Lord Banshee- Fairy Dust

by Russell O Redman

  The subject carried a grenade in her intestine, possibly self-inserted, half of which exploded during questioning.

  It seems likely that she knows far more than she has had time to tell yet. Efforts are being made to preserve her life.

  Leilani checked it over, and I sent it.

  Then I started to shake, badly. Syrtis London. I had been there, lived with a family. I was under deep cover, pretending to be a refugee from Argyric Mumbai, burned past recognition but on the run from the Governor. The father was the leader of a local militia, part of a force that had attacked the local marine garrison. I needed to find out who coordinated all the local militias. I did one better, learning that they would be hosting a meeting of the senior militia officers for the whole sector. I sent the date and time of the meeting, a list of the officers expected to be present, and the location of the underground bunker where they would meet. It had been dug out of the rock under a community recreation centre a block from the family home.

  Then I bugged out. The Governor fired a nuclear bunker buster that smashed through the twenty meters of cap rock that protected the city from cosmic rays and meteors. The bomb destroyed the bunker, the recreation centre and most of the surrounding neighbourhood. A thousand people died and many more were injured. There were no more attacks from that militia for three months, so the Governor declared a victory.

  I heard later that twenty officers and thirty militia fighters had been killed in the bunker, but five times as many volunteers had been recruited the next week. The factions had debated who best to promote to replace the lost commanders, and the militia had suspended operations for three months while they rebuilt the officer core and trained the new recruits.

  I knew who Mindy was. Her name was Angela Triggvasson, the daughter in the family I had stayed with. For years I had thought she had died with the rest of her family. And now she was here, hunting for me. A ghost from my past, crying out for justice. I had not lied to her. I hated the Ghost, hated anyone who would commit such treacheries, hated myself more even than she could.

  “Brian, is something wrong? Your monitors are all over the place.” That was from Marin.

  “Brian, please, you are shaking so badly I can feel it through the suit. Doctor Marin, I think we have to stop. Now.” That was from Leilani.

  They both sounded so distant as I heard the hiss of sand against my suit. Or was it my pulse in my ears? Perhaps the air flowing from the vents? I struggled and slowly calmed my heart, settled my thoughts. But Leilani was right. I could not continue tonight. Mindy – Angela – had taken me all the way back to Mars.

  Marin finished what she could do with Mindy. She extracted the second half of the grenade, slipped it gently into a bomb jar, and bumped the jar as she clipped it against the wall. The grenade exploded harmlessly inside the jar, making all three of us jump. We shared a brief laugh of relief, then she stitched and glued Mindy's severed organs and arteries, renewed her blood with some artificial plasma, and juiced her with some accelerants to speed her healing. Then we called for the marines to take her back to her cell, and carry all three of us home to our room in the officer's quarters.

  2357-03-03 15:00

  Waking Dreams

  Everyone was already asleep when we got back except Doctor Toyami, who had apparently drawn the short straw for night watch. We tossed our soiled pajamas in the laundry bin someone had thoughtfully placed beside the door, pulled on clean ones and clipped ourselves to chairs as best we could. Leilani and Marin dropped off to sleep quickly, exhausted by the endless strain of the day.

  Mars still haunted me. Mindy haunted me, the ghost she should have been, in the form of a living soul. Syrtis London had not been the worst of my betrayals, and I had been betrayed at least as often by those I trusted and loved. The sands of Mars had abraded my soul.

  I remembered the long evenings on the freighters when we had discussed philosophy and religion. Most of us adopted a faith that was an amalgam of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Confucianism. Our faith included an almost atheistic denial that ritual and prayer had any effect on the external world. Meditation, ritual and prayer were tools we could use to understand our personal relation to the Divine, not means to impose our own will on an unwilling world. There were a few followers of the Earth Mother, a tough sell in the sterile vacuum of space, but almost no psychics, wiccans, wizards or faith healers. People died if they believed in things that were demonstrably wrong and contrary to physics and medicine. The Earth's religions had survived the Final War as people struggled to preserve at least the forms of the faiths that had been important in their lives. Those faiths all including magical elements that had to be chucked in space. Love remained after the junk was discarded.

  I had believed in the power of love with my whole heart, as firmly as I believed in gravity and cosmic rays. I watched it in practice as people fell in love, got hurt, forgave each other and grew stronger for the effort. After five years in space, most of us were in love with a third of the people we had met, and were friends with most of the rest.

  Not to say we did not have arguments and even fights. We were human, and people can be disagreeable. In fact, it is necessary to disagree with others when they are wrong. Too much agreeability gets everyone killed. Part of loving our neighbours is to listen when they disagree with us, but it is a hard, hard lesson. It takes training and long practice. On the Earth, it was possible to go for a walk to avoid people you did not like. On a freighter, you lived in close quarters with the same three people for months at a time and had to reach an accommodation. I had seen love in practice amongst people whose arguments were as passionate as the love they felt for each other.

  I remembered my first ship, when I was brand new in space and knew only what they had taught me from books. The ship had been the Moonchild, with Lingling as cap, Alicia on the com, John as nav and Alex as eng. I was the fifth wheel, the trainee, and my only real job was to learn from the masters. Cap Lingling was not really named Lingling, which was a pet name her parents had given her, but it was the name she insisted all her friends use. Those she did not consider friends were recommended to call her Cap Cixi. She would explain the reference with enthusiasm to any ignoramus who did not understand the proper degree of respect she was due. Cixi had been the empress dowager of the Qing dynasty of China, the original dragon lady, who ruled with an iron fist and lived in splendour while the peasants starved. Most took the hint and decided to be friends, but a few left as soon as they could. The Moonchild worked the milk run from the Earth to the Moon, so if you really wanted to get off, you only needed to wait a week.

  Lingling had been a nine-year veteran, almost ready to retire, and had been considering whether to settle on the Moon or Mars when the Incursion started. From her I had learned steady judgement, quiet confidence, and the power of a ridiculous threat to defuse a tense situation. Alicia had the strongest convictions among that crew, holding a line of argument until convinced by solid examples and inescapable reason that it was wrong. Most often she won, because she had learned her positions from people willing to return that passion for truth. John was a rock on facts and knew science better than anyone I ever met in space, but was passionate, as fluid as water emotionally. He started most of the fights we had, mostly with Alicia, but would cry like a baby when he finally understood how much he had hurt her. He could also sing to break your heart, write poetry that even I wanted to read, and had learned to play several instruments because none of the rest of us had any musical talent. He reasoned that somebody had to do it. Alex was somewhat grim and stern when you first met him, but listened better than most of us spoke. Junior-most but for me, he was everyone's choice as most likely to become captain.

  Mars killed them all in the Counterstrike. Mars killed me too, but my body lived on without its soul. The psychs had done wonders to keep me alive and functioning, but I wondered if I could ever really love anyone again. I feared everyone I loved, afraid of betrayal when they turned against me, but even
more afraid that I would betray them by bringing death and horror into their lives.

  All the platitudes of love and faith turn to dust when you kill people you love to protect other people you love. Especially when the people you are protecting do not know why you are committing such a crime and would kill you to prevent it. Since Mars, my religion has been confused, baffled by my own evil.

  Mindy was the embodiment of that confusion. She was evil, but not by birth. I remembered a smart, happy girl, full of fun and life. I had corrupted her by letting her live while I murdered the rest of her family, which I only did to try to stop a war that was killing so many other people. It did not matter that the Governor and his commanders had given the order to fire the missile. I had told him when and where to aim it. I had despised the Governor because of his corruption, incompetence, and brutality, yet served him because so many had died on the Earth in the opening salvoes of the Incursion. I shared in his evil and amplified it.

  I wanted another five-year contract on a freighter to talk through these issues, knowing they would never accept me. Merely talking would reveal terrible secrets that were better forgotten. Anyone who joined the discussion would receive a death sentence because of the Fatwa. The last person I had tried to discuss it with had been one of the psychs, an old Jesuit. He had counselled me that the God who created the heavens and the earth had created me, loved me, and had more power to forgive my contrite heart than I had to commit sin. I tried chanting that mantra as I struggled to get to sleep, but I could not forgive myself for Mindy and her family. For Angela, who, like me, was dead but would not lie still.

  Doctor Toyami came over at last. “Doctor Marin warned me that you might have trouble getting to sleep. Would you like a sleeping aid?”

  “Yes, I would.” I answered, sounding brittle and formal even in my own ears. In moments, I drifted off.

  2357-03-03 18:00

  Dream Analysis

  I was in a corridor, a drift in the mines at Argyric Mumbai. I walked along the drift with old Asok, who pointed to a mine on an overhead beam up ahead, primed to bring the roof down on us. I struggled to get up to the beam, but could not get a grip. There was a blast and Asok ran by in flames. I ran through the red flames across the sands towards a large dune and burrowed into the dust. The train was coming closer. The bomb I had fastened to the trestle was primed, waiting for my signal. The rebels had seized both ends of the line and were rushing troops to take Syrtis York, while the Governor's forces were tied down in Syrtis London. There were no missiles to spare, so they had sent me with a bomb and a detonator. As the train reached the trestle, I fired the detonator and watched as five hundred rebel troops died in the wreck. Then I dug myself out and ran through the corridors of Syrtis London, away from Angela and her father, out into the desert. As I crested a ridge, the governor’s bomb shattered the ground behind me. Angela, can you forgive me? My life was running out as quickly as I had run from murdering Angela’s family. I was desperately low on oxygen and water. An agent alone is dead without oxygen and water and I had left a cache just beyond the next low dune, one of hundreds I had scattered around this section of desert. As I reached the crest, I saw a motion detector with a little flag perched on top of my cache. A gesture of contempt by the rebels. Forgive me, Asok. If I approached the cache I would die in the explosion. If I did not, I would die of suffocation when my air ran out. I dug around in the sand until I found a rock. With an exoskeleton, I could throw a rock a long way and very accurately. I threw and dropped, digging into the dune. The rock triggered the motion detector, which detonated the bomb. Broken oxygen and water bottles scattered all around, one burying itself into the sand very close to me. I dug it out, still half full of oxygen, but leaking rapidly. I siphoned what I could into my existing bottle, just enough to get me to the next cache, and started running again. I could live without water for another hour, but I had to be dug into the sand with full tanks before dark. A living human is hot and glows at infrared wavelengths like Angela’s family burning in the cold of a Martian night, so I could only remain hidden at night when buried as deeply as the dead. As I ran, screaming people fled out of their burning houses around me. I was hosing them with flames on the order of the Governor. My whole family had died in the bombing of the Earth and I hated them all. I burned everyone, strangers, neighbours, friends, lovers, all running by with their skin and hair on fire. That was the day I died, gave my soul freely to evil. Then Asok ran by, fire leaping from his body. “Asok,” I cried, suddenly repentant. “Asok, I am sorry!” I wanted to die myself.

  “AGENT DOUGLAS, WAKE UP.”

  “Brian, please wake up.”

  I woke up, surrounded by people, enemies. I had to escape. I clamped down, cold, hard. A weak agent is a dead agent. I tensed my arms and legs ready to attack at the first opening, fumbling for the knife that should have been on my arm.

  “Brian, Please, this is Leilani. Come back to us. Wake up. You are still in a dream.”

  Leilani was not on Mars. Where was I? She was talking through the comm. I did not have a comm on Mars. We were weightless. It was never weightless on Mars. Leilani did not even have that name until we arrived on the Mao. The Mao. I was not on Mars, not captured. I looked around at the others, recognizing Leilani, Marin, Toyami, then all the others together. I was safe on the Mao, surrounded by my comrades, and a wave of relief ran through me.

  “Oh, God, what a nightmare! I was back on Mars and everyone was dying. I was killing them all.”

  Then I knew I had to shut up or something would slip, so I clamped down again. As I had done to survive on Mars. I could not trust these people who had unknown motives and allegiances. They could not trust me, since I might have to kill them. I was alone again, back in control of myself and only myself, following orders as best I understood them, staying alive while others perished. Back in the nightmare, but at least aware of my surroundings.

  Marin, Toyami and Leilani closed in around me, unclipped me from the chair, and floated me unresisting over to a corner. Since we were in zero-G again, we must have arrived at the Deng.

  Marin demanded, “What the hell just happened?”

  Leilani clarified, “Brian, you were shouting over the comm. You woke everyone up. I did not know the comm unit could even shout, much less when you were asleep. What happened?”

  I stared at them blankly. “Shouting over the comm in my sleep?” I still felt half asleep as the adrenaline rush subsided. If we were not in zero-G, I think I might have fallen over. “Shouting sounds like a gamer's option, but in my sleep?” I focused as best I could on Toyami. “How is it possible to use the comm unit in my sleep? Do you know anything about the comm units?”

  She shook her head. “It seems like the comm unit thought you were awake. If your dreams are sufficiently vivid, I suppose that might be possible. The comm unit itself is attached to a standard medical monitor with custom software. I am not sure how it distinguishes waking from sleeping, but the algorithm is clearly not robust enough. I will look it up. We have to try to prevent that from happening again.”

  I looked around, still woozy. Everyone else was also standing around, looking lost. “I suppose I owe them an explanation, if I can think of one. What time is it?”

  Marin looked around as well. “Early for breakfast, but only by a bit. We were so late getting to bed, we were only asleep for about three hours.”

  Toyami added, “I gave you all doses big enough to keep you asleep for eight hours. The three of you should make no hard decisions until the meds have cleared out of your systems. Do you think you could get back to sleep?”

  All three of us shook our heads, and Marin added, “Even if we did, Agent Douglas would be surrounded by nervous people ready to thump him if he started to dream again. It would not be restful for any of us.”

  Looking nervous, Leilani said, “You were shouting names over the comm. Some of them came up several times. Who were Asok and Angela?”

  I was quiet for a minute. “Ghost
s, people I knew and loved, who died. Whom I betrayed. Other people may have pulled the trigger, but I painted the targets. It got worse later in my service. Please do not ask for more detail. It was all classified as ultra-secret long ago. No one on the Mao today is authorized to read those reports.”

  Leilani was not willing to give up so easily. “Brian, this is important and we are under attack. Is Angela our stowaway? Everybody knows those names, and everyone in this room is experienced in detecting lies. You need to tell us something.”

  She was right, but I was so hazy I could barely think past my stomach. “Maybe we could have breakfast early. On Earth, coffee has caffeine in it to help wake us up. Not a licit drug up here, but maybe the coffee could be spiked with something more appropriate? You are right, I need to say something. After breakfast, I will address the group.”

  The call for breakfast cheered everyone, and the marines outside our door accepted the request with their usual aplomb. Marin and Toyami, however, huddled with them for much longer than usual to ensure that the meds were sufficient for each of us. One by one people came around, almost all with the same questions – Who was Angela? What did I mean that Asok was burning? I promised over and over to tell them what I could after breakfast.

  Lastly, I got a call from Captain Wang. “I see you are having breakfast. Could we have a meeting when you are done? In spite of your confrontation, Very Senior Minister Morris seems to be a fan of yours. Or maybe because of it.”

  “How urgently?” I asked, “I agreed to talk with the group here after breakfast. Should I postpone that?”

  “No, talk to your troops first. Your timely warnings have already been a great help.”

  Breakfast came quickly.

  As we ate, Chou and Chandrapati drank their bottles of water, eying the food with a mixture of envy and revulsion. Chou mentioned that he had travelled to and from Mars on one of the fast liners, and he marvelled at the difference between the formal rigidity of the liner and the can-do approach of the battleship. As servants, the marines were less obsequious than the waiters on the liner, but more polite and more willing to cater to odd requests. He declared that when his father needed a new butler, he would recommend a retired marine.