I would like to thank Beachzz for generously allowing me to use (and abuse?) her work, "El Arco" in the rendition that accompanies this chapter of "The Guardian." Her original is a gorgeous piece of work, and I hope that my modification (and the story to which it belongs) both do justice to the original piece. You can see the original "El Arco" in her gallery, at: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1567008&member _________________________________________________________________________ **** “Sleep,” Aleo says, quietly. “Rest.” It is a long span of bells since Ilya’s time in the library, his time underground, and since the words he’s shared with Oleg. Now, he sits above ground, in the cell he shares with Aleo…he sits at his desk-terminal, siphoning through screen after screen of data. His thoughts are unquiet and it feels as if dusty thumbprints mar the backs of his eyes. He has spent two bells at this desk, guzzling hif-tea, and now he feels Aleo behind him, hands on his shoulders, kneading at the tension in his flesh. He closes his eyes and lets his head loll back. Aleo is a solid presence behind him, gentle and unyielding--a comfort. A promise. A friend. “You’re carrying this burden too closely, Ilychka. Take a rest.” “I’m onto something.” “I know.” “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be.” It’s late, Ilya feels it deep in his gut. He’s missed dinner, though he smells the redolence of a spicy stew in the air. And bread. His stomach grumbles and he flinches in blushed embarrassment at the sound of it. Aleo’s hands move from their kneading massage, and quiet footsteps lisp across the hardwood floor. He moves, wraith-like as any Cloistered Brother might, and in moments, there are sounds in the kitchen area. There is a compiler, programmed with a whole encyclopedia’s worth of interplanetary dishes, but here in the Cloister, older habits hold sway and foods are prepared from the output of gardens and slaughterhouses, kelp-farms and brewer vats. Compilers are for those with no time for the most ancient of human rituals, or no space for the storage of raw stuffs. In the Cloister, there is time…there is room, and the sounds of cooking pots and wooden bowls are a testament to that. Within a span of minutes, Aleo has a setting placed, and he is at Ilya’s back again, coaxing him up from his chair with playful tickles to the flanks of his torso. “Up,” he says. “C’mon. I’ll tolerate you carrying a heavy workload, but I won’t listen to your stomach’s growling arias.” When Ilya is on his feet, Aleo spins him gently and brushes a kiss across his lips. Dinner is a rich, spiced stew, thick with the planet-local variants of beets and onions, snow-cabbage, and chunks of succulent meat. Reindeer, Ilya thinks, but there are no Reindeer on New Ruthenia. There is only the output of clone generators, programmed to grow the brainless tissues of such creatures on thick slabs growth enhancer. Aleo sits across from him, now; he has poured beer for them both. “I’m helping you,” he says as Ilya spoons stew into his mouth. “You have your own duties,” Ilya says. “Not any more, I’ve assigned Boleslav to half my load…the rest I can do…whenever. But I promised you, two nights ago, that you’re not in this alone, and I see now, that you need a number two. Accept my help, Ilychka.” “This isn’t your burden.” “Nor is it yours alone.” “Your own work is important, Aleshka…and I’m not going to argue with you.” “Good…because it’s impolite to argue over soup…and besides, Bolek needs a heavier workload. Let him handle it.” Silence. Ilya concentrates on eating, on the rich explosions of tastes to spill over his tongue. “I already have clearance, so I’ll meet Dorianna Eiker tomorrow…with you.” “And what do you know about her?” Ilya is truly curious now. “I know that she spent time here, as an adolescent…I know that she probably spent years resenting her anthropologist father for bringing her into the Nemaean way-out, when she would much rather have been home with friends. I know that her psychosexual index makes her particularly vulnerable to the wiles of skinny blond-boys like you. Even If she resists, she’s still susceptible to meme-infection, if you‘re the source. I can reinforce that…push her to you. But despite this, she’s a tough case--her father has probably spent decades subtly conditioning her meme-defense reflexes.” He pauses and strokes the meticulously barbered tuft of gnarly, black hair centering the crest of his chin. “I’ll be the first to say that Brother Superior Makindé is a cruel bastard for assigning you to her with out a pusher.” Another pause. Aleo takes a sip of his beer, the places the mug squarely on the blond-wooden face of the table. He toys with the rim of the mug, tracing the lip with one finger. Ilya sits transfixed by the tone of Aleo’s skin. It always happens. Where Ilya wears snow-cream pallor and blond hair, thinning at the crown, Aleo is dark, like the husk of a pecan steeped in mahogany. His hair, short, is like a tightly woven black cap. He moves with a cat’s instinctive élan, like a fire-dancer at hunt in some primordial forest. His is the most familiar face in Ilya’s life, and the resolution sparking in the black depths of his gaze forestalls any arguments against the move he’s already taken. “You’ve been briefed on the case?” Ilya asks. “The pertinent parts, yes.” “And…?” “And I think that the course of action you’ve already planned is the only one open to us.” Us…how easily he slips into this, how willingly! “You know what I’m planning?” A shrug, a sip of beer. “I know what I’d plan if I were you. You know her mind, or at least the mind she had on her first journey here. You can use that against her, maybe plant something there for her to take home…a Trojan bomb to release among her superiors. If not that, then hack her ‘ware…give her The Fear. Those are the only things you can do, without drawing blood, or the attention of her government.” “And you know the nature of my bomb?” Aleo smiles, and for once, the expression is cold and predatory. “The entire city,” he says. “Your bomb is here…all around…and it’s a more powerful one than you think.” **** What begins with delayed dinner in the silence of their shared cell, ends the following morning, with Ilya at walk on the eastern cusp of Cloister Central’s roof. The clotted, urban sprawl of Bes is hazed in the southern distance, but to the east, the Three Brothers loom above the mists that blanket the flatlands. The footpath is cool and moist beneath his naked soles. The Three Brothers are a part of the full Cloister Complex. Ilya takes in the sweep of flat, misted land, broken here, there, and there, by the enormous ziggurat-mounds that are common to every city on every world within the Nemaean Realm. They are enormous, the Three Brothers. Each is a city in its own right; the base of one alone claims a three-kilometer footprint. Ilya’s thoughts drift to young Oleg, at residence in the closest of the monolithic citadels. What strange news, he wonders, echoes and spirals in that massive aggregate of ceramic, foamed metal, and glass? What bizarre currents do the pilot-swimmers sense in the fabric of the galaxy…and how are they teaching their trainee-wards to read those currents? Ilya shudders, as if conquered by a chill. But the morning is warm and humid. “What are those?” Dorianna asked, years ago, on the deck of Pushkin-248. She pointed in the direction of three massive towers…twin-horned ziggurats looming above another hazed city. “Buildings,” Ilya remembers answering. He remembers shrugging, and rubbing at a flaw in dull gray deck-laminate with the meaty crest of his big toe. “I know that,” she said, rolling her eyes in overt exasperation. “What kind of buildings?” And he couldn’t answer. He feigned ignorance, claiming only an aquaculturist’s provincial simplicity. Today, he still cannot answer. He inhales deeply and holds the breath he’s taken. He steps to the edge of the roof-walk. With his hands clasped firmly on the rail (it is cool with morning dew) he peers at the mound and spire shapes, and thinks of the pilot-swimmers in the nearest structure, the Interplanetary Guard in the second, and the Trade Guild in the third. He thinks, as well, of the gardens at the core of each, and the meaning embedded in those gardens. A swarm of widgets takes to flight from some distant stand of trees, and as he watches them catch the morning’s first thermals, he realizes that Aleo will be awake soon. “We make our move today,” Ilya whispers…perhaps to himself, perhaps to the widgets. But if it’s the widgets to whom he speaks, they take no heed of him, driven as they are, by urges far beyond any human concern. The morning is still and moist. It will not remain so, Ilya thinks. It will not remain so.... ****