Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  The rock was warm and the sea breeze rich with salt and the tang of crushed juniper. The water looked warm too, and she reached for it. A split second/eternity of hesitation before her fingertips broke the surface (it's only water/should there be water?) and then her hand was underwater, moon-pale and refraction-deformed. Oh, it was warm and so pleasant, so inviting, and now a particularly daring fish nibbled her fingers harmlessly, and seaweed wrapped around her hand in crimson ribbons.

  "I'm pleased you like it."

  She pulled her hand from the water, clutching it close to her chest. Sandstone walls surrounded the glimmering pool of water. A natural opening showed ocean and sky, divided by a horizon sharper and bluer than any she'd ever seen. She sat on a rock in the middle of a sea cave, and she hadn't known that until now. Hadn't known anything but the silvery water - but that was wrong, wasn't it? She had to have arrived somehow, but try as she might, she couldn't remember.

  Perhaps the man would know. He stood on a rock at the mouth of the cave, limned by sunlight so bright that she couldn't make out his features. Tall, yes, very tall, and dark of hair, and her heart bounced. She knew a man like that. She loved a man like that. His name... she should remember it - how silly of her to have forgotten something like that. Losing her apartment keycard was one thing - there was really no reason for the manufacturers to make them so small and so eminently losable - but losing the name of the man who made her heart bounce? Silly, silly Joy.

  Hah. She smiled. At least she hadn't forgotten her own name.

  "Some don't care for this place. Hard to believe, but there you go. Human opinion is as diverse as the species." As the man spoke, the sea began to beat against the rock he stood on. Shimmering wavelets became white-crested frenzy, reaching, churning, calling for the man. With a sigh, loud enough to fill the cave with sad echo, the man eased himself into the water.

  Joy glanced over her shoulder. Land wasn't too far; a thirty-second swim and she'd be able to pull herself up onto tawny sandstone. A tunnel offered possible escape, but something about the idea of a tunnel made her wary. Tunnels were dangerous. Tunnels were dark and cold and terribly lonely. Tunnels were concrete and man-made, scattered with bones as dry as autumn leaves, so choked with dust the air was ashy smoke.

  Yes, she had seen many tunnels, and none of them had ended in sun-soaked sea caves (oh, if only they had). This place was wrong, and that man, slithering through the water like a serpent, golden skin and ebon hair becoming yellow-and-black scales in the choppy kaleidoscope of water. But yellow-and-black wasn't how she knew him, was it? No. To her he was red. The watching, whispering red.

  "Where are we?"

  The thing with no face - and yet many faces - stopped. He peered at her across the water, eyes unchanging amber.

  "Where everything began."

  Irritation needled her skin. Vagueness wasn't acceptable, but maybe he'd be more specific if she was. Where are we? A daft question, hardly deserving of a proper answer. Where they were didn't matter half so much as where they were not. This was a place of turquoise and amber, silver and azure, but the place she was supposed to be was ash and creeping red. Where was the smell of charcoal and grease; where was the sting of electricity on the wind?

  "We're not on Cato anymore." She waited, but the man just smiled, head slightly cocked, water dripping down a face whose features blurred and shifted. "Are we?"

  "Unfortunately, little sister, we are. The Andromache isn't yet ready to depart. Such a nothing-world, and yet so difficult to escape. I've sometimes wondered if it is simply in its nature or if it acts with purpose. Not a planet so much as a cosmic spider's web." He ran his fingers across the water as he spoke, drawing silver patterns on its surface. "I chain the locals, but I was chained here first. Am I acting of my own volition, or has the planet made me into yet another trap to snare its prey? Storms - lightning - me."

  "You're insane." More silence; so once more she rephrased her words into a question. "Are you insane?"

  "A case could be made for us both, I think, equally drowning in dust while reaching for the stars. The newly-kindled; the slowly-dying; the stars that have grown too fat for this universe and will take a little piece of it with them when they burst. We don't care which one, little sister, as long as it's not the mist-pale star that shines on Cato."

  Anywhere but here. Yes, those words had become a mantra. Eat spider guts, run from drifters, hide in sewers, over and over again, always with I'd rather be anywhere but here pulsating in her brain. But leaving on her own had never been an option.

  "Is Finn here?"

  "Yes."

  "The real Finn," she said, disgusted by how his smile widened to match her brother's. "Is he onboard the Andromache?"

  "Yes."

  His willingness to answer questions scratched at her, but she had to persist. Had to know.

  "Is he alive?"

  "Finn Somerset will never die."

  "You bastard," she hissed, voice cracking as her mouth felt thick with the grey dust of Cato. The thing that had made her brother into another face to wear, smiled. A piece of loose rock found its way into her hand, sharp edges cutting flesh that wasn't really there (this is all in your mind, stupid, jeered a voice in the back of her head, a voice that was so much more like Finn than the man's hollow copy could ever be).

  But there were more questions demanding answers. More things she needed to know, and one came to her in a flash of fear.

  "What about Constant?" Ah. There was the name, slipping from her lips like it had never been forgotten at all. It was like a daisy-chain of memories - Cato led to Finn led to Constant led to everything.

  "I don't know who that is."

  Not omniscient, then. She supposed that was a start.

  "Commander Cassimer. The man in charge of the Primaterre banneret company. Is he here?"

  "Like I said, leaving Cato is not so easy."

  Annoying, but it was her own fault. There were rules to this conversation. Ask and be answered; ask vaguely and be answered vaguely.

  "Where on Cato is he?"

  "I don't know." Annoyance crossed the man's golden features, at his own ignorance or Joy's expression of relief.

  "So you didn't take him like you took me?"

  "Wouldn't want him," the man scoffed. "The universe has no shortage of loyal soldiers. Spin a convincing enough tale to get their blood pumping, raise your banner and cry havoc, and men will follow you to their death and beyond."

  "You speak from experience?" This thing that was not quite a man had to have weaknesses, and bitterness, she thought, was one. Prod that crack hard enough and perhaps more would come pouring out.

  Although, she had played this game once before and lost. That had cost her a black eye and a broken nose. Losing here would be far worse, and this thing, this entity, was certainly a more formidable foe than poor Hal.

  "One cannot live as long as I have, little sister, without experiencing disappointment."

  Not a very good answer, but an answer nonetheless, accompanied by a tingling sensation in the back of her mind. She touched her temple, rubbed it as if that would stop the feeling. Sand, slipping through her fingers. Memories, fading from her consciousness. For every answer she got, he snatched one from her.

  Far more than a broken nose at stake. What had he already taken? What had she lost? She would never know. No more questions - although a thousand burned on the tip of her tongue - but what then?

  "Clorophyta. Palmophyllales. Prascinophyceae." She had lost the memory of what most of these classifications meant long ago. Some as soon as she'd stepped off campus with her degree in her hand. More later, as everything plant-related in her life came to be about pineapples and every other aspect of life became trying not to think about pineapples, but still the words, in all their dead-language polysyllabic glory, remained. "Ginkgophyta. Bryophyta." Veering off course now, but it didn't matter. Reminding herself was what mattered.

  "I see." The waters changed with the man's mood
. Clouding, roiling, spitting sea spray through the mouth of the cave. "Always so clever, my little sister."

  Finn's voice again, and she stopped her chanting just long enough to mouth a fuck off at the man. It felt good - and then the man's fingers writhed like eels through her hair. In an instant, he'd closed the distance, and now his damp skin pressed against hers. She could smell his seaweed breath and taste the salt of him.

  No time to react before she was shoved underwater. No, not underwater - inside of him - and him inside of her, his waters flooding her mouth as thick and rich as blood. A taste of him, this devourer and conqueror; this violator of all he touched.

  Rough hands pulled her to the surface. His face, smooth and golden; scaled and shining black, was so close to hers that his tongue brushed her skin. "Let me in, little sister."

  She coughed water and blood, turning her head in revulsion, but she could no more fight him than she could the sea. She was in the tunnels, hiding. She was staring down an elevator shaft where hands reached from the dark. She was dying on the bridge of a ship. This time no one would save her, and this time, the thing killing her wore a stolen smile.

  "Thief," she spat through chattering teeth. She thought of Constant, how lost and lonely he'd been on the Hecate, and how hard he'd fought. No gun for her, not yet, though if she had her way there would be one, and she wouldn't regret pulling the trigger. For now, all she had were words, not bullets, but fired point-blank at the entity's face all the same. "Picocystis. Zygnematophyta. Scourfieldiales."

  Once more he held her below the water's surface, once more she drowned in him, choked on him. When he pulled her back up, her belly was cold and full of him. He smiled, running a hand down her naked back.

  "Come now, little sister. We've so much further to go. You must have questions - ask me anything. Make this easy for yourself."

  Easy for him, more like. Whatever this thing was, he served only himself. He wielded kindness and politeness like a shield, deflecting from... deflecting from the fear he felt, and that she could taste running down the back of her throat.

  "I know there are answers you seek. About me. About your brother. Or the universe - I have lived such a long time. Ask, little sister, and the mysteries will be yours. I'll teach you the songs of the stars."

  Yes, but he'd sing his songs while wrapping tendrils around hers. Already his voice had changed to echo her own. Enough to make her nauseous, almost enough to make her want to relent and let it be done. Almost.

  "Truth be my sword and clarity my shield."

  "Prayer." The man looked amused. "I've heard so many. Prayers to dead gods, prayers to uncaring gods, prayers to the nonexistent, but never before to a god known to be false."

  "Purity is faith in the self and the real, not in the promises of gods."

  "And you think that will help you?"

  "So far so good," she said and laughed. Question asked and answered, and the rules applied equally. The man shoved her into the sea again, fingers pressing hard against the base of her skull, but she felt neither water nor pain. A patch of blank memory tingled as new ones flooded in; a life not her own, not like any she could have ever imagined, but so clear, so vivid, she could smell

  juniper and jasmine

  and the scents pulled from the man's mind a longer chain than she'd earned. Sights and sounds and blurring colour, senseless and splendid, and all the while the man struggled to snatch it back, his tendrils reaching and tugging at her consciousness.

  Focus damn it. Focus on -

  - on what? Oh, yes. Of course. There it was, cold and slippery like a darting fish. His fear.

  And then the memories were wrenched from her like strips of barbed wire. Couldn't stop herself from screaming, and escaping air was promptly replaced by water, by him, but she knew him a little better now. She had seen that his fears weren't so different from hers. Afraid of dying, yes, but afraid of failing even more. Terrified that the dust of Cato would be his home forevermore.

  And he could be killed. As pervasive as the lichen was, without human hosts it was immobile. And lichen might withstand the extremities of nature, but it had no defence against human interference. Pollute the air, or rain acid on the ground, and the lichen would die.

  "Enough. Far more impressive minds than yours have tried what you are doing, little sister. None of them succeeded, and you know that's no lie. This is the place of truth, and the truth is that you cannot win. All you're doing is delaying the inevitable. Although..." His eyes narrowed, amber light spilling over inky eyelashes. "Perhaps that's all that you hope for."

  She opened her mouth to rattle off a few more classifications, but choked as he shoved his hand down her throat.

  Fingers twisted inside of her, scraping flesh. Not really her body, she reminded herself, not really real at all, but that didn't help. She bit down hard, but the man didn't notice or care. His other arm serpentined around her waist, thick with unyielding muscle. His skin tasted of iron and salt, and with the bursts of taste came images. Sailing an open sea. Sailing a starry sky. Working in a lab where the walls were thick with ice. Laughing at a kitten playing with a paper clip. Snippets of thousands of lives spun all around her, and Joy knew she shouldn't, knew nothing good could come from it, but she couldn't help herself.

  Finn.

  The carousel slowed down. A few inconsequential memories rode by, and then...

  And then a girl, her copper hair done up in two clumsy braids that wouldn't last the day. Her camouflage backpack was far too big for her, chunky straps biting into her shoulders.

  Should have bought her a new one. Come on, Finn. You need to do better. Be better.

  The girl smiled and said see you later and walked through a throng of proud and chattering parents into the classroom where the other children waited, and as soon as she was gone the memory turned yellow and bitter.

  Joy wept then, for her brother who'd carried the world on his shoulders since he was a boy; who had looked at the crowd of parents and felt such a need to have his own parents back; who'd never know how happy his sister had been that she'd got to use that backpack. She'd loved it because it looked awesome and smelled like home, and because their mother had embroidered the inside with FINN (underneath that, JOY, in black marker on a sticky white label, because sewing was one skill Finn had refused to learn).

  Perhaps the entity took mercy on her, or perhaps he was finished. Either way, he let her go, let her stumble and splash her way back to the rock.

  "It's the commander you hope for. The commander whose taste is in my mouth. Cool as ice on the surface, but hot underneath. Burning for your touch; burning at your touch. Too much, I think. But little sister doesn't mind. Little sister likes it." The man grinned wide and his teeth were translucent needles. "Little sister thinks she can weather this inferno in the shape of a man. That he will burn the world, but never her."

  "Little sister thinks you should shut the hell up." Sand and rock under her fingers. Warm, coarse, perfectly unreal, but if the waters were him, then this was her. Solid and steadfast. She glanced over her shoulder at the thin stretch of rocky shore, at the tunnel leading into darkness, and wondered.

  The man laughed. "Of course you do. You hope that one kiss will have been enough to chain the commander's fate to yours. Love, I admit, is a better hope than prayer. But little sister, remember how I brought you here. Remember why you hurt so much."

  Hurt? But she felt no pain. Or... her fingers strayed to her chest. Something did throb there; an ache, deep when she exhaled, blinding when she inhaled. She looked down, and beneath her splayed fingers, her pale skin turned red and swollen. Welts of angry crimson appeared, ringed by darkening circles.

  "What happened?" she whispered, and her mind tingled as the man took and gave. A warm gush of blood. Screaming in her ears. Her reflection in Rhys's visor. A glimpse - just before the world faded - of Cassimer on the mist-swept bridge. This thing had made her into a weapon, more wounding than he could possibly know.

&n
bsp; "You're a demon, little sister, and for demons the only mercy they know is death. I know better." He held out a hand to her. Kind now, gentle. "With me, you will be safe. With me, you will be forever. With me, you will be cherished. Come; I'll take the pain away."

  The pain. Pain didn't make sense, did it? A demon should be dead. She should be dead. Bullets might fail, but there were eighty-six other reasons she should no longer be breathing. A string of nonsense that held all the power of a magic spell.

  Cassimer hadn't used her kill switch. Some time must have passed (oh please not another hundred years; not another century torn from me) and still he hadn't used it. There could only be one reason for that.

  "Oh Rhys," she whispered. "You bastard."

  He'd promised to protect the commander. If he had gone back on his word, if he had told Cassimer... then the commander would need her. Her, and everything she could get from the leering snake-faced thief standing in the water.

  "Tell me," she said. "How many of you are there?"

  50. Cassimer

  In the first light of morning, Nexus could be mistaken for a real town. Metal shutters rumbled open, releasing new scents into the alleys; bread fresh from the oven, fumes from engines sputtering to life. The rose haze of sunrise filtered through the force field, momentarily splashing Cato with colour.

  From his position, Cassimer could glimpse only a sliver of sky between the iron bars of a small window. A sliver of sunrise, a sliver of hope, a sliver of a chance. He could work with that.

  He checked in with the team. Status normal; undetected, in position and awaiting the signal. Good. Not so good that Florey's report came in late. Not by much, but enough that Cassimer couldn't mistake the gunner's silence for anything but the defiance it was.

  Or maybe not defiance. Maybe worse than that. Disappointment.

  And then he finally heard voices outside the door. A key rasped in the lock and turned with a click. Cassimer eased himself into position. The scan of a hand-drawn map was still on his HUD. He blinked it away before it became a distraction. Before he had time to think about the soft hands that had drawn it, and the girl who'd asked him so very politely to please not hurt her friend.