Icarus Descending w-3

by Elizabeth Hand

  “Look again,” urged Colonel Aselma. “It’s not a very good image.”

  “Oh, I would remember—” Giles’s voice was stubbornly insistent, but also desperate. “You heard Trevor—it’s been a bad winter, no visitors—”

  “Now, Giles,” Trevor said calmly. “They realize that. They’re just following Commander Tast’annin’s orders.”

  “ Imperator Tast’annin,” said Captain Patrocles. “He says she is the last of the original group they had developed at the Human Engineering Laboratory. With proper intervention she can be of great use to us.”

  “ If she is still alive,” Colonel Aselma said with disdain. “With that janissary rabble keeping order in the City, we’ll be lucky to find anything at all.”

  “Oh, he’ll find her,” said Captain Patrocles. “By now the entire NASNA corps has received that ’file image, and there’s a bounty on her. She’ll be lucky if some overzealous janissary doesn’t blow her brains out—”

  “They’d better not,” Colonel Aselma said darkly. “Her brain is the only part of her the Imperator cares about.”

  I drew back from the wall and crouched in the darkness. My shaking hands clutched at my knees.

  Tast’annin was alive. Jane’s bullet must not have killed him, or else the Ascendants had found some means to preserve his life—that single word regenerated rang in my ears like a warning tocsin.

  He was alive, and he was looking for someone.

  He was looking for me.

  My breath came in such deep bursts, I was afraid the Aviators would hear me through the crumbling bricks. Light headed with fear, I tried to stand, nearly fell, and caught myself against the wall. They would hear me if I wasn’t careful; but all I could think of was that monstrous figure in the Cathedral—sacrificing children, using my twin, Raphael, as my own bloody image to lure the hapless Paphians to their deaths.

  But I had seen Tast’annin die, slumped against the great pit he had dug on Saint Alaban’s Hill.

  I stood panting, trying to calm myself so I wouldn’t go careening through the passage and bring the Aviators down on me like a pair of hounds. The fearlessness and strength I had felt just a few minutes ago was gone. Suddenly it seemed that all my actions of the past year had been insanely transparent. I felt as though there had been someone watching me all along, tracking me and just waiting for this moment to seize me. Those months when I had thought I was safe here at Seven Chimneys, safe in the City of Trees: all madness, an illusion brought on by my need to feel myself free and whole for the first time in my life. The Ascendants had for a little time forgotten me, that was all; as they had forgotten the City of Trees. But their attention had been brought back, first by Tast’annin’s defection; now by his command to search for me.

  “ Oh, he’ll find her…. ”

  He would too; and this time he wouldn’t lose me.

  I remembered Trevor Mallory in the cellar—“ I would have done it differently — no scars, nothing to show that you had ever been touched…. ”—and heard Dr. Harrow’s voice just before she died, warning me of the Ascendants’ plans for the empaths she had nurtured at HEL—

  “ And you, Wendy. And Anna, and all the others. Like the geneslaves: toys. Weapons— you especially …”

  She had been right. Nothing—not even death, it seemed—would keep the Ascendants from controlling their creations. I had been a fool to think otherwise. They had engineered me as a weapon, my mind altered through chemicals and surgery until they could turn it to their own purposes. But they would not give up a weapon so easily—especially now, when they were threatened by this rebel Alliance. They would reclaim me as they had reclaimed Tast’annin. If he was still alive—if he was again alive—he must be an even more maleficent creature than he was before. Somehow they had brought him back into their game; somehow they would do the same with me.

  I shuddered. I had been mad to put my trust in Giles and Trevor. Their attempt to hide us suddenly seemed as pathetic as Fossa’s efforts at speech. Those two Aviators would find and capture me as though I were a bewildered feral dog, then give me over to the new team of researchers at HEL and never think of me again. If I tried to fight them, my fate would be Tast’annin’s, killed and regenerated as an Ascendant tool, with no mind or will of my own.

  And what then of Jane and Miss Scarlet?

  “No,” I whispered. Abruptly I turned and ran down the hallway, stumbling in the darkness and shuddering with fear. When I reached the door, I fled through it, keeping my head down as I ran. It wasn’t until too late that I realized where I was.

  “Wendy!”

  I gasped, looked up to see Jane silhouetted in a doorway. Her hair was disheveled and her face sunburned. Over her shoulder two hares hung from a loop of leather cord, their legs tied with vines; her pistol was shoved through her belt. Behind her an open door let in the cool night breeze and the sound of the wind. I was in the front hall. I’d come the wrong way.

  “Jane, no— ”

  She grinned and let the door slam shut behind her, a sound that echoed through the house like a gunshot. “What is it, Wendy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I whirled frantically, heading for the steps that led upstairs; but it was too late.

  “ Who’s that? ”

  The voice of Colonel Aselma rang down the corridor, along with the sound of heavy boots. Behind her I could hear Trevor protesting, “The wind, just the wind—” and Giles adding, “It’s only Jane!”

  “Wendy?” Jane turned to me, her eyes wide. “What’s happened? Who’s here—”

  “You said there were no other guests—” Captain Patrocles’s angry voice boomed down the corridor. A moment later he strode into the foyer, his weapon dangling from one hand. And saw me.

  “ It’s her!— ”

  In an instant his gun was trained on me, but before he could fire, Colonel Aselma had shoved him aside.

  “ No! He wants her alive!”

  She lunged and I dropped to the floor, rolling until I slammed into the wall. Colonel Aselma was right behind me, reaching for me with one hand while with the other she wrestled something from her belt.

  “ You! ”

  I glimpsed Trevor and Giles frozen in the entryway, Patrocles shouting as he swung his weapon between them and Jane. Then I felt Colonel Aselma’s fingers closing about my ankle.

  “No—” I choked, kicking at her. She swore and I kicked again, harder this time and aiming for her face. I felt the plate covering her forehead crack beneath my blow, and struck again at the other side of her head. Shouting with pain, she dropped back, her hand sliding from me. I staggered to my feet and bolted for the stairs. Behind me I heard Trevor yelling desperately.

  “Wendy—for Christ’s sake don’t, wait—Jane, no ! ”

  There was an explosive retort, followed by a scream; then another thunderous roar. For a moment I was blinded. A roiling ball of heat and flame rushed through the room, as though the floor had suddenly opened onto an inferno, and then was gone. I was thrown against the wall with such force that for a moment everything seemed to be frozen around me. Motes of golden light hung in the still air. Jane pointed at the doorway into the hall, her face absolutely devoid of any expression. Colonel Aselma knelt with her hand poised above the gun at her hip. Then like an echo of that first explosion there was another, smaller boom, followed by an echoing retort. A pane of glass in one of the foyer windows shattered, and suddenly everything began to move again. I started to race up the steps, then heard a cry that pierced me like a shaft of ice. I stopped and looked back down.

  On the floor a figure—no, two figures—sprawled side to side. The first was Captain Patrocles. He lay upon his chest, arms outflung as though desperately grasping for something. The barrel of his weapon protruded from beneath him, its smooth surface blue-white with heat and sending up a single gray plume of smoke. His eyes were wide; two of his bottom teeth were gone, and most of his jaw. He was quite obviously dead.

  Beside him Trev
or Mallory was stretched out on his back. One arm crossed his breast so that his hand rested upon his heart. The other was extended across the floor, palm upward, the fingers delicately curled as though they held something precious. He was unmoving. Beside him lay his enhancer, its edges slightly crumpled. A perfect star-shaped hole had been blasted through his forehead.

  “You bitch. ” A voice cried out, so charged with hatred and rage that I instinctively ducked, looking around for Colonel Aselma.

  But the voice wasn’t hers. It was Jane’s. She stood in the middle of the foyer, her face twisted from weeping as she aimed her pistol to where Colonel Aselma stood a few feet from the two corpses.

  “You killed him, you—” Jane sobbed, and in the silence I could hear the barrel of her ancient gun turn over. Behind her Giles crouched, dazed.

  “Don’t be a fool,” hissed Colonel Aselma. “You can’t possibly win, you know, just put the gun down and come with me—” But her expression belied her words: her eyes were wide, her mouth set in a tight line as she fumbled at her belt.

  “Goody-bye,” choked Jane, holding her gun so tightly that the muscles in her hands were knotted red and white. Then, closing her eyes, she fired.

  The retort sent Jane reeling backward. Colonel Aselma’s body crumpled; she took one staggering step and toppled beside her partner. I cried out and ran down the steps, nearly falling as I raced toward Jane. Only when I had my arms around her did I look back at Colonel Aselma. A ragged hole blackened her chest; I recalled the body armor lying on the floor of the living room.

  “I thought it was—I thought it was him,” Jane gasped. “Tast’annin—I just saw the uniform and I thought, I thought—”

  She shook with sobs, and I hugged her tightly. But as I held her, I looked over her shoulder to see where Giles knelt upon the floor, cradling Trevor’s head in his lap.

  “Wake up,” he crooned. “Darling, wake up now, wake up….” And then he began to scream.

  “Oh, god,” I whispered, pulling away from her. “Trevor…”

  Before I could go to him, I heard a clicking sound. I started, thinking in my panic that Colonel Aselma had somehow not taken a fatal strike. But she was still quite dead. Only, in her hand I noticed a tiny object, pen-shaped, emitting a series of clicks and staticky hisses. A moment later a faint, high-pitched whine came through the broken window from outside.

  Giles looked up, his face contorted with weeping. “Her Gryphon,” he choked. Jane and I raced out onto the porch.

  In the tangled garden where Giles grew yarrow and brambly yellow roses, one of the Aviators’ biotic aircraft crouched in the summer darkness. Its narrow nose pointed skyward, and as we watched, its wings fully extended even as its solex panels folded in upon themselves, like the soft gleaming folds of a bat’s wings. More clicks and hissing blasted from it as a smooth translucent hood emerged and covered its cockpit. The keening of its power supply grew louder and louder until it was a steady roar. Before we reached the porch steps, it was airborne, springing into the air with the ease and lethal grace of a jaguarundi or lynx. Within seconds it was high above the house. I could see its sensors on their long filaments whipping through the air, some of them with glowing green and yellow eyes staring balefully down at us.

  “It’s taking a reading.” I started to back toward the door, but Jane grabbed me and shook her head. “It’s too late,” she said dully. “It will already have signaled that we’re here.”

  The Gryphon made a final swipe above us, its steel-blue wings slicing through the tops of the white oaks and sending down a confetti of torn leaves. Then it was gone, and the cold wake of its passing raked our cheeks like talons.

  We went back inside. I was too numb to register anything except that my recklessness had killed Trevor and betrayed us to NASNA. Jane helped Giles carry Trevor’s body into their room. I followed, silent, and stayed there even when Jane left. I watched as Giles washed his lover’s face and brow, touching gently the pale scar tissue where his eyes had been and kissing the place where the Aviator’s weapon had left that incongruously small wound, like a bloody kiss.

  “Giles,” I said after a long time had passed. “Giles, I’m—

  “Hush,” he said. His eyes were red, but he had stopped crying. “He was prepared for this, Wendy. He has—he made plans, in case of…” He gasped and lifted his face, his eyes squeezed shut tight. “I’m just—God! it’s just horrible, that’s all. But I know we’ll be together again soon.”

  I shook my head, shocked. “Giles! No, you can’t—”

  He looked up at me, brushing back the loose hair that had fallen around his shoulders. I saw then that his soft beauty had bled away, as quickly and easily as though it had been merely painted upon his face. What remained was only grief and the outlines of a love so powerful, it looked like rage.

  “Wendy.” His voice was still gentle but commanding. “I think you should leave us alone for a little while. There are—there’s something I need to do, and you won’t—I just need to be alone.”

  Nodding, I stumbled from the room, wiping tears from my face. I was anguished by my callousness in following him there, by the drunken rage and foolishness that had destroyed my friends. And suddenly I remembered Miss Scarlet, sleeping upstairs with Fossa.

  “Jane!” I ran down the hall and into the kitchen. Jane stood at the sink in a shroud of steam, wringing out a pink rag.

  “They’re gone,” she said. She turned to me, and I saw where a tag of blood still smeared her cheek.

  “Gone?” I repeated shrilly. I was still thinking of Miss Scarlet.

  Jane nodded once, biting her lip. “Yes. I—I gave them to the pigs.” She started to laugh, stopped abruptly and wiped her eyes. “Oh, god. It’s all my fault, I never—”

  “ Stop. ” I took her in my arms again, smoothing her damp hair. “It’s—if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. They were looking for me, Jane. They have orders from Tast’annin to find me and bring me to him.”

  Jane pulled back. “But he’s dead,” she said, and touched the pistol at her waist. “He’s dead, Wendy, you know that—”

  “He’s not. He’s alive—they’ve done something, I don’t know what—regenerated him, found his corpse and—and I don’t know….” I started to shake and drew away from her. “Miss Scarlet. She doesn’t know yet—”

  Jane went even paler than she had been. “Are you sure? Is she safe, are they still—?”

  We ran upstairs, our footsteps echoing through the empty halls. The night wind blew through an open window, and gray light spattered the floor. Near the end of the corridor the door to the linen closet hung open.

  “Scarlet! Scarlet, are you there?” I shouted. Jane followed me as I ducked inside, flinging clothes out of my way. “Scarlet!”

  The room was empty. The plates and wine bottle and remnants of food were as I’d last seen them. The bed covers where Miss Scarlet had been sleeping were tossed onto the floor.

  “Fossa!” Jane yelled. “Scarlet! Where are you?”

  I shook my head and turned to the door, stunned. “They’re gone.”

  Jane looked at me, her face a tortured mask. “The window,” she gasped, and pushed me aside as she went back into the corridor. “That goddamned open window.” I ran after her down the hallway.

  “That’s it,” she cried, leaning out the window. “They’re gone—she must have gotten on his back and they jumped out—see, there?”

  I looked where she pointed, to a patch of soft earth that was broken up, as though someone had rolled in it. Jane continued to stare at the ground. “I drove her to this,” she said softly. “Because I never treated her the same way I treated you, or anyone else. I never should have gone off alone—and now this, now this—”

  I grabbed my aching head, wishing I could rip it off and silence the roaring in my ears. I breathed deeply, the way Dr. Harrow taught me, and after a moment felt calmer. I drew my hands from my face and looked at my friend.

  “Jane, it’s al
l done now,” I said carefully, my voice hoarse. “I should never have left that room, but I did. And maybe you shouldn’t have gone out alone—but it’s done now. They’re gone. And Trevor—”

  I shut my eyes, trying to will away the anguish pounding inside me. “And they’re all gone, is all,” I finished.

  Jane nodded miserably and pulled herself from the window. “Those Aviators,” she said, and a bitter edge crept into her voice. “Tell me, what happened?”

  We drew together, like survivors of a rain of roses, and walked down the hall. I told her all I knew, ending with my shock at finding myself in the front hallway just as she entered. When I finished, we had reached the kitchen. Jane pulled away from me, shaking her head, and for several minutes leaned with her hands pressed tightly against the edge of a table. Finally she sighed and straightened, and ran her hands through her unruly shock of hair.

  “I guess we better find Giles,” she said.

  I felt exhausted, so tired that all I wanted to do was sink to the floor and huddle there like a sick child. But I nodded and let her take my hand. Slowly we walked to his room. Through the open windows came the creak of crickets and the wind in the leaves: sounds that now seemed to have no other reference than to this heartache and fear. I glanced outside, half-expecting to see naught but darkness, the long shadow of our grief; but there were the trees tossing gently, there the stars in their midsummer guise, and a faint glow of moonlight in the east.

  We found Giles in his rooms sitting on the bed with his back to us. Trevor’s body was gone. Jane looked aside at me, her eyes wide and mouth posed to ask a question, but I shook my head.

  “Giles,” I called softly. “It’s Wendy and Jane.”

  He turned. He had bound his hair back into a neat braid and changed his clothes—a long deep-blue tunic, not the mourning red I might have expected a Paphian to wear, but then he had not lived among his own people for many years. He looked quite calm, his mouth a little strained and eyes bloodshot; but his expression was peaceful, his voice steady as he spoke to us.