Demigod 12, p.1
Demigod 12, page 1
DEMIGOD 12
TINKERED STARSONG BOOK 2
GAIL CARRIGER
CONTENTS
Wait, what am I reading?
Prologue
1. An Act of Asterism
2. Have Spaceship, Will Sing
3. The Phex of the Matter
4. Through Hell and High Cantor
5. Grace Softly and Carry a Big Alien
6. Fall from Grace
7. Abide with Kagee
8. Two Gods with One Tone
9. More Fun than a Barrel of Murmels
10. Fear Ends Where Fixation Begins
11. Better the Imago You Know
12. All Things Must Pantheon
13. The Dyesi is in the Details
14. Once in a Grey Dome
15. The Dyesi Come in Judgment
16. Song of All Fears
Epilogue
Afterword
Sample Crudrat
Author’s Note
More Gail Carriger
About the Writerbeast
DEMIGOD 12
Gail Carriger
Wait, what am I reading?
NYT bestselling author Gail Carriger brings you the second in her cozy sci-fi space opera trilogy about the galaxy’s most cutthroat entertainment industry, where music is visible and the price of fame can kill.
Gail has a fun, silly newsletter full of gossip, sneak peeks, and giveaways. Join the Chirrup
In the beginning, the Dyesi created the domes and the divinity.
Or did they?
1
AN ACT OF ASTERISM
When Phex woke up, he was a completely different color. He found himself staring at his own arm in mild confusion. Had he always been that… metallic? He twisted from the shoulder to catch the light – muted dark blues and somewhat silvery. Cute.
He was in the biggest surgery room on Divinity 36. Three of his pantheon were lying in beds around him: Kagee, Tyve, and Berril. Their two Dyesi members were missing. Phex checked the infonet on his ident. It felt like only a few minutes had passed, but it turned out to be over twenty hours since he had been made a demigod.
A medic shuffled over and helped Phex up. An acolyte led him, naked, to stand in front of a large mirror.
“You’ll have plenty of recovery time,” it said, tone formal and crests neutral.
Phex wondered what that meant. They hadn’t had a day of rest since they arrived on Divinity 36 over a year earlier. They were demigods now – he doubted things would slow down or get quieter for him and his pantheon.
He stared at himself. All his skin, which had originally been a brownish color, was now tinted gunmetal black with silvery blue overtones. He’d expected something like that. Most Sapien gods got tinted metallic. The Dyesi were very into metallics.
What startled him more were the clear sealant bandages over large parts of his torso. They’d removed his blade scars. Or, perhaps more precisely, those scars weren’t actually visible anymore. It felt as if they were still there but had been covered over and were now phantoms lurking under a pretty metallic facade, shimmering memories of past mistakes. Phex wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It wasn’t as if he’d liked his scars, more that he’d thought of them as mementos of childhood, a concrete connection to his own past. He did not touch the place where they had once been, only noted the slight discoloration they’d left behind, like dust streaks on a pane of glass. It probably wouldn’t be visible on the dais.
They’d reshaped his ears – pulled out the lobe and pointed the tips, so they were slightly larger and more crest-like. The Dyesi had deep feelings about ear shapes. The new tips seemed to glitter and shine, drawing attention, as if they were not so much crests as crest buds. Phex thought they too was cute, but that was how he felt about Dyesi crests, too.
The rest of his face and body seemed largely unaltered. Although his eyelashes and eyebrows had been thickened. He’d been given dark blue and black hair extensions interwoven with his own vibrant blue hair, all the way down to his hips. He moved his head about, enjoying the silken swish and weight of it – the ends tickled his skin.
He looked like a god.
Phex didn’t say anything, just clicked at the nearby medics to acknowledge their skill in making him look exactly as he should by their standards.
He pulled on the robe that an acolyte handed him and wandered aimlessly around the room, waiting for the others to wake up. He wasn’t surprised to be the first – tinkered genetics meant he processed drugs of all kinds faster than most.
Kagee was next. He sat up quickly, looked instantly down at his empty hands, then glanced around for threat, relaxing the moment he saw Phex.
“They’re in that bowl next to you,” said Phex.
Kagee, sharp face neutral and jaw firm, put on his rings, carefully, one at a time, each on its proper finger. Then he twisted each to sit in exactly the right way.
Once he had finished, Phex helped him stand and walk to the mirror.
The medics had worked with Kagee’s natural grey coloring, tinting him a silvery lilac, so he was a light to complement Phex’s dark. Exactly as one would expect from the two cantors of a pantheon. Kagee already had long silver hair but they’d added volume and purple strands. He had bandage seals at the sides of his eyes and was squinting in pain. The surgeons had opened the lids and reshaped them slightly, the Dyesi prized large eyes. His were already big but they’d been made even bigger and up-tilted at the outer edge, leaf shaped. His long oval face, high cheekbones, and sharp features remained the same, although they had pointed the tips of his ears, like Phex.
Kagee looked at himself silently. Like Phex, he was unashamed to be naked in that moment.
“I look pretty,” he said, genuinely awed.
Phex grunted. “You were always pretty, now you look like a god.”
Kagee tilted his head and blew his reflection a kiss. “I do, don’t I?”
The acolyte handed him a robe. Kagee turned away from the mirror, took in the big room, then looked at Phex, newly darkened brows peaked in confusion.
“Over twenty hours,” Phex answered the unspoken question.
“Where are Fandina and Jinyesun?”
“I don’t think they’ve been told we’re awake.”
“Your sifters are packing the dorm,” said the acolyte.
“Without us?” objected Kagee, forgetting his formality of speech.
“For you,” replied the acolyte, unperturbed.
“Why?” asked Phex.
“Because you are leaving Divinity 36, of course.” The acolyte sounded like Phex was crazy for asking.
Tyve woke up then. In classic Tyve fashion, she woke up sort of singing and giggling to herself.
Phex and Kagee went over to her bed.
She grinned at them “Am I gorgeous?”
“Absolutely stunning,” said Kagee.
She evaluated him. “Likewise. Phex, I like the blue, very moody. Aren’t you two as lovely as a deep-ocean resort? Or one of those wiggly, flowery sea creatures.”
Kagee said, “If you feel like standing, there’s a mirror over there.”
They helped Tyve up and escorted her over to the mirror.
The aestheticists hadn’t done much with her coloring, keeping the dark magenta, which now coordinated with Phex’s midnight gunmetal. They had given her a rosy sheen, more pearl than metallic. Tyve twisted about and angled herself in front of the mirror. Her nose was bandaged and reshaped. She had naturally curly black hair and they had relaxed that into long waves, threading through strands of magenta and pearl so that it looked almost wet.
Their two absent sifters, the other members of their pantheon, being Dyesi, were already a matched set. Jinyesun’s iridescent skin leaned toward teal, and Fandina’s was a purpled blue. The acolytes were turning all six of them into a spectrum of cool, watery sunset colors.
They sat together on the edge of Phex’s former cot and waited for Berril to wake up.
As soon as she started to stir, they all rushed to her three beds. Her wings, spread to each side, each took up an additional bed.
She sat up, looked around.
Phex watched in profound relief as she automatically folded her wings, tucking and arranging the fine membrane behind her easily. Those wings had been terribly burned with acid a day before.
“How do you feel?” asked Tyve.
“Fine, actually,” Berril smiled at them, her face shiny with various bandages. Her jawline had been shaved and her lips plumped, her eyes and nose both reshaped. Most of her face was shiny with the breathable repair bandage. She’d been given a full head of hair. It was long, of course. Phex thought it would take him a while to get accustomed to Berril with hair. It was not at all realistic-looking. The divinity had intentionally given Berril something synthetic and very lightweight so it almost floated around her head. Phex wondered if it could light up, like a holiday decoration.
“She’ll need to keep the face bandages on for a week,” explained the medic. “While you travel.”
“Travel?” said Berril and Tyve.
“Fandina and Jinyesun are apparently packing for us,” explained Kagee.
“Where are we going?” asked Berril.
“What’s happening?” Tyve twitched her head about.
Phex and Kagee didn’t know, so neither of them answered.
Instead, Phex said, “You want to see yourself, birdie?”
Berril smiled small and stiff under her bandaged sheen.
Phex helped her up and over to the mirror. He cou ld easily have carried her but she wouldn’t want that right now.
The Dyesi had taken away all her peach fuzz and tinted her skin, as Phex had expected, a silvery pale pink, the counter to Tyve’s dark magenta. She looked frail and ethereal, like some sprite creature from ancient folklore.
“Oh!” said Berril, tilting her face around, staring in awe at her entirely new image. Her ears were already pointed, so they were two of the only things on her head that hadn’t been substantially changed. Then, automatically, she unfurled her wings.
What had been done to those wings was truly amazing. Using a similar material to her hair, they had given her wings paper-like scales in a feathered pattern. Those scales must be incredibly light in order for her to still be able to fly. They started out the same silver pink as her skin at the top of her arms and back and then brightened into white at the bottom edge.
Berril twirled in front of the mirror.
Everyone gasped.
Berril said, “They’re whole! I thought I’d have permanent holes, the pain was that bad.”
The medic made a scoffing noise. “It was nothing to repair the acid burns. Now, you trying doing over ten thousand tissue-mica implants.”
Berril fluttered her wings. The scales shimmered. “Is that what those are?”
“Yes. And it has a mixed polycarbonate filament ceramic micro-deposit coating.”
“What does that mean?” asked Berril, eyes huge.
Kagee said with a sarcastic grin, “They’re acid-resistant.”
“But still delicate and easily ripped and injured like before,” explained the medic. “But yes, most acids shouldn’t be a problem. Also heat.”
“I’m fireproof?” Berril gaped at herself.
“Fire-retardant. But the scales can shatter in extremes of temperature. Think of them as a little like glass fiber.”
Tyve said, reverently, “They’re really beautiful.” They glittered in the light of the medical bay. They’d look absolutely amazing under the dome.
The acolyte helped Berril on with a halter wrap. “Enough admiring yourselves. You all look exactly as you ought. It’s not like we haven’t done this many times before. Come along, then.”
But the medic on duty stopped them from leaving, interposing itself in front of the acolyte. Which surprised Phex. He hadn’t known medics had authority over acolytes. “No heavy lifting, UV exposure, or gravitational stress for any of you, understood? You are still in recovery, even those places on your bodies without bandages need extra care. A full tinting is no minor procedure.”
They all nodded.
The acolyte’s crests went slightly back in annoyance – it hissed impatiently.
The medic ignored it and continued, consulting a small wrist screen, which probably had a discharge checklist. “What else? Ah, yes. You’ve all been sterilized. Not that the divinity” —a gesture at the annoyed acolyte— “lets you do anything that might cause procreation, but there it is.”
The acolyte made a humorless huff noise.
Phex was surprised. “I wasn’t already?”
Kagee seemed upset on Phex’s behalf for some reason. “What?”
Phex looked around at everyone else. “You mean you weren’t? You could just get pregnant or something?” He gestured at Tyve and Berril.
Tyve grinned. “I don’t have those parts, but yes. Why is that odd?”
Phex shook his head. “Procreation is a privilege, not a right, the inner Spokes decide who breeds on the Wheel.”
Kagee was appalled. “That’s barbaric!”
Phex was genuinely confused. “It is? But this is space, air is limited, you can’t just go around spawning, can you?”
The medic tapped at the screen. “Oh, ah, I see. You all already were sterilized before you came in. That’s why the procedure notes are odd. How interesting. All four of you. That’s never happened before.”
Berril said primly, “Shawalee have an overpopulation problem, all teens undergo compulsory surgical birth control at puberty.” She looked around. “Like Phex, I thought that was normal.”
Tyve said, “Not compulsory for me, just encouraged in noncombatants. I took the option when I was getting my true-self surgery.”
Kagee was deadpan. “I was born sterile.”
The medic looked up at him without much interest. “No. You were not.”
Kagee went pale under his new tinting. “Yes, I was.”
The medic was not interested in arguing facts. “It was done in infancy but you show the standard vasectomy given to S-class Sapiens with male genitalia.”
Kagee did not look well. Phex moved close in order to support him if he stumbled.
“I… What?” Silver eyes darted about as Kagee couldn’t seem to process.
“Don’t look so crestfallen,” said the medic. “It’s reversible, if you leave the divinity. We can do that for you easily, even if we didn’t do the original sterilization procedure. I’m sure the divinity would cover it either way. No problem there. I’ll make a note in your record.”
“Wait, what?” Kagee seemed a little hysterical.
Phex exchanged worried looks with Berril. She shifted closer to their high cantor, put a comforting hand to his waist. “Mine is reversible too.”
“All four of you are classified as temporarily sterilized. But no reversing the procedure until you leave the divinity, okay?” The medic was not interested in identity crises or personal revelations – they refocused on the discharge instructions. “Moving along. You have all also been given appropriate travel inoculations and boosters, as well as treatments to ward against most exotic infections and diseases. Gods do not get sick on my shift, thank you very much.”
“Can we leave now?” asked the acolyte plaintively, only slightly rude in its inflection.
“Oh, am I inconveniencing you?” The medic sneered at it. “Yes yes, go away, why don’t you?”
The acolyte did not reply. Merely gestured for the pantheon to follow it out of the surgery room.
“Where are we headed?” asked Tyve, as they were clearly not going up to their residential dorm.
“Toward ground transport, of course.” The acolyte’s crests twitched slightly in annoyance.
“What?”
“Right now?”
“But we just got out of surgery.”
Phex guessed that was what had been meant by time to recover. If they were about to go on a long space trip, they’d have plenty of time in transit to rest and heal.
The acolyte did not feel compelled to explain itself.
Berril plucked at Phex’s sleeve. “We made it, right? We’re demigods?”
Phex clicked agreement.
She looked furtively around. “So, what are we called?”
“What?”
“Our pantheon, do we have a name?”
Phex shook his head – he had no idea.
The acolyte stopped, turned around, and blinked huge purple eyes at them. “No one told you?”
All four of them clicked.
“Asterism.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Tyve.
“Sounds like a type of philosophy,” said Berril.
“Or some kind of moss growing under a rock,” joked Tyve.
Kagee answered, “It’s geological. A star-shaped refraction of light.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” sighed Berril happily.
“Still think it sounds like a kind of moss,” grumbled Tyve.
Fandina and Jinyesun were waiting for them inside the grand entrance to the building on the ground floor. The two sifters crested in interest and flushed blue and shimmery with pleasure at the pantheon’s newly upgraded appearance. The two Dyesi abandoned a small mountain of luggage to rush toward them.
Dyesi weren’t by nature particularly physically demonstrative, but any pantheon with Berril, Phex suspected, would become so. After half a year living in close quarters together, Fandina and Jinyesun were affectionate even by Sapien standards. However, they could see the sheen of bandages on their fellow demigods, and so they limited themselves to small pats and an abundance of enthusiastic clicking.
