Free Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee Page B

didn’t betray her. The fact that her coordination had suffered bothered her. She’d never been the most agile of her comrades, but she hoped the effect was temporary.
    “Jedao,” the Nirai said, “I trust she’s satisfactory?”
    “I’m your gun,” Jedao said.
    Cheris was nonplussed. A Kel might say that ceremonially to a superior, and even then only on the highest of occasions, but the irony in Jedao’s voice suggested that something else was going on.
    “Besides,” Jedao added, “if she’s like the others, she never had a substantive choice, and I didn’t have one either.”
    The question must have shown on Cheris’s face. The Nirai said, “We prefer volunteers. They survive the process better.”
    Ah, yes. Volunteers Kel-style.
    “Let me brief you on the basics,” the Nirai went on. “You apparently have some use for Jedao, and Kel Command approved it. What you ought to know is that the black cradle’s ghosts can only be revived by attaching them to someone living, which we call anchoring. This is not general knowledge. Jedao mentioned that most exotic weapons will harm him before they harm you. There are a few exceptions. I advise you to look them up when you get a chance.
    “Jedao can’t read your thoughts, which he told you about, but the part he left out is that he can see and hear, and in particular he sees farther than a human does, in all directions at once. It’s futile to tell a Kel this, but watch your body language around him or you’ll be giving him a window into the contents of your brain. You may occasionally experience moments of bleed-through from his presence, his reactions seeping into yours, but the big one is muscle memory, and that’s not all bad. His reflexes have saved previous anchors.”
    The Nirai slouched against a wall, but his gaze was direct. “The other thing, and this is going to hurt you, is that it’s imperative that you kill Jedao if it looks like he’s going mad or he’s about to betray your mission.”
    He was right. It hurt her. She stumbled off the treadmill because her legs stopped working, and tumbled to the floor with a thump. She was part of a hierarchy she was sworn to uphold, and people still referred to Jedao by his rank. Shuddering, she levered herself up. Rationally, she knew that she was receiving orders and that the orders made sense, but right now she was keyed to Jedao as her formation leader, even if he was a ghost. And a traitor.
    The Nirai had been watching her reaction. He was smiling, making no effort to hide his amusement.
    “It will pass,” Jedao said softly. “And he’s right, you know. I remember every ugly thing I have ever done.”
    “There will be backup teams,” the Nirai said, “because it would be stupid not to. But it would be best for you to handle it yourself.” He tapped a table, and a dull gray-green gun dislodged from some unseen compartment. Cheris had never seen one of that type before, which took some doing around a Kel, but she presumed a Nirai could manage it. “This is the preferred weapon. It’s a chrysalis gun, and it’ll prepare him to be shoved back into the black cradle for his next deployment.”
    Cheris tried to form a question. It came out on the third try. “What defenses does the general have, sir?”
    “He can talk to you,” the Nirai said sardonically. “No, don’t laugh. He’s very good at it. When he sounds sane and the rest of the world doesn’t, you know it’s time to pull the trigger. No offense, Jedao.”
    “It’s not news that I’m a madman,” Jedao said, still ironic.
    The Nirai held the gun out. “It’s on the lowest setting and won’t damage him permanently,” he said, showing her the slider. “Cheris, I want you to shoot Jedao.”
    Cheris took the gun. The Nirai might be lying to her, even if she didn’t see the purpose of such a lie. “Where do I aim, sir?”
    “Shadow or reflection,” he said. “Aiming it at yourself also works, but according to my sources,