He was faintly shaking, the tremors almost unnoticeable, and Fergus wondered how much an effort of will that took.
“Visitors,” Vinsic said, and the word was almost a curse. “Your timing is terrible, but I’m curious what sort of imbeciles would come here in a war.” He waved them toward chairs on one side of the room.
Fergus, Mari, and Bale exchanged glances. Mari flipped up her face shield, threw back her hood, and slouched into a chair. “Might as well,” she said. “I’m tired.”
“Ah, a Vahn,” Vinsic said. “I’ve never met any of you other than your ‘Mother.’ I didn’t think any of you poked your noses out of your little hiding place behind Daddy Harcourt.”
Mari’s eyes narrowed.
Fergus pushed back his own face shield and hood. The air was cold and smelled faintly of old oil and dust. “I wouldn’t underestimate the Vahns,” he said.
“You,” Vinsic said, and then he laughed. “Of course! I shouldn’t be surprised you’re here now. It’s only fitting. Sit, be comfortable, and I’ll tell you a story. That’s why you came here, right?”
Fergus warily took the chair next to Mari’s, and then Bale sat a few moments later. Parat stood by himself now, his expression sour.
“I’m getting old,” Vinsic said, “but I’d expected longer. Except—”
“Except you’re dying,” Fergus interrupted.
Vinsic’s expression sharpened. “Yes,” he said. “Imminently, as it happens.”
“We were hoping you could tell us—” Fergus started to say.
“Shut the hell up,” Vinsic said. “This is my house, and I do the speaking until I’m dead or I say otherwise. I’m not normally a talkative guy, but Parat here is tediously stupid.”
Parat glared, and Fergus noticed he was rolling something small and cylindrical around in his hand.
“The war is going very badly for the Governor, especially without Harcourt on his side,” Vinsic said. “Even with Gilger going off the lines and doing his own stupid shit, he’s almost won this. See for yourself.”
Vinsic tapped the desk, and a live holo-display of Cernee lit up; it was much like the one the Vahns had, except this one was riddled with red and the deep maroon of dead habs. What little pockets remained free outside the embattled Central itself were surrounded by an ocean of red. “You see?”
Bale slumped in his chair. “That’s bad,” he said.
“Very bad,” Vinsic said. “Say it.”
“Very bad,” Bale said.
“Effectively, you’ve already lost. It’s important that you see the inevitability of that, staring you right in the face, right here, right now.” Vinsic turned the display off. “As you know, Gilger and I have an alliance.”
“I’ve seen,” Fergus said. “I spent a little time inside the circle, even.”
“Oh? That will simplify things,” Vinsic said. “You see, Gilger doesn’t want my organization sprouting a new head once the current one—me—has died. He knows that’s one of the biggest threats still facing him in Cernee. So over the last half standard he’s been bribing away as many of my people as he could, and he sent them back here to betray their friends and make sure my legacy dies with me. Parat here is my designated executioner. Isn’t that right, Parat?”
Parat was staring, taken aback. “Uh . . .”
Vinsic chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes. He didn’t think I knew, the idiot. You see, there are a large number of explosives, and Parat is holding the trigger. He’s just waiting for word from Gilger to kill me, then get out and set them off, destroying Attic. Only word hasn’t come yet from Gilger even though it should have, which is why Parat is fidgeting and sweating now. He doesn’t entirely understand the situation and hadn’t realized that fact until just this moment.”
“Fuck you, and see you in hell,” Parat said. He activated his device, then threw it to the floor and put his hands over his head as if that could save him.
Nothing happened.
The others in the room had not reacted, other than to quietly pull out their pistols. Parat hadn’t noticed. His eyes were on Vinsic. “What the fuck? The explosives didn’t work!”
“They worked perfectly fine,” Vinsic said. “Only Gilger didn’t buy off everyone he thought he bought off, and the explosives were never planted here after all.”
“What? Where?” Parat asked.
Vinsic leaned forward and grinned. “Gilgerstone,” he said. “Also Burnbottle, where most of his ships dock to recrew and refuel. They were going to go on his fancy new ship, but these dishonest gentlemen inconveniently went and stole it from him, so I’ve had to improvise.”
“Why?” Parat asked.
“Because Gilger isn’t one of us, and he doesn’t care about Cernee except as a stepping stone to more power,” Vinsic said. “Eventually he’d destroy everything just to show he could. And I wasn’t going to leave Cernee, everything I’ve built and everyone I love, in his hands.”
Parat turned and bolted for the doors, and one of the Blues in the room shot him down. The Blue turned to Vinsic. “Send word?”
“Yes, thanks, Blue One. Tell the Circle it’s time,” Vinsic said. “Defend our habs and vital infrastructure. Shoot Golds on sight, no advance warning necessary.”
“Was Gilger . . . home?” Fergus asked after the Blue leader left.
Vinsic sighed. “I haven’t been able to get good intel on his exact location for days. For a double-crossing Basellan bastard, he was always paranoid about getting the same back, and he’s never fully trusted any locals. Even so, I believe I’ve just fucked up his plans one last time and given your lot a small fighting chance again. Don’t underestimate him. Gilger will do anything, kill anyone and everyone, to keep from losing.”
Vinsic stood up, swaying and shaking violently, and Fergus was shocked by how much thinner he was than he’d been just a few weeks earlier at the cable car hearing. “Asshole couldn’t just let me kick off in my own time in comfort; he made me come back here to finish it. It’s too chilly in these old rocks. Damned meds keep me mostly pain-free, but they make me so fucking cold. I might as well be a corpse already.” He gestured to the remaining Blues. “See them out, and make sure none of Gilger’s trash gets in their way. The tall one took out Graf for us, so we owe them one last running head start.”
He walked over, almost falling, and carefully picked up Parat’s pistol where it had fallen next to his body. “I hope she’s satisfied,” he said. “When she asks, tell her I died peacefully on my own terms. Good luck with the rest of the war. You’ll need it.”
Vinsic put the pistol against his own head and fired.
Chapter 25
There were many more bodies on the way back out of Attic, but no one got in their way. They made it to the platform, stepped over the sprawled bodies of Doani and several others, and cycled themselves out as quickly as they could.
Bale unhooked his ’stick from where he’d tucked it into the charger outside, looked at Fergus, and heaved a full-body dramatic sigh. “I know, I know, still down a ’stick,” Fergus said. “You wanna go back in and ask?”
“Hell, no,” Bale said as Fergus grabbed hold and he launched. “I wish I’d asked to use the P2P when we first got there, though. Mr. Harcourt still doesn’t know Arelyn is safe, and I don’t think we can get back to anywhere friendly, much less the Wheels, from here. My air is also starting to get low. You have any ideas?”
“Medusa,” Mari said as Fergus was opening his mouth to say the same.
“What? Are you hurt?” Bale asked, speeding up to pull alongside her.
“No,” she said.
“Mari’s right,” Fergus added. “Ili’s the only one left. And it’s reachable.”
“You saw the map, Bale,” Mari said. “You see anywhere else left untouched by this war so far?”
“That’s because Ms. Ili has carefully s
tayed out of this fight, just as she always does. And she runs the only major medical center and Cernee’s oxygen farm. Like the sunshields, she’s too dangerous to target. Even Gilger isn’t that dumb.”
“Vinsic said, ‘When she asks.’ You know anyone else ‘she’ could be?” Mari said.
“Cernee is more than 40 percent women,” Bale said. “That seems like a lot of possibilities.”
“Yeah? And who gave him the meds? And would’ve let him stay and die somewhere warm? Vinsic said he didn’t want to hand everyone he loved over to Gilger—you ever heard of Vinsic being a romantic guy?”
Bale grumbled. “No. Maybe,” he said. “We had intel that he was spending a fair bit of time in Medusa, but we just assumed—”
“—that he was sick?” Fergus said. “And he was. But maybe that wasn’t his only reason. And anyway, now Ili is the only one who can hurt Gilger. Harcourt’s still out, the Governor is losing, and Vinsic’s dead. Either she’s already involved and no one knows it yet, or she’s going to be whether she likes it or not. If she was pulling Vinsic’s strings all along . . .”
“Then Vinsic wanted it that way,” Bale said. “So, okay, let’s say we go to Medusa. Then what? Wait for Gilger to come after us there?”
“Can you think of a better place for a last stand?” Mari asked.
“Ms. Ili isn’t going to want us there. If word gets out, you know Gilger won’t be able to resist coming after a Vahn and his Martian assassin.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t planning on ringing the doorbell and asking nicely if we can come in,” Fergus said. “Even if she’s not involved, Medusa has to be overrun with casualties right now. Which, incidentally, is our way in. One of us gets to be a casualty. I vote me.”
“Not that I’m disagreeing, but why you?” Bale asked.
“I can pass as injured better than either of you, mostly because I still am,” Fergus said.
“You’ll need to look injured more than that,” Bale said. “They’ll just slap a narcpatch on you and tell you to stop whining and go home. No offense, but this is a war zone.”
“You could break both his legs,” Mari suggested.
“Or I could have something so uniquely wrong that I’m not just in desperate need of help, I’m interesting,” Fergus said. “Like, say I’ve somehow become electrified.”
“You want to reveal that right out front?” Mari asked.
“If I have to. You got a better idea?”
“No,” she said.
Bale shook his head. “Right. At least it explains why you don’t have your own ’stick, you being a near-corpse and all. But if it turns out Vinsic blew up Gilger and the war is over and I’m carrying you around for nothing, I’m going to make you personally carry me everywhere for a week.”
“That seems fair,” Fergus said.
Medusa was a large spinning ring station, second in size only to Central. It was almost a straight run from Attic to where it sat at the outer edge of the Halo, and as soon as they were clear of the workings that surrounded Attic, Fergus could see it ahead. Dwarfing it from behind, three large tethered ice rocks were slowly being carved down into water. Hundreds of long, beaded strings of greenish cylinders hung out into space from Medusa’s spindle, glowing in the sunlight outside the last of the sunshields: the oxyfarms. The rest of Medusa was surrounded by a swarm of one- and two-mans, small shuttles, and other vehicles, all waiting for their chances to land at the platform that functioned as a staging and triage area. A number of silver-and-green two-mans were stationed as sentries along the incoming routes.
Bale, Fergus, and Mari bypassed the queue and landed on the main platform. Two suited attendants in red stepped out, both armed, and Fergus tensed up. His fingers were tingling.
“Stop wiggling,” Mari said over their private channel. “You’re supposed to be mostly dead.”
Around them there were other people in line or piled up against one wall. Fergus turned his face away. “What’s the problem?” one of the assistants asked over the public channel.
“Some new weapon,” Bale said. “He’s hurt bad. Maybe dying.”
“Bring him in and set him down.”
As soon as they’d passed through the rotating envelope, Bale dumped Fergus like a sack of potatoes on a rolling flat. One of the attendants stepped forward and ran a quick scan over him. “This man doesn’t seem that hurt,” he said. “You’re wasting our time and that of everyone else waiting their turn ahead of you.”
As he spoke, he reached down to touch Fergus’s suit where one of the MCA patches had been removed. “Don’t touch him!” Mari shouted.
As soon as the hand lightly brushed his suit, Fergus zapped him just a tiny bit. The attendant pulled his hand back in surprise.
“Some new weapon of Gilger’s,” Bale said. “He’s all electrified.”
“Trick suit,” the other attendant said as the first stood there, shaken.
He pushed Mari aside and used the butt of his energy pistol to lift Fergus’s face shield. “See?” he said, and reached out with a finger to touch Fergus’s bare nose. When his fingertip was a centimeter or so away, Fergus zapped him too, more strongly than the last guy.
The man jumped back with a startled oath, wrapping his free hand around the hurt one. I’m getting better at this, Fergus thought.
“You’re one of Mother Vahn’s, aren’t you?” the first attendant asked Mari.
“Yes,” Mari said. “I got separated from the farm when the line to the Wheels was cut.”
“And you?” he asked Bale. “Mezz Rock? You work for a color?”
“I was with her,” Bale said, evading the last question. “We were making our way past Snaps looking for somewhere safe to lie low when we saw this guy and several other civilians get shot by a squad of Goldies.”
“It was horrible,” Mari added. “He was the only survivor.”
“And you went all way out of your way to bring him here?”
“We didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Bale said. “We couldn’t get home because there’s some kind of molecular razor wire past Beancan.”
“Someone’s strung out filament?!” the attendant exclaimed.
“There were body parts,” Mari said.
“Right,” the attendant said. “We’ll see what can be done about that. I’ll take him in for tests. You two can leave.”
“Can we wait?”
“Why? Do you know this man?”
“His name’s Angus, and he’s very fond of lichen,” Mari said, and her lip curled up as if she were trying not to cry. “I just need to know he’s going to be okay.”
“Fine. You can wait out in a waiting room,” the attendant said. “If you can fit.”
“But—” the other attendant started to complain, still holding his zapped hand.
“The Vahns aren’t trouble-makers, Lenof, and if Gilger has something new, we need to know about it. Show them to lounge five, then call security and tell them there’s a report of filament. They can get word out to Doublecan and Shadefill via P2P, and they can spread the warning from there. I’ll roll this guy in for a better look.”
The attendant started the flat rolling, then walked beside it, looking down at Fergus. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Hurt,” Fergus said. “Like I’m filled with bees. Thirsty. So thirsty.” None of that was a lie.
“Well, we’re going to take care of you as best we can,” the attendant said. “You just close your eyes and rest.”
Fergus was tired enough not to argue. The smooth rolling of the flat was lulling him toward sleep, and his thoughts drifted off into circular and increasingly irrelevant arguments.
“. . . bringing something in,” the attendant was saying, and Fergus pulled himself out of the murk enough to realize he wasn’t talking to him, but on a comm. “Maybe a new weapon. Taking him to bay nine
teen. Yeah, see you there.”
Ah, Fergus thought, lying peacefully still but no longer feeling sleepy. This plan might actually work. Right up until they get a real scanner on me and find all the alien squidware in my gut, anyway.
They reached the end of a line of injured queued to move through security. His attendant parked him, then hailed the woman in front of him. “What’s the word?” he asked.
“A lot of dead and dying in Gilgerstone and Burnbottle, but none of them are the outworlders, just locals. No one’s found Gilger himself yet,” she answered.
“That can’t be good.”
“No,” she said. “I expect he’s holed up somewhere no one can reach him and furious enough to kill every man, woman, and child left in Cernee with his own bare hands, if he could.”
“Oh, that’s comforting!” Fergus’s attendant said.
“You ever met the man?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I did once. ‘Comforting’ is not a word I’d use to describe him, and he was in a good mood when I met him. We better hope he’s a burnt corpse drifting in the rubble after all. My turn.”
She rolled her patient ahead, and Fergus’s attendant nudged his flat into the space she’d vacated. Around him he could hear moans, crying, and the ragged, uneven breathing of the injured and dying, and he felt like a shit for taking the place of someone who genuinely needed to be here. He liked to hope the deception was for a greater cause, but so far everything had been a lot of effort and danger for very little in the way of answers, and none of them helpful.
Their turn came. His attendant keyed them through a thick blast door and handed him off to a pair of green-and-gray-uniformed medics. “Patient cleared for triage, section one, bay nineteen,” he said, and the lead medic looked surprised but nodded. “In and out of lucidity. Don’t touch him.”
“Contagious?”
The attendant shrugged. “Ask Lenof in a few days.”
The medics parked Fergus’s flat in one of the several small rooms. One shined a light in his eyes. “I’m Medic Zofia,” she said. “Do you know what happened to you?”
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