Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "What did they discover?"

  "Nothing."

  "What do you mean? What happened?"

  "See for yourself." He motioned with his hand and the re-enactment skipped forward. His younger self vanished, the crew focused on the viewport where Earth had come into view. Several of the grim-faced towermen looked on the verge of tears at the sight. Only Colonel Elsinore was smiling.

  "36B, we have eyes on Earth. Expect landfall in–"

  His eyes widened. A shudder travelled through his body, and then he slumped forward in his seat. Around him, the same thing happened to the rest of the crew. In an instant, they were all dead, the only signs of life the Hesperia's lights and Hammersmith's voice over the comms:

  "Come again, Hesperia, we didn't catch that. Are you–"

  The real Hammersmith switched off the sound, but he let the ghosts linger.

  "Eventually, we triggered the Hesperia's auto-pilot script to return to base. Intact, without so much as a scratch, yet manned by a crew of corpses. We'd known their mission might end badly, but we hadn't expected that they'd die without so much as a fight. It was a great shock. It... it took a long time for us to recover."

  "But how?" Joy looked at the dead Elsinore's face. No blood, no fear. "I've seen what happens when primers are triggered. This wasn't that."

  "No. We'd accounted for the possibility of the trigger signal being used against us by keeping the team's identities secret. Even by Tower standards, they were shadows. Colonel Elsinore hypothesised that the trigger signal can either target a specific individual's primer or be broadcast across an entire system. As long as our team's identities were unknown, whoever is down there would have had no choice but to leave them alone or turn the entire Sol system 'possessed'."

  "A dangerous gamble."

  "The loss of Sol would have been a massive blow to the Primaterre Protectorate, not to mention that the Keiss family make their home on Mars. Elsinore believed it worth the risk. I..." He paused, jaw muscles grinding. "I agreed with him at the time. But what we hadn't accounted for were the kill switches. And this, Somerset, is the interesting part: some of the crew were civilian assets."

  "I thought only military personnel had kill switches?"

  "That's the official word, and in all the years since, we've not had any indication that anyone knows otherwise. But that's how the Hesperia's crew died, no doubt about it. On approach to Earth, their kill switches were instantly triggered."

  "Which means that all of this is pointless," Joy said, gesturing towards the war room. "You can't mean to go to Earth again and, what, cross your fingers that this time it will be different?"

  "After the first expedition, I decided that putting an entire system at risk was unacceptable. After so much pointless death, I..." He breathed in deeply. "I wanted to try a more careful approach. The code that allows the priming signal to be broadcast is embedded into Cascades in systems conquered by the Primaterre Protectorate. Our engineers add it as part of a standard Primaterre package, unaware of its true purpose. It's extremely clever code, self-aware to the point that even observing it will draw its attention. We can't tamper with that – but the Cascade broadcast system is a different story. Baines, one of our former operatives, designed a device that can block the priming signal from interfacing with individual primers."

  "Why not block a whole system? You could free the Primaterre without ever setting foot on Earth."

  "Because such a block wouldn't go unnoticed by its creators. They'd know, they'd find a way of undoing it, and then they would hunt for us. There are no easy shortcuts, Somerset. We must destroy Project Harmony at its source. The blocker..." He paused again, disconnecting from the mindspace and her primer before continuing. "We could test it only once, back during the war on Hypatia. The results were satisfactory, but it does not block kill switch activation. That programming is much more complicated; much deeper in the primer's genetic fabric. Our analysts believe they can figure it out, but to do so, they will need a primer sample."

  "Well, that shouldn't be a problem. We've all got primers."

  "We've all got integrated primers. Even the one that the banneret medic gave you had already been activated back at Bastion's labs. What we need is a raw sample, but the punishment for possessing one without clearance is immediate execution. You might want to bear that in mind, as your first assignment is to steal a sample. Your shuttle leaves in half an hour."

  * * *

  Thirty-five minutes later, the Imago made the fold between Room 36B and the Dunscaith system. A split-second jump across hundreds of light-years of space should have been nothing to a woman who'd once blinked and missed a century, but Joy couldn't help but feel it. It reminded her of how on hot Martian days, Finn had taken her on road trips into the countryside. Air conditioning on full blast, music too, and always speeding just a little. Always with a slight look of longing on his face, as though his feet very badly wanted to press harder on the accelerator, but with his sister in the car, weren't allowed to. They'd drive up and down the undulating landscape, and to make her laugh, Finn would make the car jump over the hills. When she was little, the brief loss of contact with the planet's surface had made her stomach feel full of butterflies.

  She felt those butterflies now, too, a flutter of phantom wings against her ribcage.

  "I have no training, no experience," she'd protested before boarding the shuttle. "Shouldn't I attend the Tower Academy first?"

  "You could," Wideawake had said, leering at her from his golden cradle. "But 'demics, they come out clever and they come out soft. The best operatives learn in the field. Book smarts are no good in the wilderness. Learn to survive while the beasts are breathing down your neck, Somerset, and you'll be ready for anything."

  "Or I'll be the beasts' dinner."

  "Or that," he'd agreed, "but 'demics taste just as good and are twice as easy to sniff out. Besides, we've read the reports on Cato. You're no stranger to beasts. The sharp edges are there, and the instincts too."

  She had her doubts about that, but the vote of confidence helped, especially since Hammersmith seemed to have none whatsoever in her. He'd handed her a bag of her belongings collected from Achall and escorted her to the shuttle with all the cheer of a pallbearer.

  "We have an asset briefed and in place. He will meet you on the station. Do understand that if you are compromised or captured, I will activate your kill switch without hesitation."

  She'd nodded, although in retrospect, she did think the without hesitation bit might've been better left unspoken. Hammersmith seemed to think that fear was the best motivator – either that, or he just enjoyed rattling people.

  Primaterre frigates guarded the Dunscaith Cascade, some close enough that she could zoom in on their nameplates, others so distant that they were weak flickers on the Imago's scanners. Together, they formed a wall of grey leviathans whose watchful eyes and ready guns were ever aimed at the passing traffic of mercantile clippers and foreign trading ships.

  The Imago skimmed along a stationary private vessel whose white hull glowed with reminders of purity. Next to it, the foreign ships looked clumsy and gaudy to the point of being alien, and why not? Their crews came from worlds so remote they might as well be a different species. She saw the gold-embellished, diode-glittering hull of a trader and wondered what eyes found such a display aesthetically pleasing. She listened to the music streamed from a cruise ship and couldn't begin to grasp the melody, if there was one. The foreign ships were exotic and exciting, making her eager to learn more and perhaps visit the nation whose flag were white swan wings against a pale blue backdrop, and the world whose ships were designed to look like flowing water.

  But the Primaterre Protectorate felt like home, the sight of its sun logo making her feel as warm as a real sun. She'd blinked and missed a hundred years, but home hadn't gone anywhere. Home was Earth and Mars and Sol's burning light; home was red soil and Scathach's green park and her hand in Constant's.

  As Scathach Sta
tion appeared on the Imago's viewscreens, she saw that she'd been told the truth: it really did shine like a star, brighter than all the rest.

  * * *

  The Imago's pilot – one of Lutzen's taciturn men – requested departure procedures the second Joy stepped out of the airlock. He was in a hurry, clearly, but she thought that he was going to have to wait – because while Scathach's ringed exterior moved in hypnotic harmony, the interior was all noise and bustle.

  Terse announcements were barely audible over the wailing of sirens. Soldiers marched into ships in a lower hangar. Departing ships blazed across the void outside. Dozens, maybe more, transporting sentinels and skirmishers. And there, just below the viewing deck – a company of banneret men.

  Joy wrapped her hands around the viewing deck's railing, leaning out as far as she dared to search grey-armoured shoulders for Hyrrokkin rifles and hips for a black Morrigan. A very tall man stood near the airlock of the ship they were filing into, visor down and dark, reflecting the hangar's ceiling lights. It could be him. It could be anyone, but she wanted it so badly to be him.

  Constant, she began to type, raising her hand in a tentative wave.

  Constant, she'd typed, and she wanted to send it and for him to look up and see her, but if that were him... then he was heading to battle. He'd need focus, not her.

  She deleted her message and stepped away from the railing although her heart begged her not to.

  "He's already boarded. First in line, as I recall."

  The familiar voice made her turn with a smile. "Hi, Rhys."

  Because of course Rhys was Hammersmith's asset. He was the only one who could've told 36B about certain events on Cato. The near-suicide, the near-mutiny; those things would not have made it into any official reports. And the way he'd said goodbye to her in Kirkclair... She didn't know why he'd acted in secrecy, nor did she care. She and Rhys were in this together, and that was much better than being alone.

  "Stars." He looked taken aback. "Don't smile at me; not after what I did to you."

  "Don't worry about it. I understand," she said, and he grimaced at that. "Though I supposed if you'd warned me, you'd have saved a man from getting stabbed. You want to apologise to anyone, apologise to him."

  "Stabbed? What exactly happened? I..." He trailed off, looking around the busy arrivals hall. "Not the best place for this conversation. Come on, Somerset, follow me."

  "Joy," she reminded him.

  "Joy wears lavender dresses, not Tower whites. You are all Somerset, I think. And this..." He gestured towards one of the SOLIDARITY IS STRENGTH posters. "Don't even know what to call that one."

  "Tower or not, I'm your friend."

  "Joy... bloody hell." He touched a clumsy hand to her cheek. When she smiled, he sighed. "Good to see they've not turned you into one of their wraiths. I was worried... I was worried I wouldn't recognise you. That I said goodbye to Joy in Kirkclair and would never see her again." He smiled, some of the strain fading from his weathered face. "But here you are. Shame the commander was in such a hurry. He could've used a moment of you to hold onto."

  "Where are they all going?"

  "Into darkness."

  Into darkness, and Constant was heading there in a hurry. She couldn't stop him, but she wouldn't let him go alone. In the shade of a mulberry tree, she composed another message, and this one she sent without hesitation. A moment of her, for him to carry into darkness.

  * * *

  The banneretcy occupied six floors in Scathach Station's central column. They had their own training facilities, mess hall and even, Rhys said, swimming pools. A tiered circular space, connected by spiral stairs, served as their common room. From the landing, Joy could see two identical sections below, each with corridors leading to the banneretcy barracks.

  The banners of four commanders decorated the top floor. The imagery ranged from a heraldic sable lion to a blunt design of two crossed thermal knives, but the one that mattered was a plain variant on the Primaterre sun, emblazoned with the letter C. Constant rarely displayed it, preferring to represent the Primaterre instead of himself, but Joy doubted that Hopewell owned a single piece of equipment that wasn't plastered with it.

  The common room was a tidy, if clearly lived-in, space. There was an ample supply of games, snacks, magazines, and a cage where a hamster spun a red wheel fast enough to kick up sawdust in the air. Quite a relaxing space, if not for the four dark windows glaring down from above like the eyes of a panopticon, always watching the soldiers below.

  "The commanders' quarters," Rhys said. "That one, before you ask."

  She looked up at the window he'd indicated. Just as dark and empty as the rest.

  "It's hardly ever this quiet. But times being as they are, half of the commanders were out on assignment even before today's little drama. Now there's just one commander left on station duty, and a token detail of soldiers. And me, of course. Not cleared for duty just yet."

  "It's a lot more relaxed than Achall."

  "Banneretcy regs are less strict when it comes to our downtime. Considering the rigours of the job, we need to be able to let steam off at home. Still, don't let the cosy feel fool you – any one of the commanders find you not using a coaster and you'll be treated to a swift reminder of your time in Basic Training."

  An semi-transparent habitat cube took up a portion of the room. Storage, Joy had assumed, but as they approached, she could see movement inside. A man crouched on the vitro-plastic floor, caged as much as the hamster.

  "Rhys?"

  "The pet project of our new resident scientist. Hopewell tells me he used to talk, but since I've been here, I haven't heard him string together a coherent sentence. His keeper – Major Juneau – seemed pretty upset about it. Said something about having been left alone too long had let his mind deteriorate, but you ask me, it was always going to go that way. No amount of socialising can undo years of cognitive abuse."

  And no amount of clean clothes and haircuts could wash Cato from one who'd roamed its dark tunnels until his voice and Skald's had become one and the same. Joy knew what he was the instant she saw his hunched shoulders, the defeated look in his eyes.

  "Keeping him like this is cruel. Even the hamster's got a wheel and a bowl of broccoli."

  "The major claims to be trying to help him. Him, and all the rest from Cato." Rhys shrugged. "I don't know. I think I'm with the commander on this one."

  The man stood in a slow untangling of limbs. He pressed his palms to the habitat wall, and his face too, pale skin moist against the glassy surface. His lips opened, and Joy took an instinctive step backwards, afraid of the dust that might come spilling out.

  "Little Red," he said, and in his voice she heard Cato's wind, whistling between twisting glass. "Little Red. I remember you. The one whose skin I must not wear. The one whose bones I may not whittle."

  "Shut your mouth," Rhys said, but the drifter gave a crooked grin.

  "We heard you in the tunnels. So loud. So soft. We saw you hide in the shadows, heard your shivers echo in the gloom. You thought we didn't, but we did, so many times. Little Red. So pretty. So fresh. How I wanted your bones – but the whispers said no, always no. Don't leave Cato. Don't enter Nexus. Don't skin my workers. Don't touch my things. His favourite was the Silver Fortress, until one day it was Little Red. His new favourite thing."

  "I'm no one's thing," Joy said.

  "No thing." The drifter smiled. "No touch. No eat. No filters."

  "No fucking teeth if you don't shut up," Rhys warned, pulling Joy away from the habitat. The drifter's laughter followed them both, like a thick dark trail of unpleasant memories.

  * * *

  The walls in Rhys's quarters were a rainbow collage of photographs, not a single inch left bare. There was Hopewell, visor popped open and fingers splayed in a victory sign as she grinned at the photographer. There was Florey, sitting on a sand dune along with Rhys and a woman whose mermaid-embellished helmet was gut-wrenchingly familiar. And centre-right, Joy s
aw herself standing on the balcony of her Kirkclair hotel room.

  She remembered Rhys taking that picture and the absolutely filthy joke he'd told to make her laugh, remembered the scent of empress tree blossoms on the wind and how the hotel's glowing tourmaline walls had lent the night the air of a dream. Of all the pictures from their vacation, Rhys had picked the one where she was laughing.

  The woman at the very centre of the collage was laughing too. Her hazel eyes sparkled underneath the heavy fringe of her tousled bob, wrinkles spreading from their corners. Her skin was golden tan, her bright red lips clamped tight around a cigarette. A tattoo of a scaled serpent coiled around her neck, fire-breath flames leaping along her jawline.

  "Cecilia?" Joy touched the display. The picture wobbled and animated, a breeze moving chestnut hair, cigarette embers floating away.

  "Got the matching tattoo to prove it. Neck art is against regs, so I have to keep it covered with recon strips or the commander will send me straight to cosmetic removal. And speaking of the commander... maybe you could keep that little encounter with the drifter between the two of us? I doubt he'd be happy I let you within a hundred metres of that thing."

  "He's used to not being happy," she said and wished that Constant would walk through the door. Not gone away on a ship, not gone into darkness, not gone at all. "I won't keep secrets from him."

  "You'll have to, though. Secrets are what you do now, you understand that? That patch on your chest will always come between you and honesty."

  "Only for as long as it needs to."

  "In that case, let's not waste any time." Rhys opened his bedside table drawer and pulled out sheaves of paper, distributing them across the bed, the desk, the floor, until Joy stood in the centre of a circle of rough sketches and chicken-scratch notes. Time tables, schematics, blueprints, descriptions of Scathach personnel.