Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee

Author:Yoon Ha Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

JEDAO SLOWED JUST enough for his escort to catch up with him. They didn’t look grateful. He was beyond caring what they thought of their charge.

Kujen’s quarters were defended by an immense foyer. A dazzle of candlevines grew up the walls, illuminating tangled wires and chitin-iridescent panels. A low thrumming reverberated throughout, like a gong that had just been damped.

The Nirai voidmoth emblem gleamed along the far wall, engraved in such piercing silver it was almost blue. The escort knelt in the full obeisance. Jedao didn’t bother. He called out, “I’ve come for an audience with the hexarch.”

When the doors parted, spilling light onto the floor and highlighting the iridescent panels, Jedao blinked but did not move otherwise.

“Jedao,” Kujen said in that velvet voice of his. “The timing could have been better, but... well.”

He wasn’t interested in Kujen’s assurances. “How long have the remembrances been going on?”

“Corporal,” Kujen said without looking in the man’s direction, “you and your soldiers may leave us.”

The Kel escort fled.

Kujen was already leading the way forward. “Come with me,” he said. “You’ll find nothing interesting out here unless you like prototype circuits.”

They passed through several rooms, each more opulent than the last, which did nothing to improve Jedao’s mood. One room featured the pelts of gray tigers, while another housed chairs and tables of handsome blue-black lacquer. Yet a third was full of shadows except a pedestal where a single immense vase of finest celadon rested. The glaze depicted an arched branch with a raindrop in the act of falling free; that was all. Jedao didn’t ask why Kujen collected such treasures when he scarcely paid heed to them. He wondered if he would be the same way when he had more experience of the world. He hoped not.

“Now,” Kujen said, “you may yell.”

Jedao reined back his temper. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“The remembrances?” Kujen sank down into a couch. Jedao took the chair across from him, drawing his feet in. “You mean in their current form.”

Jedao just looked at him.

“For the past eight centuries and change,” Kujen said.

“And you let this go on?”

Kujen raised his eyebrows. “Jedao,” he said, “I’m the one who came up with the system.”

Jedao’s brain stuttered to a halt.

“The formations, and formation instinct, and the mothdrive harnesses,” Kujen said, “all of them depend on people adhering to the system. The stability of the hexarchate, and its ability to provide for its citizens, depend on people adhering to the system.”

“Kujen,” Jedao said, recovering his voice, “we just fucking tortured prisoners of war to death. Now they’ll never negotiate, or cooperate with prisoner exchanges, or believe any of our assurances, or—”

“I never intended to negotiate with Inesser or her people.” Kujen rose and made his way to a cabinet. From it he drew a dark, unlabeled bottle. He tilted it inquiringly and cocked an eyebrow at Jedao. Jedao shook his head. “She and her followers are too dangerous. Better to add them to the list of heretics and move on.”

“You can’t arbitrarily

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