The Fall of Sirius

by Wil McCarthy

  Malye had seen several deaths in her life, even before the Waisters, and she thought herself a hard woman because of it. But she'd neither seen nor imagined anything like this before. There was no question of her enjoying it. She found she could not suppress a shriek of horror.

  Nor could the others, it seemed. The room erupted with screams, and rising high above them was a sharp, shrill, impossibly loud wail from Wende, whose voice then exploded into a torrent of Waister sounds.

  The fog, moving like a self-aware but slightly stupid animal, scooted along the floor toward one of the walls, leaving no blood trail behind it, and then changed direction sharply, heading for the refugees' chairs. Heading, specifically, for Elle. Malye's scream cut off abruptly, and without any conscious thought at all, she was in motion, leaping over the back of her own seat, climbing straight over Sasha and Nikolai as though they were stairs or ladder rungs. She leaped across the gap to where Elle sat, dazed, apparently unaware of her peril.

  Just as the fog made contact, Malye grabbed her daughter's arm and hurled her forward out of the seat. Elle's face lit up with shock, and then with pain, and as she landed in a heap she squawked, and then suddenly there was blood flowing again, and Malye saw with vivid, surreal, synesthetic clarity that a major piece of her little girl's foot was missing, the sandal sliced in half right along with it, and blood had begun to fountain from the stub.

  Hurriedly, she leaped after her daughter, throwing herself on top, careful not to crush her in the heavy gee but grabbing the injured foot with both hands and squeezing tightly, to slow the hemorrhage.

  What happened next was all a blur of half-seen, half-understood images. Everyone was running, tumbling, escaping. Through the corner of her eye she saw Viktor go down, and Ludmile, saw their blood defy the heavy gravity to splash high across the walls and ceiling. The screaming never stopped, not for a moment, and then something was happening to the partition that separated the Waisters from the rest of the chamber. The glass groaned and cracked, and the air began to sting Malye's eyes and nose and throat and lungs.

  “It's dead,” someone called out to her. “Malye, it's dead. Come on!”

  Strong hands were helping her up, and she let them, though she kept a tight grip on Elle's foot, and on the rest of her as well, to keep her from struggling. Her scream was a low, animal keening unlike any noise Malye had ever heard her make before, heard any human make. Coughing now, she caught a glimpse of the Waister Queen and her two Workers, fleeing in obvious fear through their membrane door behind the partition, but she was not really permitted to see. It was Konstant who had helped her up, and now he was behind her, urging her forward, toward the doorway that led outside. Everyone else had gone already, even the Gateans, leaving the room empty and bloody and foul with strange gasses.

  “Come on, the air is bad,” Konstant rasped. “The Waister air is leaking. Ialah, what is this crap?”

  He pushed her through the membrane. Outside was turmoil, and a lot more blood. Vadim, she saw with relief, was safe and whole, as were all the other refugees save Ludmile and Viktor, and without even asking Malye knew those two would not be turning up anywhere. The Gateans were out here as well, Crow and Wende and the Dog. Plate, of course, was absent, and the places where the two Drones had stood guard were now great ponds of red fluid, deep on the floor, oozing up over everyone's sandals to color their toes, to stain the hems of their robes. It was as if a huge drum of paint had been spilled and splattered. There were no other traces.

  Crow appeared dazed, but Wende was simply hysterical, whining and howling with each fast, shallow breath she drew. She appeared unnaturally sharp to the eye, and Malye realized with surprise that the security fog normally surrounding that flabby body was now absent.

  “What happened?” she asked, turning to Konstant. “Where did the fog thing go?”

  “It's killed,” he said. “Wende killed it. Malye, two of our people are dead.”

  An eerie calm had settled over her. Now she knew: the Waisters were capable of fear, and the Gateans, of grief. And Viktor Slavanovot Bratsev was capable of dying, and the people of this future time were as capable of murder as any people anywhere.

  She made a futile attempt to shush Elle, brushed damp hair from her little forehead, and over the screams she said to Konstant and Wende and Crow, “My daughter is injured. Medical arrangements must be made right away.”

  Wende continued to pant and grunt. Crow continued to look blank, and Konstant said, “Did you hear me? Two of us have been killed!”

  “Yes, I heard you,” Malye said impatiently, “and I will see that the persons responsible are brought swiftly to justice.”

  And suddenly the thought was there in her mind, fully formed and bright with sharp edges: she would take advantage of Wende's distress to do some bullying, demanding an armed escort and the full cooperation of Gatean society. Demanding even a black and burgundy uniform to replace the one she'd lost, for even here, even now, with all that had happened and all that no doubt soon would, there was still monster's work to be done. Perhaps the future was not so strange after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  218::10

  HOLDERS FASTNESS, GATE SYSTEM:

  CONTINUITY 5218, YEAR OF THE DRAGON

  Malye's body was one giant ache as the Gateans first arrested Elle's bleeding, and then brought in a surgical fog to begin reconstruction of the flesh. There was some protest at this, from humans, from Gateans, from Malye herself, but assurances were made that the fog would be carefully monitored and supervised, protected from misuse. Since the alternative was to leave Elle crippled, Malye finally relented.

  It took effort to keep her mind focused. Without constant attention, it would wander off into grief and rage and worst of all a kind of blank confusion. Fugue state.

  Wende's own grief was astonishing; she seemed ready to tear Holders Fastness apart, physically, with her bare hands. Only with great risk and difficulty was Malye able to urge her toward a more sophisticated response, but as with the fog, there was really only one correct answer, and eventually Wende adopted it as her own. The investigation began only a few hours later.

  Alas, it quickly became mired in the complex twists and confusions of reality. Malye's first thought had naturally been that the attack was politically motivated, simply a part of the battle that still raged here and there in Gate system, that one of the eight insurgent rings had directed weapons inside Holders Fastness as well as outside of it.

  She was soon disabused of this notion: there was strong sentiment in favor of punishing the rebels in any case, but for reasons whose explanations Malye never quite caught, an attack of this sort could only be arranged and executed from within certain regions of Holders Fastness, and none of the eight rings had representatives in the proper places at the proper times. Of this, at least, they were innocent. However, the attack was considered extremely devious and clever, requiring the perversion of numerous housekeeping systems away from their normal functions, and it was agreed by all and sundry that only Workers could have accomplished it, and that probably at least two would be required for the task. Which still left fully a third of this Lesser World's population on her suspect list, almost two thousand individuals representing several hundred separate rings. The investigation did not promise to be an easy one.

  Who and why? Who and why? She ached with the need to know. If only her C.I. staff could be here with her! Even in worlds far more familiar than this one, the legwork of detection had never suited her as well as the interrogation phase. Typically, by the time she became deeply involved in a case, a suspect had already been identified, and must simply be caught and made to confess. Less frequently, the truth must be sifted from a larger handful of suspects, to determine which of them had played a part in the crime. But the principle remained the same, regardless of the number of suspects; sooner or later, she would discover the truth.

  Right now, she was starting in the most obvious place, interviewing the more influential Work
ers of Holders ring, who after all had lost the most when Wende and her people seized power. Or influence, or prestige, or whatever they chose to call it. And the Holders had apparently suffered a humiliation at Malye's own hands as well, her surrender to Tempe having been followed so closely by the Waisters' request or demand to speak with actual humans in preference to candidates the Gateans might pick from their own ranks. It was not known whether the attack had been directed at the Sirian refugees or at Wende's six or at the Waisters themselves, or perhaps at some combination of these, but in any case Holders seemed to have the strongest, clearest motive.

  Monstering her way through the Gatean equivalent of a bureaucracy, Malye had caused certain preparations to be made. The Gateans were not happy about it, but with Wende's full weight and fury behind her, she was a force indeed. An office and interrogation room had been set up, and to her great satisfaction they had appeared almost immediately, and were neither white nor octohedral, but rectangular and gray, with floors of bare metal and blue-white lighting stripes crisscrossing the ceiling, in lieu of the hazy, immovable, intangible lighting globes the Gateans so favored.

  The Worker across the table from her now was named “Chip,” which she found vaguely amusing because there had been a cartoon character by that name in one of the holie comedies of her time. But they didn't look the same, and Malye wasn't in a laughing mood, and so they began.

  “I trust you're comfortable?” she asked indifferently. In fact, Chip looked distinctly unsettled by these environs, which was of course her intention. Even the chair on which he sat was of Sirian design, and probably none too comfortable for him. And so he eyed her with no small measure of resentment, this talking animal who had somehow gained power over him. But in deed if not in thought, he was kept meek by the two Finders Drones hulking behind her, culled from two different sixes and instructed by their Queens to protect Malye and to obey her in all things.

  “What is it you want me to tell you?” the Worker asked sullenly. “I have nothing to tell you about these deaths.”

  “That may be,” Malye replied. “I'm just asking around, building the framework for a proper investigation, and I thought perhaps you could help. I'm told your ring is knowledgeable and clever.”

  Chip looked puzzled and put off by that remark, not the approach he'd been expecting, and Malye pressed the advantage, seeking to cow him as quickly and completely as possible. “Listen, you don't like my being in charge of this investigation. That's fine, but recognize that recent events have strengthened Finders ring. My activities are backed by their orders, and by over twenty years' experience in exactly this sort of work, as a member of what you might call an Enforcers ring.”

  “What is it you want me to tell you?” he repeated.

  She spread her hands. “I don't know. What is it you're able to contribute?”

  Through her weariness and grief and Investigator's curiosity, she felt a low anger burning, threatening to flare up at any moment, and she could let that show through, so long as she tempered it with calm and fairness. The combination was effective: C.I. uniforms for herself and the Drones, but otherwise a soft touch. Intimidation and invitation all at once; it is easier if you cooperate, my friend.

  “Well,” he said, looking uncomfortable, and began the slow process of spilling his guts.

  Malye had him for a little over an hour, and while she was quickly satisfied that he knew nothing about the murders, she took the time and trouble to empty him out just the same. He was, after all, the first suspect she'd interviewed in over two millennia, and the right questions here and now could provide the context needed to narrow her investigation. Who wants what, and why can't they have it? And yes, this Worker reminded her much more of Crow than of Plate, and she took a vague pleasure in punishing him for it, in making him feel small and stupid and inadequate while seeming to have quite the opposite intention.

  He left even less happy than he'd entered, and Malye, with grim pride, complimented herself that his view of humans would never be the same.

  The next few suspects were less interesting, and she let them go quickly. As the evening wore on and her established bedtime came and went, she'd made up her mind that Holders ring was not involved even peripherally in the murders. It seemed routine enough to keep secrets from other rings, and certainly from humans, but within a ring there seemed to be a strong tendency toward consensus and resource sharing, and with the pseudo-telepathic communications they seemed to employ, secrets were unlikely to remain that way for long. So a one-percent sample, a mere dozen Workers, was in all likelihood sufficient to clear the whole ring, and in a way Malye was glad, because this probably meant their status would plummet still further when the finding became known. How could they let such a thing occur in their own stronghold? How could they fail to know anything about it? And yet, that seemed to be precisely what had occurred.

  They did have their secrets, of course, things they refused to discuss with Malye, things they refused to be questioned about. The keeping of secrets was an almost pathological condition among Gateans. But they were clearly not the secrets she sought, and so she let them be. This job would be difficult enough without her stirring up random resentment, without her poking into every corner and crevice to see what lurked there. Most of it would be meaningless or irrelevant to her, anyway.

  When the interviews were finished, she let the Drones escort her back to the refugees' chambers, and was grateful for the security fogs that surrounded them, and for their angry alertness. They were not her friends, not even to the extent that Plate had been, but they didn't want another incident any more than she did, and if anything happened to her it would go badly for them indeed. Assuming they survived, of course, as Wende's own Drones had not.

  Once back “home,” however, finding that everyone had waited up for her, waited up to share their grief, she found her mood crashing down in pieces around her.

  Ludmile had been nothing to her; they had exchanged at most a hundred words between them, and those mostly in the first few days. But even so, the loss of her made a visible hole in the group, an absence in what was already too small a community. And Plate, too, had been at least an honorary Sirian, appreciated for his efforts if not always his deeds. How empty the future seemed without him! His loss was perhaps the very worst thing that could have happened, for without him they were left with no genuine allies at all, left among strangers and enemies, forced to lever and coerce rather than simply asking for the things they needed.

  Of course, it was Viktor she would really miss. Her eyes misted at the mere thought of him, and that was strange, because she'd really only known him for five days, barely long enough to understand anything about him at all. But he'd loved her, or said he had, and as with Grigory, she'd given him little warmth in return. How we repeat the same mistakes, she thought, how incapable we are of learning anything at all from our lives. Was it that way for Gateans and Waisters, too? Was life a great cosmic joke, Ialah's continuum nothing more than a loop that curled forever back on itself?

  “Why are you crying, mother?” Vadim asked her as she leaned back on one of the couches, drinking water from a cup, wishing it were vodka or beer or even milk. Could the Gateans manufacture something that would resemble milk?

  “I'm very sad,” she told her son, “about the death of Viktor Slavanovot.”

  “I'll miss him, too,” he said. And then more pointedly: “I'll miss a lot of people.”

  And at that, she really broke down, sobbing uncontrollably, the tears streaming down her cheeks, staining the edges of her hair, wetting the front of her robe as they fell. Vadim hugged her, and had Elle hug her as well, and then in a rare moment of thoughtfulness, Sasha came over and sent the children to bed.

  “Your mother is very tired,” he told them. “You can speak with her in the morning. All right?”

  The other adults seemed to regard Malye with an infuriating pity, as if she had lost much more than a casual friend. As if she had lost a lover, whi
ch Viktor certainly had not been. And that thought simply made her cry all the harder. Still, there were only so many tears inside her, and eventually they trailed off. As did the adults, who found they would also benefit from a little sleep. Soon, Malye and Sasha were alone in the dayroom, and the lights were down low, on their night shift setting.

  “He was a good man, wasn't he?” Malye asked. Oddly, she found Sasha had become an old friend. The first human she'd seen and talked to in this place, and present for so many of the early developments that he surely possessed an insider feeling the others did not. It had been herself and Sasha who, along with Viktor, first faced the Gateans, first stood up to them, first took a place, however tenuous, among them.

  “Yes he was,” Sasha agreed, sitting down beside her, and in his tone she heard the confirmation she'd been seeking. Yes, he and she were the only early ones left, the only ones who really knew what was going on, knew how all this had started.

  “I hope he likes it in Paradise,” she said. “I'm sure he has a lot of friends there.”

  Sasha chuckled a little, not politely but with genuine amusement. The emotion was so fresh and so welcome, it swept through Malye like a shower of mist, cooling, soothing. All at once, the tensions of the day fell away, the tensions of the week and the month and the millennium, and she was chuckling a little, too.

  Sasha was right next to her, his leg almost touching hers, and impulsively she put her arm around him and kissed him. He reacted with surprise, but did not pull away. After that it was easy; they fell together on the couch and did what humans had always done to comfort one another. He proved a gentle and considerate lover.