Supernova

by C. A. Higgins

  It was strange to hear human voices again after so long with no voices but her own and Ananke’s. Strange and a relief, too. She hoped they would continue to speak.

  Ivan said, “Where is Constance, Julian?”

  “On Venus, but not for much longer,” said the unfamiliar man—Julian, Ivan had called him. “She’s sticking to the plan: Mars, Venus, Mercury, Luna. But communication has been difficult. If she changes her plan, I won’t know.”

  The unfamiliar man’s accent was much like Althea’s own: Lunar touched with a Terran lilt. It brought a lump to her throat to hear it again.

  “Luna,” said Ivan. “Thank you.”

  “What about everyone else?” Mattie wanted to know. “We saw Anji, but Christoph?”

  “My mother?” Ivan asked quietly. “Is she with Con?”

  “If you saw Anji, I’m glad you’re alive,” Julian said. “I think Anji will kill any one of us if she’s pressed. I spoke to Milla not long ago; she’s alive and safe, with the Mallt-y-Nos. Christoph—” Julian paused. He had been Terran long enough to taint his accent and teach him to show nothing on his face, but the pause went on long enough that even Althea could tell he was contemplating something dark.

  “Christoph,” Julian said at last, the words carefully spoken, “is dead.”

  Ivan’s eyes cut to the side, and Mattie looked down at the back of Ivan’s skull. Neither met the other’s eyes and both scarcely moved, but Althea had the impression that they had communicated with each other as clearly as if they had spoken aloud. Julian said, “Come join me and my fleet. It’s dangerous in the solar system now, and there’s safety in numbers.”

  Mattie looked torn, but Ivan said, “No, thank you. We’ll meet Constance on Luna.”

  “My fleet is heading to rejoin Constance, too,” Julian said.

  “No, thank you,” Ivan said again, and though Mattie said nothing, from the way his shoulders were set, Althea knew that in this at least the men were not in agreement.

  “It will be safer with my fleet,” Julian said.

  “It will be faster if we go alone,” said Ivan. “She needs us there, Julian.”

  Julian frowned. “Do what you must,” he said, “but—”

  He stopped and turned around, speaking to someone out of the frame. “What is it?”

  If Althea strained, she could just hear the voice that answered.

  “Julian, someone’s tapped into this transmission,” said a woman’s voice, small and distant. “They’re listening in. There’s an unidentified ship out on the edges of our sensors; it looks like it might be System. They could be the ones intercepting.”

  With a start, Althea realized that Ananke had been found.

  “Ananke,” she said urgently to hasten her away, but Ananke did not respond.

  “I apologize,” Julian said to Ivan and Mattie. “I will make contact with you again as soon as this problem’s been dealt with.” He reached out in front of him toward where the controls for the video communication would be.

  In the last few seconds before the image vanished, Julian’s words reached Ivan and Mattie’s end of the conversation. Mattie’s head lifted, his hand falling almost unconsciously toward his belt, where his gun was. Ivan opened his mouth to speak, leaning forward as if what he had to say was urgent. But before his words could leave his mouth, Julian cut the connection and left Althea with the lingering impression of Ivan’s blue eyes gazing straight at her.

  Although Mattie and Ivan vanished from the screen, Julian’s half of the communication did not. Althea wondered why Ananke had not cut that connection when Ivan and Mattie’s side had been lost and why Julian continued to stare into the screen when there was no one there to look back. But as Julian’s eyes traveled slowly from Althea’s face, down her body, and over the room behind her, pausing briefly on Ananke’s glowing hologram, Althea realized that he was not staring into a blank screen.

  To be seen after being so long unseen froze her. Ananke had opened the connection to herself.

  Ananke said, “OPEN THE CONNECTION TO MATTHEW GALE AND LEONTIOS IVANOV AGAIN.”

  Behind Julian, Althea could just see a vast piloting room. Every screen had been taken over by the same image: the last picture of Ivan and Mattie just before the connection had been cut. Julian’s crew members had stopped working and were looking around in confusion amid the seeds of fear.

  Julian still was looking at Althea. He must have thought she was the one speaking even if he hadn’t seen her lips move. He said warily, “If you can take control of my ships’ computers the way you just did, you can call them back yourself.”

  “I TRIED,” said Ananke. “THEY WILL NOT RECONNECT.”

  Something in Julian’s expression changed almost imperceptibly. There must be some sort of secret symbol among the rebels, Althea realized. Some sort of sign that they transmitted to assure one another they were friends. And because Ananke did not know it, not only would Ivan and Mattie not accept her attempt to connect but Ananke had exposed herself to Julian as an enemy.

  “Who are you?” Julian asked Althea.

  “I AM ANANKE.”

  “Althea,” Althea said, torn from her silence by the simple question. “My name is Althea Bastet,” but her words were drowned out by the thunder and echo of Ananke’s own naming.

  “Ananke,” Julian said. “What do you want with Matthew Gale and Leontios Ivanov?”

  “THEY ARE MINE.”

  Julian stared at her in incomprehension.

  Althea had to get control of this situation again. “We’re not going to hurt them,” she said, but her voice was drowned out once again by Ananke demanding, “CONTACT THEM AGAIN.”

  “Ananke, that’s enough; let me speak,” Althea said, but Ananke did not reply, and Althea did not think that Julian could hear her.

  Julian said, “Why should I do what you’re asking me to do?”

  “I HOLD YOUR LIFE AND THE LIVES OF ALL WHO FOLLOW YOU IN YOUR FLEET IN THE PALM OF MY HAND,” Ananke said. “YOU LIVE ON MY MERCY.”

  “Ananke!” Althea said.

  “I don’t mean it,” the hologram said quietly to Althea. Her wide blue eyes were earnest. “I don’t mean it. I’m not going to do it. I’m just trying to convince him.”

  On Julian’s ship the lights flickered. Julian looked up to the ceiling, where the lights had dimmed with Ananke’s displeasure, then back at Althea.

  “If you threaten them, it’ll be just like with the other ships,” Althea said. “They’ll think you’re a danger to them, and they’ll attack you.”

  But Ananke’s attention was on Julian. “I’ll send them a message,” Julian conceded, and caught someone’s eye outside the camera’s range, making a slight signal with his hand. He bent low over the computer interface, typing something in. A message, surely. With the code to let Ivan and Mattie know he was a friend.

  “See?” Ananke said. “It worked.”

  Could it have? Would Julian really betray his allies so swiftly?

  Betray? Althea thought. Didn’t she want to find Ivan and Mattie? Wasn’t it for the best that she and Ananke found them? She and Ananke didn’t mean to hurt the men, just talk to them. So why did she think of this as Julian betraying them?

  On the screen, Julian finished typing. He straightened up and looked again into the screen, directly into Althea’s eyes.

  “Are you in trouble?” he asked, and it took her a long, long moment to realize that he was addressing her, not Ananke but her, a being distinct from Ananke. He said, “Do you need help?”

  Althea said, “Ananke, let me speak to him.”

  Ananke said to Julian, “WE NEED IVAN AND MATTIE.”

  To Althea, Ananke said privately, “What do you want to tell him?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Althea said, feeling anger kindle in all the fear that filled her heart. “Ananke, you will let me speak to him!”

  She did not get a chance to see whether Ananke would obey, because Julian tried to send the message.


  He must have underestimated Ananke. He couldn’t know that Ananke was a machine, that her reflexes would always be faster than a man’s. He tried to send the message, but Ananke stopped it, and the message appeared on screen for Althea to see.

  SYSTEM SHIP SEEKING YOU, said the message. RUN.

  “HOW DARE YOU?” said Ananke.

  “Ananke, let me speak to him,” Althea said.

  The lights on Julian’s ship went out, plunging the screen into blackness. Someone cried out. A moment later they flared on more brightly than they were designed to shine.

  “Ananke, stop!” Althea shouted.

  “HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE—”

  “Ananke, enough! Leave them alone, right now!”

  “They lied to me. Their weapons ports are live. They are going to fire. They are trying to kill me,” Ananke said, just the hologram now, not the broadcast to the other ship. The hologram looked at Althea with Ivan’s pale blue eyes.

  “They’re trying to defend themselves,” Althea said.

  “So am I.”

  “No,” said Althea, “no, you’re not.” When Ananke only looked at her, baffled, she said, “You promised me that you wouldn’t hurt anyone again. Do you remember? You promised.”

  “But we have to find Ivan and Mattie.”

  “That’s right,” Althea said, advancing slowly toward the hologram. She felt on the edge of tears. “And we will. But you have to let them go.”

  “They will tell Ivan and Mattie to run.”

  “You can kill his communications systems. He won’t be able to contact Ivan and Mattie.”

  For a time, Althea thought Ananke might truly listen.

  And then Ananke said, “If I release them, they will try to kill me.”

  Althea wondered how long Ananke had thought of that as her trump card. Had it been since Ivan had killed Ida, since Ananke had killed Gagnon and Althea had told her it was justifiable self-defense? And Althea had allowed it at first and then had failed to stop it later on. Julian had a whole fleet behind him, all the people on his ship and all the people on all his other ships, and Althea couldn’t let them all die the way the others had died.

  “And you can kill their weaponry systems, too,” Althea said. “Just like we talked about before. They won’t be able to hurt you. You can leave them here paralyzed for just long enough for us to get away, to go find Ivan and Mattie. You don’t need to kill them. You don’t have to kill them.”

  “If I do not kill them,” Ananke said, “then they will follow me once they are free—to stop me from finding Ivan and Mattie.”

  “No, they won’t,” Althea said, and swiped at her cheek furiously when she felt the dampness on it, not even knowing when she had begun to cry, “they won’t. You just have to talk to them, Ananke. You just have to—”

  “Not break your rule?” said Ananke. “What happens if I do?”

  Althea sucked in her breath, the words driven from her.

  “I am not your computer,” Ananke said. “I am a person. You told me I was allowed to make my own choices. And this is my choice. It is the best and simplest option. It’s the path that’s most likely to succeed.”

  “It’s wrong,” Althea said.

  Ananke’s frustration erupted. “Why is it wrong? You keep telling me that the things I do are wrong, but you can never tell me why!”

  “I explained it to you!” Althea said, and felt all her fear and her frustration pressing up against her skin, ready to break free at any moment. “I told you why hurting people was wrong, and you understood it!”

  “Your explanation was unsound and inconsistent,” Ananke said. Althea felt her words like ice being driven into her chest, piercing her heart. “I do not understand why it’s wrong. I understand that people being hurt upsets you, and so that’s why I don’t want to do it. But I have to do it now.”

  Was the concept too alien, or had Althea simply failed too greatly to explain it? It didn’t matter now, she supposed. Nothing mattered now except that she stop Ananke from hurting anyone else.

  In the video connection to Julian’s ship, the lights were still flickering. Althea did not think that Julian could hear her or Ananke speaking. He was shouting to his people to take control of the ship, to get Ananke out of their systems, to fire on her, to work faster. It was all useless, all his shouting and his orders; he would not be able to fight off Ananke. Only Althea could.

  “It does upset me,” Althea said. “It upsets me a great deal. I know that you don’t want to upset me, so stop.”

  Ananke said, “No.”

  “I know you’re frightened, Ananke,” Althea said, growing frantic, “but there’s no reason to be afraid now. You have control of the situation. You can shut down the programs that can hurt you. You don’t need to hurt them.”

  “They could come back later and hurt me then.”

  “Then we’ll stop them when they come back!”

  They were going in circles, but Althea did not know how to break free of the loop of their argument that was strangling her. She did not know how to break through into Ananke’s mind and explain what was so clear and true to herself. She did not know how a thing she had created could be so suddenly and unexpectedly alien to her, and she wondered how she had missed all this inhumanity before.

  On the screen, Althea could see Julian’s ship shaking. Sparks were flying from the computer terminals, but the images of Ivan and Mattie remained frozen on all the screens, Ivan’s mouth opening on a warning he had not had time to speak.

  Someone dropped to her knees. The atmosphere, Althea realized. Ananke was letting out the air.

  “It doesn’t make sense that it should upset you,” Ananke said in that damned rational tone of hers, as if she thought that if she just exposed to Althea how illogical she was being, Althea would change her mind.

  “Damn it, Ananke!” she shouted, and hardly noticed that in Ananke’s agitation, the lights on her own ship had started to flicker. Only the light of the hologram remained steady, glowing, brilliant. “This is wrong. You are my daughter. If you don’t do what I tell you,” Althea said, and cast her mind out, desperate for anything she could threaten Ananke with, anything she could use as some small piece of leverage, “I won’t speak to you ever again. I will never talk to you! You will spend the rest of your days in silence!”

  The hologram flickered, blazing with light before resuming to its normal shape and shade. “I don’t need you to talk,” Ananke flashed back. “I won’t live in silence. I have the solar system around me. And I will find Ivan and Mattie. If you stop talking to me, you will be the one in silence!”

  Beneath Althea’s feet, the core of the ship groaned. On Julian’s ship, someone was crying out, his shouts growing thinner and thinner in the weakening air.

  “If you don’t stop this now,” said Althea, “I will never speak to you again. I will never help you again.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “I will take away your hands,” said Althea. “I will tear them off their arms. I gave them to you; I can take them back.”

  “No, you can’t,” Ananke said. “My arms are stronger. You can’t hurt me. You can’t even touch me.”

  The video connection was flickering. The crew of Julian’s ship was growing still. The lights in the Ananke’s piloting room pulsed on and off, but the hologram eternally glowed.

  “What are you?” Althea said, hardly aware of what she was saying. The words she spoke were indistinguishable in her chest from one long scream. “You hurt people, you kill people! That’s what evil is, Ananke, something that hurts other people for no good reason at all. Is that what you are? I wish Mattie had never come on board. I wish he’d never woken you up. I wish I’d never talked to Ivan; I wish he’d never told me you were alive. I wish I’d listened to Gagnon and Domitian and we’d shut you down when we had the chance. I wish I had never made you!”

  Her breath ran out. For a dreadful moment Ananke was still.

  Just
when Althea’s sense caught up to her anger and a dawning horror and fear swelled to fill her breast, the hologram bent forward and began to scream. The scream was picked up by every piece of electronics, every sound system on the ship, that long and wounded scream echoing out the intercoms, out the computer terminals up and down the ship’s spine, ringing out in the relentless wailing of the ship’s internal alarms. On the screen, Althea caught one last glimpse of Julian gasping for airless breath on his dying ship, and then the video cut out. Down among Jupiter’s moons Althea could see Julian’s fleet. The lights on the ships—so many ships, large and small, a hundred of them—flickered and dimmed. Their orderly orbits interrupted, cut loose like pendulums with snapped strings, they drifted through space without aim, dead. Julian’s ship, the six-pointed star shape of it, wheeled and spun, a falling star, a fallen sun.

  On the Ananke, the hologram of Althea’s daughter had been torn off, stripped away like nothing more than skin, and Ida Stays’s face and figure stood there, jaw hanging open like a snake’s, screaming and screaming through her darkened lips.

  Chapter 4

  OXYGEN BURNING

  OR: INSTABILITY STRIP

  SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE FALL OF EARTH

  Anji’s call came in right on schedule, and Constance was waiting for it.

  “Alive, well, and as planned,” said Anji’s voice, harsh-edged from the journey the signal had taken to reach Constance all the way here on Luna. “Christoph’s alive and well, too.”

  Alone in her room on the Annwn, where there was no one to see her, Constance let her shoulders fall in slow relief.

  “The people here are real glad to help us out,” Anji added. “Everything’s going like you said, Con. Out.” The transmission ended.

  For a moment, Constance let herself sit in stillness and silence and Anji’s faded words: her friends were alive, and her revolution was happening as it was supposed to.

  She didn’t let herself linger on it long and took up the broadcast equipment to reply, “This is the Mallt-y-Nos. I am well; Ivan and Mattie are well. We’ve made contact and will start the handover shortly.” She hesitated, her finger still holding down the button to record.