by Jason Gurley
The woman stepped forward and inspected the seven recruits carefully. Her eyes narrowed when she came to Noor, and she moved even closer.
You, she said.
Noor could smell coffee on her breath.
Yes, ma'am, Noor said.
You walked out of my room, she said.
Noor held her gaze, difficult as it was. I did, ma'am.
Why?
Noor swallowed hard. Because I disagreed, ma'am.
The woman's forehead was nearly touching Noor's, and he became very conscious of his own breathing patterns. She studied him, looking from one eye to the next. Noor felt his heartbeat double its pace.
Then she stepped back, and clasped her hands behind her. You disagreed, she repeated.
Noor nodded. Yes, ma'am.
Isn't it true that you all disagreed with my statements? she asked the group.
Slow nods from the group.
Ylla had spoken up next. It's true, ma'am.
The woman paused, and looked directly at Ylla for a long moment.
You all disagreed, and you left the room, she repeated. Do you know what that makes you?
Jeffrey looked like he was about to cry, Noor noticed.
No, ma'am, Noor volunteered.
The woman walked back to Noor's position. What's your name?
I am Noor, Noor said.
Full name, Noor.
Noor Dalat, said Noor.
Where are you from, Mr. Dalat?
The lower wards, ma'am, Noor answered.
The lower wards, she repeated. Looking at the entire group, she said, And the rest of you? Also the lower wards?
Ylla and the group nodded.
So this group of underprivileged Machine-class young men and women decided to defy the Operative commander -- not just defy, but defy openly, the woman said. Is that correct?
Noor was the only one who nodded affirmatively.
Speak up, she said.
That's correct, Noor said.
Mr. Dalat, she said, do you know what day it is?
It's March fourth, he said. March fourth, 2545.
And the rest of you, the woman said, turning to the group. Do you know the significance of this date?
Noor looked over the group as they all searched their memories and came up empty.
No, ma'am, Ylla said, tentatively.
The woman said, I'll tell you. March fourth, 2545, is the day you all became operatives.
Summons
Noor is dimly aware that he has poured himself a glass of water, and that his hands are wet. He is shaking, and the water in the glass keeps spilling over. His jaw trembles, and he is talking to himself.
Heiligdom, Uitvinder. Heiligdom, heiligdom.
The glass slips out of his hands and clatters to the floor. It rests on its side on the heavy rug there, and the last of the water runs out into the fibers.
Sanctuary, Noor whispers. Heiligdom.
On the bridge of the Matroos, a voice speaks, muffled by the curtain.
Noor cries and cries.
• • •
The Matroos traces a thin, inconspicuous path through the deep black. For thirteen years, it has drifted under Noor's inattentive command, but it has never faded from the solar maps that glow deep within the Citadel. While officials use long wands to nudge model ships around on the surface of the great maps, a tiny model representing the Matroos lives on the farthest fringe of the map. Every few months or so, someone pushes it a little farther away.
Noor has trained his mind to forget his past, but his past has not forgotten him.
• • •
Noor tries to sleep, but cannot find calm. He tries to sing a song, but forgets the words. He tries to paint, but his hand trembles too much. He huddles on his bedroll, knees pulled to his chest, and rocks slowly, eyes closed. He repeats Uitvinder's name over and over, a prayer in itself, and no answer comes.
He thinks of the comet, blazing slowly through the darkness somewhere behind him.
And feels a deep thrum from the belly of the ship.
He stops rocking.
The vibration comes again, sustained and powerful, and abates.
Noor rolls out of his bed and pulls the blanket around his shoulders. He pads across the deck to a viewport, and looks out into the black. There are no points of references, no stars, no planets. The comet has fallen from sight.
And yet he feels the Matroos turning.
After thirteen years of steady, patient passage, his ship betrays him.
• • •
Huddled in the blanket, Noor jogs through the ship. At the bridge, he pulls the curtain back. The computers are awake. The communications console is actively transmitting... something. His skin reflects pulses of status lights and the blue haze of screenviews.
In the center, the captain's console is awake.
Noor walks slowly to it, and stares down at the chair. He sat in the chair once, years ago, for enough time to take the Matroos out of the Citadel's dock and guide it safely out of Earth orbit. It took less than twenty minutes to do so, and then he powered the bridge down and allowed the ship's momentum to carry him wherever Uitvinder wished.
But now the console is awake, and the ship obeys another master.
• • •
The message is not accompanied by video or audio, but is a pure text directive. Noor sits down in the captain's chair, his brain struggling with the message's contents.
Uitvinder, he whispers. Heiligdom. Please, my lord. Sanctuary, please.
But the message remains.
Attn: Commander N. Dalat (Ret.)
Status: Commander Dalat is recalled to active status.
Personal message to follow.
Personal message:
Commander Dalat,
I beg pardon for interrupting your overdue and well-earned retirement. I hope you know that I do not take such an interruption lightly. I hope you will forgive me. Your presence on the Citadel is needed as soon as possible. We are programming the Matroos remotely to deliver you here quickly. You will arrive in about four months. If I could have you back today, I would do anything. Four months may even be too long.
Noor, we are at war once again. The System War fifty-one years ago pales beside what has happened. We have been greatly weakened by a single offensive, by an enemy whose identity we cannot discern. Deimos has been taken from the sky, and hurled to the surface of Mars.
Olympus City is no more, Noor. Millions are dead.
The operative contingent on Meili is small. Our resources are scattered throughout the system, and nearly four hundred operatives active in Olympus and on Deimos are dead. We have never suffered so great a blow. Our authority has been compromised. Your command is required.
All resources are being called home to the Citadel. Come home.
Uitvinder guide you quickly.
Korski
Irreversible
No matter what he tries, Noor is unable to stop the ship from returning to the Citadel. He has no wish to see Mirs Korski again. He has no wish to rebuild a fragmented operative core into something that can preserve the Onyx way of life. He is old now. He lives for Uitvinder's pleasure, and Uitvinder is not pleased by the Council's aggressive, domineering ways.
Uitvinder does not wish Noor to return.
Noor follows only Uitvinder's wishes.
• • •
The Matroos hums like a living thing now, like a hummingbird. In its breast, a heart beats blue and alive, propelling the ship away from the edge of the solar system. It moves faster now than it ever has, fast enough that Noor will pass Koerier in a few days.
Man was not meant to fly faster than the comets, he thinks.
• • •
Noor feels as if his skin has been pulled off. He is exposed again to memories that he has packed away. They surge in like broken waves full of debris, tearing at his raw body, reminding him of things he wishes to forget. He remembers in terrible detail the lives he has taken for the Coun
cil. He remembers a man who pleaded with him for not his own life, but the lives of his two daughters.
Noor had followed orders, and had killed them all.
He cannot remember what happened to the young man who tried to walk out of the arena that day so many years ago.
He can almost feel the blood on his hands now.
And then there is Ylla.
The memory of their final afternoon returns.
He closes his eyes, and remembers.
• • •
I know you're concerned, Noor had said. I am, too. But I -- I believe her.
Why would you believe her? Ylla asked. She has broken so many promises already.
I believe that beneath what we see, she and the Council wish the best for people, Noor said.
Then you are not the intelligent man I thought you to be, Ylla said. The Noor I thought that I knew would have seen through this falsehood. She intends to wield you, Noor. Like a cleaver. She will sweep you through the people and you will feel them break upon your blade, and it will be as much your fault as hers. That blood will be yours, Noor. I see it on you already.
There will be no killing, Ylla. Only enforcement, for the good of the people.
You're blind. You don't see. Maybe you don't want to see.
Noor had lunged forward, had thrust his face close to hers. I see only the starvation of my family! he had shouted. I see their struggle. My struggle! Every day of my life, there has been uncertainty. Now, for once, I know where food comes from. I know where money comes from. I have both, and both I can give to my family. What would you have me do?
Ylla was unmoved, and unafraid of Noor's passion.
There are better ways than this to ease struggle, she had said to him. Better, better ways.
I have looked all my life, and I haven't found any, Noor said.
You haven't looked hard enough, then.
You don't know me very well, Noor said.
I thought that I did, Ylla said. But you're right. I don't.
She had gathered her things that afternoon, and he drank whiskey and stared at the wall. He didn't look at her as she put her clothes calmly into her luggage. He didn't look up when she left, and didn't acknowledge her goodbye as she closed the door.
He finished the bottle by morning.
• • •
The ache moves through him slowly, rattling him, as if he has grasped a vibrating beam and transferred its reverberations to his own body. He had sought her out after that day, after he had vomited up most of the whiskey and slept himself sober. She had disappeared from the operative crew, and nobody knew where she was. He'd returned to the lower wards, where he was treated with fearful deference now -- the uniform was like a mask -- and had found her family's compartment. But they had not seen her.
She had vanished completely.
He had searched for her throughout his entire career. When the Council sent him to Skyresh, he scanned the crowds for her face. When he was sent to a prison colony on Oberon, he looked for her in the cells. No matter how unlikely his destination, no matter his mission, locating her was his priority. But he never found her.
How interesting that she has found him now.
• • •
She comes to him as though real.
He knows she cannot be, because she has not aged. Her skin is pale and smooth and unlined, her dark eyes large and youthful. She walks as one who has never grown tired, one who has never known sadness or carried the great weight of the years.
He tilts his head back and sends his thanks to Uitvinder.
Dankie, he whispers. Dankie, Uitvinder.
Who do you pray to? she asks him.
He almost cannot believe his ears. You speak, he says.
Of course, Ylla says. Who do you pray to? I don't know them.
I pray to Uitvinder, Noor says.
Who is Uitvinder?
He is the Great Inventor, says Noor. The one responsible for this body, for this mind. I am his creation.
I've never heard of him, she says, moving closer.
Noor is suddenly ashamed. Don't look at me, he says.
Ylla pauses. Why not? I've missed you.
I'm old, he says.
You're handsome still, she says.
Noor lifts one arm, and the loose, old skin that sheaths his muscles sags about.
Look at my skin, he says. I am a paper man. I am old. I'm not the Noor you loved.
I did love you, didn't I, says Ylla.
I hope you did, he says.
You've missed me.
Greatly, he whispers.
You've tried to find me.
All my days, Ylla.
She touches his face, and he closes his eyes at the coolness of her touch.
But you didn't find me, she says.
I never did.
Did you ever ask our superiors?
Noor bows his head. I was afraid to.
You know the answer, then.
Please don't tell me, he says. I've spent my life dreaming that you did not fall prey to them. I've imagined such lovely futures for you.
You know the truth, Noor.
He begins to cry. No.
You know what they do to defectors. You know what must have happened to me.
No, he says, weeping. Please, don't tell me. No.
I don't need to tell you, she says. I'm sorry.
He falls to his knees, and bows his face to the floor. The sound that emerges from deep inside his chest is foreign to him, and haunts the empty chambers of the ship around him. He moans and weeps until he is exhausted, and then he falls asleep, curled in a small, withered ball on the floor.
Reversible
Noor carefully folds his bedroll, then loops twine around it and knots it tight. He tidies his small quarters, collecting the paintings he has pasted onto the walls into a pile. From a locker, he takes clothing from his past life.
The uniform hangs on his narrow frame like a curtain. He fastens the cuffs, smooths the trousers. He slips his feet into the smart black shoes he has not worn in thirteen years. With a pair of scissors, he neatly trims his beard into something clean and respectable.
He prepares a responsible meal. Small portions, careful distributions of vegetables and meats. He sips from properly aged wine, but not too much.
He listens to a pleasant sonata, and takes in the view of the black once more. There's still nothing there. No stars, no planets, no moons. No Koerier.
When the sonata ends, he descends belowdecks.
In the engine room, the once-dark fisher-class engine now spins like a pinwheel. It glows, lovely and pink. Had the sonata still been playing, it might have seemed a little romantic. But he knows that this instrument, this now-beating heart, is rocketing him through the solar system at unprecedented speeds, carrying back to the rotten, putrid nest he had so happily fled.
Noor turns to the cargo panels, and enters a security code. He opens the door and is met by the sight of spare fuel rods. Since he has drifted for thirteen years, he has never depleted the supply. There are several dozen rods, enough to propel the Matroos for nearly five thousand years.
Now, one is enough.
He hefts one of the rods into his hands, a little surprised at its weight. It very nearly takes him down to the floor, but he summons all of his strength. For his age, he has retained that strength very well.
Noor staggers over to the pulsing, rotating engine. He sings his song as he works:
Though I may wander
Though I may drift
Though my useful days have passed
My shepherd guides me
My shepherd guides me
My shepherd guides me
Kindly to his door
May I find my Ylla after all, he whispers.
Noor lifts the fuel rod above his head, and with a final whispered prayer to Uitvinder, he plunges it directly into the heart of the Matroos.
And becomes a star.
• • •
F
ar, far away, deep within the Citadel walls, Mirs Korski leans over the solar maps, conferring with his officers. Models of ships are pushed around on the surface of the map as they debate strike plans.
Korski notices movement at the corner of his vision, and glances up.
At the distant edge of the solar map, an attendant removes the tiny marker designating the Matroos.
Korski waits for the attendant to put the ship's marker back on the board, hopefully much closer to home now. But the attendant walks away, carrying the marker with him.
Korski hangs his head.
MIRS
His desk is cluttered with paperwork and half-empty coffee cups and chewed-on pencils. Smoke lingers in the air from the cigarettes that he puffs and then stabs out in a little metal tray. The overhead lighting needs replacing. It buzzes and flickers and snaps, but he barely notices.
Mirs leans back in his chair and pages through yellow binder.
Six more reported dead, he reads.
He glances at the number marked on the board to his right. It has been erased and updated so many times that the board has gone smeary behind it.
436, the number reads.
Marcus, he shouts. Marcus!
The door to Mirs's office creaks open, and Marcus, a lean man with a blank expression, steps in.
Sir, Marcus says.
Mirs pinches the folder between his thumb and two fingers and holds it up. Marcus nods, and crosses the room to pluck the folder from his boss's hands. He flips the binder open with one hand, then walks to the board and erases the last two digits with his sleeve.
Mirs watches as Marcus updates the number.
442.
How many are still unaccounted for? Mirs asks of Marcus's back.
Marcus closes the binder and drops it onto the burn pile next to the board.
There are still one hundred sixty unaccounted for, Marcus says.
Jesus Christ, Mirs says. Are they all going to turn up dead?