The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  “Then why doesn't he use it, or claim it for leverage?”

  “Because his fight is not with you. His fight is with me. Your State is collateral. He does not truly want the weapon. He wants to keep you at bay, until we can resolve our game.”

  “And yet, here you are. A prisoner. I could end your game right here.”

  “You would lose everything. You need me far more than I need you.”

  “You're the one in chains.” Raschel noted. He pointed with his cigarette.

  “Chief, I could leave whenever I wanted.” Berenson said. Like a magician, but without flourish, he slipped his chains. Free, he stood, and bowed.

  Raschel jumped back. The chair hit the ground. His hand was on his pistol-

  Berenson did not aggress. He smiled, and said, “Now, the information I gave you is real. Use it to hurt him. Check my story. I will be waiting.” He sat back down.

  Raschel let his hand fall to his side. Let his coat fall back into place. He tried to regain some control, close the conversation on his terms. He said, “We aren't done here. Enjoy your stay.”

  He turned, with practiced calm, to the door. He buzzed out, passed the iris. When he strode past the soldiers, they never saw sudden unease that gripped him. They stepped aside, fell back from his glare. They never knew his mind was spinning, or that his bluster was a front. They didn’t know what his gut screamed: a game afoot, and he was two cards shy.

  At the exit, he flicked his his expended cigarette into the wastebin, directly below the 'No Smoking' sign. He didn’t light another, no matter how strongly he craved it. There were too many eyes on him here. He caught the eye of the duty officer, saw the man struggle to find the courage to ask a question. He snuffed that dangerous compulsion with a glare.

  It was a small victory, but it was something. It was the little things that got him through.

  #

  Raschel’s footsteps beat out a snaredrum rhythm. The report was sharp. Precise. He’d worked on the ‘clap’ for a long time. The right balance was important: one part martial severity, one part reserved grace. Do it right, and people stepped aside without asking why. It was a useful tool.

  It made this long walk bearable.

  One step followed another. The click-clack rhythm echoed through the Citadel halls. The acoustics were wonderful. The arched ceilings seemed to welcome this exact cadence. Like they’d been built for it.

  He passed the scattered clusters of civil servants. He flowed through the gaggles of bureaucrats. They heard him coming, the sound of gunshot footsteps on hard tile, and they stepped aside.

  It wasn’t just his stride, though. There was more to it. He’d sculpted every millimeter of his countenance towards. He squared his shoulders. He fixed his jaw. He locked his eyes on the middle distance. He pulled his tablet under his arm, cradled it like a spear. He marched.

  He marched from the frescoed tunnels of the monorail station. He marched under buttressed arches. He marched through statuaries, gardens, and echoing corridors, and he never broke his stride. Some might have mistaken the force behind his step to be anger. It wasn’t. It wasn’t fear, either, although that was closer.

  What drove him, unerring and unswerving, through the halls of power was anticipation. A drop of dread. A hand of aces over eights. A repeated mantra that ‘it was just speculation’. All of it, compounded, regulated, and he strode into the heart of the Citadel. Answers lay ahead. Answers he refused to fear, even as the nagging little voice quietly wished that the long march might take longer.

  He buried that mental worm. He shoved it down, with a fury, and then turned that fear into focus, pouring his thoughts through a mental crucible, a framework constructed for just one purpose: to sublimate the self to the State. This was his job. If he did it well, there was nothing to fear.

  The crowd gave him wider berth.

  His door arrived. A puff of air wafted over him. An electric eye whirred. With a click, the lacquered wood slipped aside.

  The secretary glanced up from her station. She said, “He’s waiting for you.”

  Another door, and he arrived.

  The Director’s office was cold, no matter the season. The spartan aesthetics didn’t help. Most of the office was empty. Two chairs on the eastern window-wall. A bookcase on the north, just behind a simple desk. A flag to the south. Nothing at all to the west. It was an office, in a dim blue freezer. The only color came from the east. The first hints of light, from beyond the horizon. This slit of orange pierced the room, drew Raschel’s eyes towards the desk, and the man who sat behind it.

  Director Niklaus Draco waited. He sat behind his broad desk, eyes buried in the glow of a tablet. The Director was flanked by the flags of office and State, his gloved hands clasped tightly about the tablet. He did not react, not instantly, to the intrusion into his sanctum, but took time to finish his work. For a long while, there was only the quiet hum of the cycler, as the edge of dawn crept over the monastery.

  Raschel didn’t object. He waited, hands clasped behind his back, feet shoulder width apart, in dutiful silence. Of all the great men in the world, this was the one that Raschel feared. Feared, and respected. The Director was more than just a man. Niklaus Draco was an institution. He was the Agency.

  In due time, the Director set down his tablet. He leaned back, and placed his gloved hands onto the table. Raschel saw the bulges, just above the man’s fingers. He heard the click-whir of the servomotors. Heard the ‘clack’ when the Director’s fingers touched. He’d never seen the man’s hands, but he knew the story.

  The Faction had tried to kill Draco, once. They’d dosed him with neurotoxin, enough to kill a horse. It was a medical miracle the man had survived. It was sheer will that put him back in the field. The Director was a legend. He’d refused to stay bedridden. He’d taken surgeries in stride - heavy cybernetics, to replace atrophied muscles and burnt nerves. The frame wrapped around his digits, the wires bound into this flesh. Every time he moved his hands, there was a reminder - in clicks, whirs, and clatter - of what he’d lost.

  Of course, it wasn’t all bad. The Director had confided to Raschel, just once, that he’d grown to like the way people squirmed, when he flexed his fingers. It was a simple trick, but it worked. Even Raschel, who knew what was coming, had to suppress a wince when he heard that bones-on-metal snick of the gloves.

  Draco finally spoke, his voice smooth and measured. He said, “Good morning, Michael.”

  “Good morning, sir.” Raschel said.

  “Go ahead and remain standing. I won't insult you with a chair.” The Director offered his own unique courtesy.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You have something for me?” The question was a mere pleasantry. The Director knew Raschel well enough to know he wouldn’t be here without absolute need. That was why he’d put him in charge of his black book operations. He knew, Raschel knew he knew, and he knew Raschel knew he knew. He still asked, out of respect to ritual.

  “Yes, sir.” Raschel answered. He paused, and then said, “Durandal.” He watched, carefully, to see if Berenson's magic phrase would provoke any reaction from the Director.

  “Durandal?” Draco asked, nonplussed. Raschel suppressed a sigh. Foolish, to hope for an easy tell. The Director could have found his own mauled corpse in the alley, and, upon realizing he was a ghost, would have merely shrugged and began taking notes on how to best leverage his condition.

  “Yes, sir. I need to know what it is, or, what it was.”

  There was a moment of silence, as Draco pressed his thumb and forefinger together. The click-tick-tick of servos filled the room.

  The tension held for a small eternity, and then Draco asked, “This is because of Berenson, isn't it?” He leaned forward, now, into the light. The Director looked good, for his age, and for the ravages of the neurotoxin. His dark hair nested in ringlets on his head, almost like a crown, and his deep brown eyes flashed when they moved. His skin was smooth, like a baby’s, a burnt olive tan that
belied his age. No pocks or scars marred him, no cuts or scrapes marked the passage of time or rites of passage. It was hard to believe the man was twenty years Raschel’s senior, even with rejuv treatments. On the other hand the Director had come from Analysis, not Operations. That probably promoted cleaner living.

  Raschel nodded, and said, “Yes, sir. Everything he's said has been spot-on. In six months, we've done more damage to the Faction remnants than in the past four years, but it’s not enough. Every move we make reveals more assets. Each asset hints towards more targeted, coordinated, operations, towards a goal we cannot decipher. Everything is pointing to some master play, some coup de d'etat, on this Airship, and I need to know why.”

  “Because he's a madman, crazed by vengeance?” The Director's question was facetious, asked without argumentative intent, to provoke extrapolation. Draco liked this technique. Raschel had seen him do it to military commanders, Sub-Directors, politicians. It was always the same. Ask the provocative questions, let the others triangulate on the answers Draco already knew, and remain the observer, cool and disinterested. It worked, nearly every time, and so Raschel indulged him, out of respect.

  Raschel hypothesized, “Striker is far too patient, far too clever, to be reduced to a 'madman'. He's turned that ship into a flying Gibraltar, and he's using it to move weapons and people all over the place, tucked safely behind human shields. He's modified the Bergman drive. We have records showing that he brought in engineers, scientists, and heavy equipment. We can prove that that vessel is putting out more heat than it should, that it's running jumpier than its design predicts. We’ve gotten people aboard, but we can't get anyone off. And I need to know why. Why he hasn't pulled the trigger, why he cares so much about this damn Airship. I’m centimeters from going in hot and heavy on that flying rattletrap, and I need to know what the hell I’m getting into.”

  The Director had glanced away, out to the city below. He asked, distantly, “Have I ever lied to you, Michael?”

  “Yes.”

  “An odd thing to say, when currying favor.” Draco said.

  “It's honesty, sir.” Raschel said. “You have your obligations. You have secrets. This Agency operates on need to know, and that is your prerogative. I trust, that when I need to know something, you'll tell me. When I need to be ignorant, I will remain so. I understand. But right now, I'm about to send people into a viper's den, and I need to know.”

  The Director sighed, and reclined back into the shadows. After a moment with his thoughts, he stood, and strode to the window. He reached out, rested one gloved hand on his antique globe, the cybernetics whirring as he opened his grip. He said, “Ask me again, and I will tell you. But I warn you, Mister Raschel, that this information is the worst kind of knowledge. Once you know, you will be complicit in the greatest crime ever committed against humanity. You would do best to walk away.” He paused for a moment, to draw a deep breath, and watch the morning bustle of the city. He asked, “Do you need to know?”

  “Yes, sir.” Raschel replied without hesitation. He felt he iron shackles clamp onto his gut, but he never blinked. “What is Durandal?”

  “Was. What was Durandal.” The Director never looked at him, instead talking to the ghosts in the city below. “Do you remember how the Second War ended?”

  “The Path drive test went tits up.” Raschel said. “I thought about that. Some of my team thought Striker might be trying to feed Strand into the drive. That would explain the spikes. Why, though? More power, more lift? Neither of those really help him, here, even if he could get the Path design working. A giant bomb, sure, but why build a bomb not use it, or even threaten?”

  “Because the Hodges report was a lie.” The Director replied. He sounded very tired.

  “It wasn't Strand in the drive field? That didn’t cause the blast?”

  “No, it did.” Draco replied. He let the silence resound, before he added, “But it wasn't the Path who did it.”

  Raschel’s response was instantaneous. He said, “Oh, fuck me.”

  “Indeed.” Draco turned back from the window, and said, “A succinct reaction upon discovering your government is culpable to the greatest travesty in human history.”

  “How? Why?” Raschel asked.

  “A modified corvette, just drives and reactors, with a skeleton crew. The Stefan Presada, that was its name. It was a fast ship, with a high lift-power ratio, modified further with the Durandal device. Do you know how Strand works, Michael?”

  “It amplifies energy, messes with quantum probability.”

  “Almost. It reciprocates. They call it the Izumi-Primakov Resonance, and it's very interesting. You see, Strand is never fully harvested. We draw it from the Bore, and it becomes physical, able to be manipulated as if it were matter. But it's never truly severed from the whole, a great span of pure probability, bleeding out through this pinhole we've created. When it's fed electrical current, it tunes to that web, and it returns, like a primed well, bursting the seams. This resonance can be manipulated, by the volume of Strand, the proximity of the Bore, and even the structure of the Strand itself, like an antenna. Imagine what would happen, if Strand could be fed into its own Bore, right through a sufficiently powerful Bergman drive.”

  Raschel guessed, “Self-reinforcing? It would feed itself power, generate more negative matter, get more power, resonate with the Strand, feed itself more power, again?”

  “That was the theory. Bergman had toyed with the ideas, but he grew sick of its metaphysical implications. Too messy, he claimed, to be good science. Too much like a 'free lunch'.” The Director smiled faintly, and added. “It's truly much more like a cosmological dine and dash. Bore through, start the loop, and then throw the waste through the wormhole as it implodes.”

  “And this worked?” Raschel asked.

  “All too well. The bomb was designed by Richard Galvin, taking over from where Bergman left off. The device would feed from the lift drive, grow until it consumed the vessel, and then fall through its own bore. Enough destructive potential to level any nearby Path fleet, approximately two hundred megatons in yield. And the ship would be blisteringly fast, besides, making it nearly impossible to interdict.”

  Raschel jumped in, finished the scenario, “So when the Path convened the Grand Conclave, put all the holy families in one city, and the Temple Guard Fleet moored above, it was the perfect target. One decapitation strike to end the war.”

  “But we underestimated the yield. The device didn't fall through. It fed until the Bore stabilized. It became real, Michael. For an instant, there was a hole in time and space right there, over Kosice, churning hell through everything within four hundred kilometers. Two billion people, gone, on our command. It should have killed more. Once that wormhole stabilized, it should have destroyed us all. But it didn't. It fell through, long after it became stable. A freak occurrence of probability. A quantum miracle, chasing a disaster.”

  “Hell. The Waste, the end of the war, all of it...” Raschel felt his words turn to ash in his mouth. He couldn’t finish his own sentence.

  “On us.” Draco said. “The blast took out the Seventh Fleet, and with it, most who knew of Durandal. Galvin ate a bullet when he heard what happened, and the remaining clean up was simple. A few files closed, a few memdopes, and only a few of us even remembered.”

  “How many?”

  “Now? Just me. And you. And apparently, Striker. Both of them.” Draco sighed heavily. The servos in his hand clicked, until the top of the globe dented under his fingers. “My predecessor theorized that Galvin might have left a confession. We could never find it. I would wonder if that's where Striker got his data?”

  “Sir, no offense, but we are pig fucked.” Raschel said.

  “Indeed. Very much so. And now his Airship makes so much sense, doesn't it? Without it, this is just a theory of a madman, easily discounted. But, if he can demonstrate the bomb, then his ranting is validated. And we are guilty of genocide.”

  Raschel felt the ic
e spread through his chest, and he began to build out from the Director's scenario. He talked his way through it. He said, “The restless population explodes. They storm the Bastille. The Path, resurgent, erupts from the DMZ. This would feed their honor feuds, it's all the proof that nut-job Radek needs – hell, sir, this means he's not a nut-job at all! They'd rally behind him, reignite the War-”

  “And we can't face them, because our cities are burning from inside-”

  “And Striker can orchestrate the chaos, and emerge as king-maker. God damn, he's got us on a barrel.”

  “Your colorful descriptions notwithstanding, this cannot be allowed to pass. The planet cannot sustain another war. You might not have seen the calculations. They're not hidden, just very dry, very distributed, describing the sort of patterns most people don’t like to connect. There's not enough left here. Too many wars, too many people. There's not enough good land, not enough resources. And with Strand – the bore is too dangerous to keep, too much power and waste heat to allow in the same biosphere as us – if the War returned, it would be over. Durandal would be loosed, again, one note in a symphony of new weapons; falling orbital platforms and burst drive fields would consume us.” He became very quiet. He whispered, “Until we are off this dying world, we cannot afford this war. Until colonization has committed en masse, we cannot allow this disorder to reign. There is simply too much destructive potential available.”

  Raschel brushed away the theories. Philosophizing and navel gazing were not his pervue. He dealt in the 'what now' and 'what next'. He measured in days, corners, and threats. His question was direct. He asked, “So, why hasn't Striker pulled the trigger? He has to know what he’s got.”

  “Perhaps Berenson was right? Perhaps, this isn't about us at all, but just an intellectual hostage-taking to hold us at bay while they finish their game. Of course, when they do finish, all bets come off the table.” Draco observed. Raschel had heard that tone before, the flat words, the layered 'So what do we do to stop this?' hidden behind the declaration. He'd been working for the Director since he was a Field Agent. He'd long ago learned when his particular brand of problem solving was required.