of other Servitors. And of Fae, their fleas.
The vast Servitor tenders moved between planets, replenishing genetic material and pruning away mutations that did not fit the Old Ones’ template. From time to time they exterminated worlds that were infected with their Adversary, scooping up vast screaming blobby masses of tentacles and flowers that insisted they did not want to die, then scouring the planet to the bedrock.
Shae suspected that the purple goop might be stewed Adversary, but she kept that to herself. It tasted too good.
Rendezvous was a time for Fae to pair off into couples, swapping ships. For families to migrate, to get on different stellar circuits and visit different worlds. When the Servitors reached a world that needed harvesting to keep the ecological balance, massive oblong threshers would descend. Fae would ride them down, gather fresh food, scavenge what they could, and try to make it back to the threshers before they took off.
Sometimes, they didn’t make back in time. The threshers didn’t care. All Fae knew the Servitors were perfectly aware they harbored these parasitical populations. They just largely ignored the Fae, unless they got in the way. And if they did, a different robot would be along later to clean up the mess.
Over the generations, Fae had mapped out the routes and the timings. They knew how to hop from ship to ship to reach specific destinations. And some Fae had decided they preferred to live hidden on solid ground rather than enclosed in flying metal boxes.
Now Bram had decided that too.
“I can’t anymore, Shae.” He shook his head. She had tied a scrap of cloth around his broken antler, as a joke, and it flapped around rakishly. “I miss the sky.”
“The sky? The sky, Bram? The sky that our mother was looking at when the thresher mowed her down? When our da tried to save her?” She was furious, furious that her twin was abandoning her.
“She loved the sky, and the birds, and the wind.”
“Staring at birds is what got her killed, Bram! She got caught up daydreaming again, got distracted, and…” Shae blinked away tears. “Staring at the sky is dangerous, Bram. You have to stay grounded, be practical.”
Around them there was the bustle of upcoming Rendezvous. The elders had decided to split up, and some would ferry the orphaned children to the other ship, where there were young parents who could take them in. Molecular compressor crates were being packed far fuller than seemed physically possible, and there was the excited buzz and chatter of folk ready to see relatives and friends.
He took her trembling fingers and pulled them into the grasp of his huge hands. “I’ll come back.”
She looked him in his big sad eyes. “You had better, Bram.”
“Queen Mab will keep me safe,” he said, quite seriously.
Shae rolled her eyes. “And she’ll open a door in an oak or a hawthorn and bring us all home to the world under the hill and past the veil.”
He looked hurt. Bram took that stuff far more seriously than Shae ever could. She punched him in the arm. “You’re a dreamer too, Bram. That’s what this is about, isn’t it. You’re on the quest for Tír na nÓg.”
He cracked a grin, shook his heavy head.
“Just need the fresh air.”
And with that, he stood, hefted a pack across his shoulder, tousled her hair, and left down the tunnel, striding after the chattering elders who were shepherding the kids. From there he would await yet another Rendezvous, then would ride a thresher down to an inhabited planet, where one of the many human cousins lived. He would live among them hidden. A ground Fae.