“He was your father, is what I meant.”
“In trying to assassinate me, he rather swiftly put an end to my responsibilities as a daughter, wouldn’t you say?”
Justus isn’t sure. He has no doubt that Brass ordered the bombing, but he’s still not convinced that his daughter didn’t purposely leak her own controversial plans in order to make such an assassination attempt inevitable. An assassination attempt, as it turned out, that she miraculously avoided by “sneaking off to the secret conference in the Sin Rim.” Leaving her own double—a cosmetically altered prostitute named Harmony Smooth—to fill in for her at Ishtar. And get blown sky-high for her trouble.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’ve been planning this for years?” he asks.
“Because I have. And a lot longer than you think too.”
“Since when?”
“Since my mother’s suicide. Do you know what my father told her when he cut her loose? He said, ‘Turn me into a grudge—you’ll get a lot of mileage out of it.’ And in my mother’s name, I’ve sure come a long way on that grudge.”
Justus shakes his head. “The peach really doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”
“Now you’re just being rude, Lieutenant. I don’t see much regret in your eyes either, now that you’ve done what you did—twisted the rule of law.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“We both did. We let business take its course, and the Brass Code take care of itself. We just didn’t get in the way.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
But Justus isn’t enjoying the clinical tone of the exchange, especially when a man has just been brutally murdered in the next room. So he starts moving for the stairs.
“You can stay here, you know,” she calls after him. “We’re going to need a new police chief.”
Justus looks back. “You really think I’d want to remain here? After all this?”
“And do you really think it’s safe—for your daughter—if you go home?”
“I hope that’s not a threat.”
“You know it’s not. Who do you think I am?”
I wonder, is what Justus wants to say. Her demeanor ever since their secret meeting, high above the city where the multitudes were just starting to get agitated by her supposed demise, has been positively icy. Which could be a natural reaction to the bombings, or it could be her true self. Whatever the case, she’s certainly not acting like someone whose closest allies have just been obliterated. She’s acting like someone fully prepared to sacrifice her friends, if indeed they were friends, for her own political ends. Justus wonders if she knew all along that a bomb had been planted in her office. And if she knew her double was going to die—if she planned it that way, to help ignite a revolution. He even has to consider the chilling possibility that she long ago arranged to have Leonardo Black misprogrammed at the robotics base in Seidel, and even expected the droid to come after his king.
“I’m not sure who you are,” he replies, unblinking. “And I’m not sure I want to know.”
“I’m not asking you to write my biography, Lieutenant. I’m just asking you to stay here. To be part of this.”
“Then you don’t know me very well.”
“I read your psych report.”
“Is that right?”
“It said you were suppressing a high level of resentment.”
“That’s interesting.”
“It also said you were borderline obsessive. It suggested a guilt complex.”
“That’s even more interesting.”
“Look, we all have our dark sides, Lieutenant—I’m not going to question why a man like you becomes a cop. But it’s fair to say I know you better than you think.”
“Oh yeah?” Justus is starting to get annoyed. “Then maybe you don’t know your people as well as you think. Or what you’re in for.”
“What does that mean?”
He jerks his head. “When the mob finds out about this—that you didn’t die after all—they might not be so impressed. No one likes being hoodwinked.”
“They’ll love it. Even if they suspect they were duped.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I know my people. When they learn the truth, they’ll be ecstatic.”
“And when exactly are you planning to reveal the truth?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
Justus snorts. He hears the crowd getting louder and angrier—the clapping and chanting is shaking the walls of the Kasr. “You’re planning to take over straightaway?”
“Why not?”
“I wonder what the King will think about that.”
“The King isn’t always the one who reigns, you know. In fact, I’d say that it’s a rare king these days who’s actually in charge. Even if he thinks he is.”
“So you’re going to stand alongside Leonardo Black, are you? King Leo the First? You’re going to let him think he’s the Wizard?”
“Until I’m ready to take over myself.”
“Then you’re even more cunning than I thought. Even more cunning than your father.”
She looks cross. “Look, Lieutenant, don’t think for a second that this is easy for me. But I’ve thought it through. I’ve studied the revolutions on Earth. And what I’ve seen is that when a volatile population is freed from tyranny it passes through several distinct stages. Euphoria at first, then hope, then confusion and uncertainty, and finally—too often—disillusion and dismay. Which in many cases leads to more chaos. Because people released from their shackles often don’t know what to do. They don’t know whom to trust. So there has to be a carefully calibrated transition stage. During which there’ll still be eruptions of anarchy—many eruptions. And that’s why I’m going to need a very dedicated and loyal police force. To hunt down the assassins employed by my father, for a start.”
“From what I understand, there are plenty in the PPD who’ve been secretly loyal to you all along. What about Dash Chin—is he one of yours? Or Prince Oda Universe? Why not appoint him Chief?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no one better for the job than you.”
“But I just failed to uphold the law—you said so yourself.”
“And I expect you to do so again, until we get things straightened out.”
“That would make me no different from Chief Buchanan.”
“No, you’d be completely different. Because you’d be working for me.”
“And King Leo.”
“No, for me.”
Justus thinks about it for all of two seconds. “Forget it,” he says. “I can’t stay here. Not now.”
“Why not? You believe in Redemption, don’t you?”
“In redemption, yes, but—” But he stops, realizing she’s tricked him. “I’m sorry, but you’re gonna have to do it without me. I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“And I’m sure you’ll have second thoughts. This is where you were meant to be, and you know it. You were made for the Dark Side. God has summoned you.”
“God, now?”
She tries to sound self-effacing. “Well, I sometimes let Him think He’s in charge too.”
Justus shakes his head, definitively this time, and continues toward the stairs. Halfway down he sees Leonardo Grey coming up, butler-like, with a freshly laundered black suit.
“The royal robes,” Justus says.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Never mind. Perhaps he’ll make you a prince, for your part in the coup.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Nothing,” Justus says.
At ground level there’s a good deal of alarm: The palace staff are not sure if the Sinners are going to break through the barriers and storm the Kasr. Perhaps, Justus thinks, there’s wisdom in QT’s decision to make her presence felt so soon.
The guards tell him he should wait until the coast is clear, but he insists on leaving immediately. So he’s led through the gardens to the restraini
ng wall, which is almost buckling under the pressure, and with a blast from the water cannon he’s allowed past the security doors.
At first the crowd seem intent on pouncing on him, but as soon as they realize who it is they start cheering.
“JUSTICE! JUSTICE! JUSTICE!”
A few of them beg him for news from inside the Kasr. He tries to answer—“You just wait and see”—but he’s unable to make himself heard over the general clamor. So he begins to forge his way through the mass of bodies. He sees freshly painted signs saying DEATH TO BRASS and BUTCHER BRASS. He sees Sinners spattered with blood and waving body parts in PPD uniforms—possibly bits of Chief Buchanan and the cops of his own investigative team. He sees a discarded front page of the morning’s Tablet—CHAOS IN SIN.
But he can’t make any progress, as much as he tries, and is about to give up when a sudden hush descends over the crowd. He sees them looking up at the Kasr. And he turns.
There on the imperial balcony, Leonardo Black has appeared—black-suited but still with dyed hair. He’s grinning emphatically. He seems, as much as any android can, to be triumphant. He surveys the multitudes silently for a few seconds, as though savoring the glory, and suddenly he raises his right hand. He’s holding something up, like a lantern.
It’s the severed head of Fletcher Brass.
The crowd doesn’t know what to make of it. They want to cheer but can’t be sure what’s going on. They can’t quite work out who the droid is, and from a distance can’t be sure whom the head belongs to. So the murmurs of confusion swell and fade. Until they stop entirely—and give way to gasps.
Justus, who’s taken advantage of the confusion to gain some more ground, looks back again. And now he sees that QT Brass herself has appeared on the balcony. She stands there for a moment, taking it all in, and then moves to King Leo’s left side, takes hold of his free hand, and raises it victoriously. And smiles—beams—like a first lady at a victory celebration.
And again the crowd doesn’t seem to know what to make of it. They’re dealing with two stunning deceptions at once: that QT Brass is not dead, and that a palace coup has been staged without their knowledge. Justus actually wonders if she’s gotten ahead of herself, and if the mob might respond with fury. But then, seeing her there on the Patriarch’s balcony, seeing her so proud and exultant, the Sinners, swept up in it, suddenly believe. They break out in spontaneous cheers. They scream with approval. And slowly they start to chant:
“Q-T! Q-T! Q-T! Q-T! Q-T!”
The chant follows Justus through the near-deserted streets of Sin—where there are only a few locals and some puzzled tourists—and into the vehicle bay—where he’s lucky to find someone to operate the airlock—and is still ringing in his ears when he heads into the endless lunar night, on his way to the outer rim of Purgatory and beyond.
But he’s not sure exactly what he’s doing. He has an idea he might get a job at Peary Base, but that’s probably not much better than a paycheck in Purgatory. And it’s not as if he’ll be any closer to his daughter, or that it’ll make life any safer for her. Considering what he knows, it might even make her life more dangerous. So where is he going? All he knows is that he has to express his disgust by turning his back on all the foulness, the deceit, the mendacity, the cynicism, the ruthlessness, and the self-righteousness of Sin. And the death—the murder—in which he himself became embroiled.
He thought he was above all that, and he was wrong.
But at the same time, he’s acutely aware that he’s just a hair’s breadth away from changing his mind. Because he doesn’t like quitting on anything. And, for all its horror, he has to admit that Purgatory offered him a rare sense of purpose—a chance to continue the good fight, the ongoing war against corruption, that he was forced to leave unfinished on Earth. The place might be a sewer, but that only means there’s so much more pleasure in cleaning it up—Nat U. Reilly was right after all.
He’s halfway to the outer rim, thinking these thoughts, when suddenly the headlights of a pressurized vehicle appear on the road ahead. Swinging around a curve at an illegal speed—it must be doing at least eighty kilometers per hour—it looks for a moment to be heading straight for him. Justus has to wrench his own car to the left, into the lunar dust, just to avoid a collision. And when the car flashes past—without slowing, without even acknowledging his presence—he sees in the backwash of his brake lights that it’s a security vehicle, probably driven by customs officials eager to be part of the game-changing events in Sin.
Justus, with his wheels half buried in regolith, spends a few moments welling up with rage. He could have been injured or even killed. But there’s more to it than that. There’s the insurmountable policeman’s instinct to enforce the law. To catch the lawbreaker, no matter who it is, before someone innocent is hurt. What if they drive like that through the streets of Sin? What if they hit a pedestrian? And Justus suddenly realizes that this is the very moment he’s been hoping for. This is the thing that happened not without a cause.
So he swings the wheel, churning up moondust, and gets back on the road. He chases after the utility vehicle with blue lights flashing.
Dark Side/Farside, Purgatory/Sanctuary, Sin/Redemption, Brass/Black, QT/Cutie, Justus/Justice.
God—or someone—had summoned him, all right.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
The writing of this book would not have been possible without the Springer Praxis series of books on the Moon, particularly The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Settlement (various authors); Lunar Outpost: The Challenges of Establishing a Human Settlement on the Moon by Erik Seedhouse; Turning Dust to Gold: Building a Future on the Moon and Mars by Haym Benaroya; The Far Side of the Moon: A Photographic Guide by Charles Byrne; Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions by David M. Harland; and Lunar and Planetary Rovers: The Wheels of Apollo and the Quest for Mars by Anthony Young (see http://www.springer.com/series/4097). I also consulted The Lunar Base Handbook by Peter Eckart; Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space by Harrison Schmitt; Welcome to Moonbase by Ben Bova; Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century, edited by W. W. Mendell; Moonrush: Improving Life on Earth with the Moon’s Resources by Dennis Wingo; The Once and Future Moon by Paul D. Spudis; The Moon: A Biography by David Whitehouse; The Exploration of the Moon by Arthur C. Clarke; A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin; The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space by Gerard K. O’Neill; Space Enterprise: Living and Working Offworld in the 21st Century by Phillip Harris; From Antarctica to Outer Space: Life in Isolation and Confinement (various authors); The Development of Outer Space: Sovereignty and Property Rights in International Space Law by Thomas Gangale; Expedition Mars by Martin J. L. Turner; The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must by Robert Zubrin; The Hazards of Space Travel: A Tourist’s Guide by Neil Comins; Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee; SETI 2020: A Roadmap for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (various authors); Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations by Brian S. McConnell; Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs by Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre; Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World by David D. Friedman; 2025: Scenarios of US and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology (various authors); The Edge of Medicine: The Technology That Will Change Our Lives by William Hanson; 21st-Century Miracle Medicine: RoboSurgery, Wonder Cures, and the Quest for Immortality by Alexandra Wyke; Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension by Stephen S. Hall; and Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Biotechnology Age by Lori Andrews and Dorothy Nelkin.
Any errors or exaggerations are almost certainly mine.
Thanks also to Ariel Moy; Peter Roberts; Stephen Clarke; Thomas Colchie; David Scherwood; Brit Hvide, Sarah Knight, Amar Deol, Jonathan Evans, and Molly Lindley at Simon &
Schuster; Michelle Kroes at CAA; and my agent, David Forrer, at InkWell.
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster eBook.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Anthony O’Neill
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