Fire Warrior

By contrast, the trooper to Kais’s left seemed utterly uninterested in inspecting her gear. Ju, her cadaverous features even paler than normal, sat with eyes closed and lips moving soundlessly, forming some rhythmic mantra or other. Ever since Kais could remember, Ju’s spiritual intensity had irked the other warriors, forever espousing the sanctity of the tau’va and holding forth with whatever philosophical nugget she’d most recently picked up. It wasn’t that the other rookies begrudged her faith in the Greater Good; rather that the tau’va philosophy of collective progress had permeated every part of the young line warrior’s training, and her inclination to preach was regarded as a waste of energy and breath. Despite the collective apathy towards Ju, both he and Y’hol had become her firm friends.

Kais peered at each of them in turn, grateful for their presence. Thirteen tau’cyrs had passed since his father’s visit to the training dome; in all that time only Y’hol and Ju, each in their own way as different as himself, had continued to treat him with the same familiarity and ease he’d enjoyed before his father’s identity had become public knowledge. In the eyes of all the others Kais could feel only the weight of expectation, as if greatness should be somehow constituent in his blood.

But he also felt something more, something worse: it was the cold, quiet glimmering of disappointment, and he’d seen it before.

O’Shi’ur approached the young tau with a clipped gait, eyes flitting from face to face with insect precision, analysing, committing to memory, then moving on. The shas’la retinue moved with him, a living mantle of jutting weapons and lenticular optics. He was searching.

Kais fought hard against the sudden desire to step out of line and declare “Me! It’s me! I’m your son!” Somewhere in his gut a muscle contracted, spasming nervously, and he wobbled imperceptibly in his spot, terrified of falling over. All the time a tiny voice in the back of his mind reminded him that maybe, just maybe, his father would recognise him despite the tau’cyrs of growth and change, and greet him with the pleasure such a reunion surely deserved.

O’Shi’ur’s lip curled and he eyed the supervisor.

“Which one is he?” he grunted. Kais deflated inside.

“That one.” The shas’vre nodded in his direction.

His father stared at him for what seemed an eternity, then appeared to glide forwards, blotting the apex-light from Kais’s eyes and filling his vision with old, analytical inquiry made flesh. He respectfully lowered his gaze, fighting his jangling nerves.

“Kais,” O’Shi’ur said, almost softly.

The urge to look up was too strong. Father and son made eye contact for a brief moment before Kais looked away, feeling wretched and flayed by the older tau’s gaze. Flesh could disintegrate beneath such a stare, he imagined. All the far-fetched rhetoric of the media could become truth in an individual such as this. He bit his tongue and wished the sands at his feet would rupture and devour him, hiding him away from those expectant, critical eyes.

“How does he progress?” his father said, presumably speaking once more to the shas’vre. Kais felt exposed, an exhibit to be prodded and discussed, unworthy of interaction. The shas’vre’s faltering reply was crudely diplomatic.

“He is... able, Shas’o. Able indeed.”

“Able?”

Kais felt the pause like the end of the world. He knew the Shas’vre wouldn’t lie, could already taste the humiliation.

“Yes, Shas’o. Adequate.”

“But his dedication to the tau’va is commendable, I daresay? He excels?”

The shas’vre mouthed wordlessly, then sighed.

“He is... a little impetuous, perhaps.”

“Impetuous?” O’Shi’ur’s disapproving voice was a leaden bell ringing in Kais’s ears, tolling out across his private world of shame.

“Yes,” the shas’vre went on, apparently resigned to total candour. “Given to tempers, Shas’o. Changes in mood and focus. But... he is still young. Perhaps we mi—”

“Is this true, boy?”

Kais forced himself to look up again. His father’s eyes burnt themselves onto his memory, smouldering with distaste and disappointment, crystallising the world, shattering everything in his life and filling it instead with only the acidity of that unrelenting, unforgiving, unimpressed gaze.

“Yes, Shas’o,” he mumbled, barely able to form words.

His father stood and stared, hooves tapping at the sand. He grunted under his breath twice, clearly fighting his dissatisfaction in an attempt to articulate.

“We are told,” he began, forming words thoughtfully, “that there is a place for everyone in the tau’va, regardless of their... inadequacies. One merely need find one’s niche.”

Kais could hear the disbelief in the voice, falsifying its reassurance; all the rhetoric in the world couldn’t erase those disappointed eyes from his memory.

“Here.” O’Shi’ur’s calloused hand thrust itself into his vision, clutching a small display wafer. “A gift.”

Kais took it, numbly. The world was dead. It didn’t matter.

His father left, the retinue of warriors drifted away like mist and the training began again. The silent dome stared down in mute judgment, the sand rose in miniature explosions with every footfall, and everything was normal.

Only at rotaa-end did he dare to examine the wafer. It was a small litany, written by his father in his own clipped, angular hand. It read:

My son,

No expansion without equilibrium.

No conquest without control.

Pursue success in serenity

And service to the tau’va.

With pride.

Shas’o T’au Shi’ur

That night, after staring at the words for long, sleepless decs, Kais dreamed of falling into an endless abyss, and whenever he swivelled towards the surface all he could see was a pair of dark, disenchanted eyes, glaring down at him.

“Two raik’ors.”

El’Lusha’s terse proclamation jolted Kais from the reverie. He found himself unconsciously clutching at the utility pack clipped to his belt, feeling the familiar shape of the old display wafer through its thin material.

He knew his reluctance to discard the token was sentimentality of the worst kind: treasuring such a bauble long after its text had been committed to memory smacked of impracticality, utterly in violation of the principles of the Greater Good. Still, it exerted some form of impossible gravity upon him — he could no more throw it away than he could believe himself worthy of its lesson.

Satisfied that the wafer remained in its accustomed position, Kais glanced around the dropship. From across the hold El’Lusha stared at him with a sort of quiet amusement, completely at odds with his grizzled, scarred features. Kais looked away.

“Helmet checks,” the commander grunted. “One-on-one.”

Kais turned to find a partner quickly, grateful for the distraction. A hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

“Here, Shas’la. I’ll do it.” El’Lusha stood over him, the same quiet smile creasing the corners of his mouth.

“Thank you, Shas’el.” Kais mumbled, uncertain. He upended the helmet and lowered it over his head, feeling the familiar surge of sensory information as the faceplate made contact with his skin. The world opened up from a single speck of light, a horizontal explosion of colours and shapes overwritten by winking text brackets and analysis readouts.

“You’re La’Kais, aren’t you?” Lusha’s rasping voice enquired, hands firmly joining the clasps along Kais’s spine. “I checked.”