Radiate

by C. A. Higgins

  “He has a bad leg and limited fight experience, sir,” Danu confirmed.

  “Good,” Arawn said. “When I leave, keep Morrigu and Manawydan downstairs. They don’t need to hear Leon’s babbling.”

  Ivan’s mother’s name for him. Arawn was a blunter weapon than he took himself to be.

  “I’ve been wondering,” Arawn said, and most of his seeming geniality had faded, but he brought back the shadows of it to grin at Ivan, “exactly what Constance cared for about you.”

  “My good looks,” said Ivan flatly.

  “Your mother had steel in her. Your father was the leader of the first revolution. I thought when I met you I’d see that sort of genius looking out of your eyes. But you’re nothing but a cowardly Terran who’s all talk. I don’t see a damn thing in you that the Mallt-y-Nos could have ever admired.”

  “If it matters so much to you, you should have asked her,” Ivan said.

  Arawn tilted his jaw like a bull lining up a charge. “Mattie kept asking about her,” he said. “But you haven’t said a word.”

  “You said it yourself. She’s gone.”

  “She’s not dead yet. I sent her off with Anji, but the ship hasn’t reached Titan. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “It clearly doesn’t bother you.”

  The computer chose that moment to pierce the air with a shriek that descended like a chime. Ivan started. A break and then the sound repeated—

  Arawn hit the communications. “Halley.”

  The transmission was fuzzed with faint static. It must have come from orbit. “We’ve detected a ship just outside of the Jovian system. Unusual shape, but it appears to be System.”

  “Is there anyone else with it?”

  “No, it’s alone.”

  “What’s its course?”

  “Headed straight for Europa. At its current speed, it’ll be here in a few hours.”

  Arawn looked at Ivan. “Arm the ships in orbit. Spread out to net her. If the ship gets too close to Europa, destroy it.”

  “Should we pursue it?”

  “Not yet,” Arawn said, and disconnected the communication. “Every possible advantage,” he reminded Ivan.

  “Leave her alone,” Ivan said.

  “Let a System ship pass us by?” Arawn laughed and rose from the stool. “Not as long as I live. Fix this machine the way you said you could, and you and your friend will survive this.”

  “Why me?” Ivan asked, and stopped Arawn before he could go down the mesh steps and leave. “If you flew with Constance and her crew, then you know that Mattie’s better at machine manipulation than I am. He could have this done faster than I ever could.”

  Arawn shrugged. “We have the time.”

  “Not much of it.”

  “Have you ever seen a beaten dog, Ivanov? The thing about dogs is that after they’ve been beaten, they go one of two ways. Either they become feral and aggressive, trying to be the one who bites first this time, or they become passive. Limp.”

  The lights of the computer blinked steadily on and off.

  “And here I had the good fortune—or the bad fortune—of finding two of Constance Harper’s hounds,” Arawn said. “Her oldest and most loyal hounds, in fact. But what am I to do with them?”

  “Let them go on their way?” said Ivan. “They’re not your dogs.”

  “If I were to let your friend Mattie have free access to my computer like you do, he’d find some way to hurt me just because he wants to strike first. But you? You’ll do as you’re told.”

  Danu was still watching in silence, no break in the hard shell of her expression. Ivan said nothing, because there was nothing to be said.

  “So get to work,” Arawn said.

  FORWARD

  If only these people would stop watching him, Mattie was sure he could get out of the handcuffs.

  The map of Europa on the table was in real time. It showed the conic section of light from Europa’s movement relative to the sun, and Mattie watched that light move slowly over the surface of the table as outside, unseen, it moved over the surface of Europa, creeping closer and closer to the Conamara Chaos where Mattie now was.

  The slow track of the sun marked the slow course of Constance to her own execution. Mattie sat and watched the sun and flexed his hands against his bonds and thought how he would break free the moment he was able, and damn the risks.

  Arawn came in before Mattie could find a way out. He saw Mattie and smiled.

  Knowing that he was being baited somehow didn’t make it any easier not to react. Mattie glared.

  Arawn did not arrive alone. Tuatha was following him, along with a few other of Arawn’s people, none of whom Mattie recognized. She was saying, “—at the edge of the sensors. It is a ship, a huge one.”

  “My people will take care of the System ship,” Arawn said in a friendly, reassuring sort of tone that reassured no one and made no friends.

  “If it’s the spiral ship—”

  “If it is,” said Arawn, “or if it isn’t, my people will take care of it.”

  Tuatha’s shoulders dropped. “Yes,” she said, “…sir.” She took her directed place at the table and did not look Mattie’s way.

  Arawn seated himself right beside Mattie. This close to him, Mattie could smell him: his human scent, the leather and damp wool of his garb, the crisper smell of ice brought from inside. He was a tangible and physical thing yet still too far away for Mattie to attack.

  Mattie twisted his wrists in the bracelets while the rest of the room’s occupants filtered in.

  The men Arawn had brought—and Tuatha and Mattie—filled up only half of the table. Seated above Europa’s north pole, Arawn turned and said something quietly to the man on his other side, someone on Mattie’s right whispered to his neighbor, and Tuatha stared at and through the holographic surface of Europa. Her cap was gone from her head.

  If Mattie broke free now—he could do it; one quick slam of his thumb against the rest of the chair, and then he would have one hand free; no, he’d have to dislocate both thumbs and get both hands free at once. If he did that, it would be him against twelve others—eleven if Tuatha took his side.

  He doubted that Tuatha would take his side.

  From down the hall beyond the opened vault door, Mattie heard voices, footsteps, as more people came toward the map room.

  Two bad hands and no weapons. Bad odds, but they would get worse if any more people came in.

  Maybe he could get Arawn’s gun, Mattie thought. If he could lift Arawn’s gun and shoot, he might be able to take Arawn out before being taken down himself. But then Ivan would be alone, and who knew who would take power after the warlord’s death?

  But the longer Mattie waited to move, the farther Constance got and the closer came Ananke.

  The footsteps reached the door and rounded, and Mattie’s plans stalled. He knew the man standing in the doorway. Tall, dreadlocked, his square jaw set. He had worked with Ivan and Mattie once upon a time and in better days. He had been the captain of the Badh, left behind in battle with a System fleet, sure to die.

  “Welcome to Europa, Vithar,” Arawn said.

  Vithar recovered from his surprise more quickly than Mattie. “Arawn Halley. It’s an honor to meet you.”

  “Just Arawn,” said Arawn, and grinned at Vithar through his beard. “Sit down. How is Anji?”

  “She sends her regards.”

  Vithar had known Constance. Was Anji trying to get him out of the way so that when she executed Constance, he wouldn’t be there to protest?

  Or had Anji known that Mattie and Ivan were there somehow and had sent Vithar to help?

  Even if Anji somehow had known Mattie and Ivan were there in time to send Vithar—impossible; not even Arawn had known of their presence until an hour ago—there was no guarantee Vithar would be their friend. Mattie twisted his wrists in the cuffs.

  “Has she received my gift?” Arawn asked.

  “Still in transport,” Vithar said. “We�
��re being very careful with her.”

  Mattie realized who the gift was, and a rage swelled up into him so suddenly powerful that he was certain if he jerked his arms, he would snap the cuffs from the force of his anger alone. That was it: he was going to break out, he was going to get Arawn’s gun—or Arawn’s knife—or his maimed hands around Arawn’s neck—

  “I hoped to speak with you alone,” Vithar said, and Mattie stilled, the joint of one thumb braced on the metal of the armrest.

  Arawn said, “Don’t you trust my friends?”

  “Anji told me to pass my messages on to you and you alone.”

  Mattie could see Arawn debating whether to be offended by this. But he must have needed Anji’s alliance, because he said, “The rest of you, out.”

  Mattie, chained down, gave him a sour look; Arawn caught it and smiled grimly.

  “You can stay,” he said to Mattie while the rest of his people rose obediently. “This is one-half of another gift I’m thinking about sending to Anji,” he added, raising his voice so that Vithar could hear over the din of people moving. “The foster brother of the Mallt-y-Nos. The other half is her old lover. How would Anji like that?”

  Vithar met Mattie’s gaze at last. Mattie looked for some sign of alliance, some recognition of their past association.

  Vithar turned away, dismissing Mattie as if he were nothing more than the dead parts of some machine, to be used and then discarded. He said, “I think Anji would like that very much.”

  FORWARD

  Ivan had done this so many times by now that he finished his work on Arawn’s shuttle within the hour.

  He didn’t let Danu know, of course. Information was a power that people never appreciated enough.

  “Did you ever,” he asked her as he sat down on the grated floor, bad leg stretched out, and unlocked the hatch that led down to the machinery below, “follow the Mallt-y-Nos?”

  “I follow Arawn.”

  The metal-mesh hatch opened and fell with a rattling crash. The sound of it almost covered up Ivan’s laugh.

  “So she can go to hell, right?” He flashed a bright smile back at Danu. She looked at him, her face cold stone, her hand resting gently over where her gun jutted up from her waistband. And looking at her, she looking at him, Ivan knew, like the first light of a far-off explosion that arrived before the rumble and shock of the sound wave, that once he was done with Arawn’s shuttle, Danu would kill him.

  Ivan turned back to the hatch in the floor before she could see the knowledge written on his face. “I guess it makes sense,” he said, and reached for the toolbox beneath the computer terminal. He caught the metal box with the pads of his fingers and pulled it in. “You’ve known Arawn for six years. You knew Constance for what, a few months?”

  The contents of the toolbox rattled so loudly that Ivan might not have been able to hear Danu’s response had she made one.

  Screws. Washers. Nails. His hands hidden by the toolbox, Ivan pressed his fingertip to the end of one nail and found it dull.

  “How much longer are you going to take?” Danu asked from somewhere behind and above him.

  Wire strippers, screwdriver, wrench. Whoever had put together this toolbox had done so without any understanding of what Ivan might need if he really intended to do serious alterations to the ship’s hardware. It wasn’t even internally consistent; there were nails—useless—but no hammer.

  “Not much longer.” Ivan pulled out a pair of wire cutters, the tiny blades shining in the twinkling starlight of the computer. He shifted himself carefully to his side, moving slowly as if his leg were paining him. On his side, he could reach down through the open hatch into the mass of wires beneath.

  Danu said, “The spiral ship is in the Jovian system by now. This shuttle needs to be spaceworthy.”

  “If Ananke’s in the Jovian system, then she’s in communication range.” Ivan’s fingers slid around a wire with a pale gray coating, like corpse skin. He followed the course of it as it wound through the bundles on the floor. “Have you tried talking to her?”

  “Talking to a System ship?”

  The gray wire once had been the optics for the System news broadcast screen; that was no longer functional, and so the wire was extraneous. Ivan clipped it at either end and pulled several feet of it out of the hatch, coiling it beside him on the floor. He dropped the tiny wire cutters back into the box and lifted the screwdriver, studying its sharp tip.

  “Ivanov.”

  The last name again. “Sorry,” Ivan said, and dropped the screwdriver back into the box. “Turns out I can’t work and talk at the same time.”

  The wrench fit into his palm and hefted with a satisfying weight.

  He knew by this point that he wouldn’t be able to get a rise out of her, but it didn’t matter. He rose to his feet and crossed the room to the main computer terminal. “Actually, you have bigger worries than how long it will be until this ship can get into orbit.” A moment’s work got him into the shuttle’s alarm system. “If Ananke’s in communication range, that means she’s in range to start taking over the computers of all your ships.”

  “Which is more reason you need to be done soon,” Danu said.

  It would be a simple matter to set up a timer. For a moment Ivan stood unmoving, the wrench weighing down his hand.

  He started the timer.

  “I’m curious.” Ivan left the computer, keeping a slow, careful count in his head as he walked over to where Danu stood just beside the metal-mesh steps. He limped more heavily than before, as if exhaustion had worn him down. “Do you feel fulfilled, following Arawn?”

  Five, four…

  He stood right in front of her. Her brows had drawn down in annoyance and incomprehension. He had surprised her. She opened her mouth to speak—

  The shuttle’s alarm blared like the sound of an explosion that had finally hit. It broke Danu’s strict attention for a moment, just a moment, her head snapping up to seek this greater danger.

  Ivan nailed her with the wrench.

  It struck her hard in the temple, and she fell, limbs jerking spasmodically in an instinctive defensive reaction. She hit the mesh steps and fell down them to land heavily on the floor; it was not a long fall but hard enough that she went still. The edge of the wrench had torn the skin by her brow, and the bright rapid blood of a head wound was already spilling down her cheek. Ivan hoped he hadn’t killed her.

  The alarm shut off, as it was intended to, and Ivan dropped the wrench to grab the wire he had cut. He landed beside Danu with only the slightest reluctant twinge of his bad leg and hauled her upright. She groaned but did not wake.

  He tossed her gun and both knives up onto the platform. While she slumped, head dangling, Ivan tied her hands together around the bar of the stair’s railing tightly enough that she wouldn’t be able to work free. When he was done, he checked her sleeves and pulled another knife from a sheath strapped to her right arm.

  Then he left her there, bleeding and immobilized but for the most part alive. Ivan did not take her gun and go for the door. There were at least two more guards down below and beyond that an entire army’s worth of enemies, with Mattie a captive somewhere in the middle.

  Instead, he went for the computer.

  The sensors on the shuttle were weak, as shipboard systems went; the shuttle wasn’t designed for open space but for transport between spacecraft or from spacecraft to planet. But they were sensitive enough to show Ivan what he wanted to see: Arawn’s fleet up in orbit, spread out like a net over the stars.

  And past them, drifting vast and alone through space, was another ship. Ivan turned his scans on that ship. Mass-based gravitation, the scans told him; impossibly dense. And she was radiating in all wavelengths: radio, infrared, microwave, visible. All those wavelengths were broadcast in desperate and defiant display like a searchlight, like a sun.

  For a moment, Ivan just looked at that ship, a point of light drifting fuzzily across the main screen. She might pass by if he did
not summon her. She might fly off, blazing light, and never trouble Europa.

  No. He knew it, and he could see it on the screen in front of him. The starship Ananke was headed right for Europa. No matter what he did, she would reach Europa on her own, where Arawn’s fleet was waiting.

  He reached for the communications equipment and aimed his message right at that blazing ship. He was calm still, the same sort of calm he had felt on his mother’s rooftop on Terra while he was bleeding out, on the Ananke when Domitian had been about to shoot him at last.

  “Ananke and Althea,” he said into the microphone, and knew his words were rippling across space as fast as anything could travel, heading directly for that lonely ship. “It’s Ivan. You’ve found me.”

  FORWARD

  The only thing stopping Mattie from breaking out of his cuffs was Arawn’s nearness. If he dislocated his thumb, the pop of the shifting joint would draw Arawn’s attention for sure.

  He braced his right hand—the hand farther from Arawn—against the hard metal of the chair and waited for his opportunity.

  Arawn said, “Has Anji thought about the rest of the territories to divide up?”

  “The rest of the territories?” Vithar asked.

  “Of course, Anji will have Saturn, and I will have Jupiter. We can divide the rest of the planets easily enough.”

  Vithar shifted in his chair, his hands coming off the edge of the table, where they had entwined with the holographic hills of Europa’s ice to rest out of sight in his lap. “For the moment, Anji is content with Saturn.”

  Vithar might not have seen the contempt in Arawn’s eyes. Mattie saw it because he was watching him so carefully, waiting for the moment he was distracted enough for him to make his move.

  Arawn said, “Then Anji won’t mind if I act in my own best interests—all of our best interests, since I’ll be wiping the System out.”

  “Of course not. Is this room soundproof?”

  “Yes,” Arawn said, annoyed. “Don’t worry, Vithar. Our conversation is completely private.”

  “Good.”

  “About Venus—” Arawn began, and suddenly the hologram flickered.

  The map of Europa vanished into a haze of static like a storm of electronic snow covering the moon. The static surged, seemed to coalesce, as if it were struggling to form some shape—