“Yeah, I doubt that,” said March. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me? To convince me that you’re God? Or to ask me how Lorre died?”
Odin snorted. “I already know how Lorre died, Jack. You killed him. He underestimated you one time too many and that was that. But Lorre’s dead, and you and I are not. And I have a question you’re going to answer for me.”
“What’s that?” said March.
“Why?” said Odin.
“Why am I standing here?” said March. “You invited me.”
“No,” said Odin. “The one thing I don’t understand about you. Why did you betray us? Why did you leave the Final Consciousness?” He rubbed his thumb over the golden coin. At least it looked like a coin. Given the geometric patterns on its surface, March wondered if it was a piece of exotic electronics. Though why would Odin be fondling a random electronic component?
“Since you know so much about me,” said March, “you ought to know the answer to that question.”
“Perhaps,” said Odin. “I know one answer to that question. I wish to know yours.” His smile was hard. “Or what you believe that answer to be.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” snapped March. “Martel’s World. One of the slum families nursed me back to health after I was stranded there. They ought to have killed me. They should have killed me and sold my gear. They would have gotten away with it and made themselves a tidy profit. Instead, they took care of me and let me go.” More anger entered his voice than he would have liked. “And then you killed them.”
Odin’s black eye met his. “Yes. I did.”
“You did, personally?” said March. His left hand wanted to curl into a fist, and he made it stop.
“I ordered the bombing,” said Odin. “Or, rather, I suggested it. The other Cognarchs agreed with me, the consensus was reached, and the decision sent to the officers of our fleet. We fired nuclear missiles into the atmosphere, over a thousand of them. Most of the planet’s population died in the first detonations, something like seven and a half billion people. The remaining billion or so died of radiation poisoning, starvation, thirst, rioting, all the usual results of a catastrophic nuclear attack and the resultant civilizational collapse. Eight and a half billion people, dead in less than a month. Is that why you turned against us, son?”
“Yes,” said March, the anger a red haze at the edge of his vision.
Odin’s cold smile widened. “And that is why you have spent the last ten years in a crusade against us, hmm? Mission after mission for Censor and his Silent Order. Most Alpha Operatives don’t last nearly as long, but not you, Jack. We’ve kept track of all the Alpha Operatives, you know, ever since we first encountered Calaskar two centuries ago. Of all the Alpha Operatives I’ve had to deal with, you’re easily among the most effective. Does that slake your guilt? Is that why you’ve accepted so many missions? Is that why you’ve never settled in one place, never even taken a long-term lover?”
March kept the surprise from his face.
Odin knew nearly everything about him…but not everything. He didn’t know about Adelaide. That lapse helped March dial back his anger. Whatever game Odin was playing, March could not let emotion affect his judgment.
“Fine, I’ll summarize,” said March. “I saw you murder an entire planet of innocent,” Odin snorted, “innocent people! That’s why I turned against you. The destruction of Martel’s World was for no good reason. Only spite. The planet had no strategic value. Letting Calaskar take control of it would have been a drag on the Kingdom’s economy. You just destroyed Martel’s World for no good reason at all.”
Odin shrugged. “We would have had to destroy the planet at some point anyway. The population had proven resistant and noncompliant, and very few of the natives were fit to join the Final Consciousness. We are culling the weak and the flawed from humanity, Jack. If they weren’t killed now, they would have been killed later.”
March snorted. “No doubt that’s why you had your pet Murdan buy you nine canisters of biomorphic fungi. They’ll make it easier to get on with the killing.”
“All in good time,” said Odin. He glanced at the coin in his hand and slipped it into the inside pocket of his coat. “There’s something else I wish to know first.”
“And just what is that?” said March.
“What will it take to convince you to join the Final Consciousness once more?” said Odin.
March blinked. Of all the things he had expected Odin to say, that hadn’t been one of them.
“What?”
“What will it take,” said Odin, “for you to return to the Final Consciousness?”
“It can’t be done,” said March. “Removing a hive implant causes too much permanent nerve scarring. If you try to put another hive implant in my skull, you’ll kill me. Cheaper to just shoot me.”
“Who said anything about a hive implant?” said Odin. “No. I want you to return as an agent.”
March snorted. “You’re offering me Lorre’s old job?”
“Something like that, yes,” said Odin.
“You just boasted about murdering eight and a half billion innocent people,” said March. “Why the hell would I join you?”
“Do you want vengeance?” said Odin. “The Final Consciousness rules over hundreds of worlds. What if I let you destroy, say, one of them? I let you pick any one world, and then the fleet would bombard it until we had killed eight and a half billion people. Would that not balance the scales?”
“That’s insane,” said March.
Odin shrugged, his big shoulders twitching beneath his gray coat. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Was that not what our ancestors once said upon primeval Earth? But I see that would not satisfy you. Would money? 5.7 billion credits, perhaps, what Alexei just paid for the biomorphic fungi. Or would power satisfy you? Instead of killing eight and a half billion people, why not rule over them? Any one of our slave worlds you want. Or perhaps women? Is that what you want? Someone like you would find it difficult to form long-term emotional bonds, and maybe all you want is someone to love you. I saw you looking at your pretty little Guide on the concourse. How would you like a dozen of her, each one of them conditioned and trained to worship you as a god?”
“I don’t want any of that,” said March. “And why are you even offering me anything?”
“Because I can,” said Odin. “I can give you anything. Perhaps the Final Consciousness is not God, at least not yet. But we have more power than any god, any priest or king or emperor or pharaoh that ever ruled any nation of men. You would be a valuable asset.” His smile returned, a flash of teeth behind that iron-gray beard. “And this is all about to end.”
March frowned. “What do you mean?”
“All of this,” said Odin, waving his hand over the auditorium. “All the games and skullduggery and spycraft. All of it is about to end, and Calaskar will fall.”
“Now you’re talking about the Pulse,” said March.
Odin sighed. “Poor Simon did sometimes talk too much.”
“This superweapon of the Great Elder Ones that you’ve been looking for,” said March.
“I suppose, in a certain sense, that could be accurate,” said Odin.
“Forget accurate. It’s moronic,” said March. “That technology is dangerous. You don’t understand what you’re playing with.”
“Is that so?” said Odin. “The Final Consciousness was built upon the technology of the Great Elder Ones, technology that we adapted and understood. The Pulse is no different.”
“I talked to the Custodian of the Eschaton system,” said March. “It told me that the technology of the Great Elder Ones might accidentally let them back into this universe. Then both the Final Consciousness and the Kingdom of Calaskar will be destroyed.”
Odin scoffed. “The Custodian is insane. It will tell you so itself if you ask. I always thought the religiosity of the Calaskaran national character made them vulnerable to superstition, and I see that you have been infected w
ith that weakness. The Great Elder Ones were not demons, and their technologies are not the instruments of evil.”
“Really?” said March. “Given that you and the other Cognarchs have used them for evil.”
Odin scoffed. “You should know better, son. There’s no such thing as good or evil. There is only strength, and good and evil are rationalizations after the fact.”
“Fine, then,” said March. “The technology of the Great Elder Ones was created by a race beyond comprehension, and you’re messing with things that you don’t understand. Like a toddler playing with a hand grenade.”
“We understand perfectly,” said Odin. “Jack, I’m going to be blunt. Calaskar is going to fall to the Final Consciousness. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not this year. But very soon now. Within the next five years at the most. You need to make a choice. Are you going to stand with them and die? Or will you join us, and have whatever you want?”
March looked Odin in the eye. Again, he had the sense of staring into a bottomless black void. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the black veins around Odin's eyepatch were writhing, shifting beneath his skin like worms. Given that the black veins were probably the nanotech that had replaced his blood, it wasn’t surprising.
“I made my decision when I watched you burn Martel’s World,” said March. “It hasn’t changed.”
Odin said nothing for a long moment. His lips thinned, but he said nothing. The Iron Hands around him shifted.
“As you wish, then,” said Odin. He glanced at the Iron Hand who had escorted March here. “Please see Captain March back to his box.” He looked at March. “I’m afraid we won’t meet again, Jack. A pity you couldn’t see reason.”
“I can live with that,” said March, turning back towards the aisle.
“Yes,” murmured Odin, “but for how long, I wonder?”
March didn’t look back.
“Don’t bother,” he said to the Iron Hand. “I remember the way.”
With that, he strode back up the aisle to where the others waited. Carina smiled at his approach, and March gave her a brief nod.
“Well,” said November. “How was your meeting with Mr. Odin?”
“It went about as well as you would expect,” said March. He shook his head. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
“I would be happy to escort you back to the Lion’s Mane, Captain Harper,” said Carina.
“No need,” said March as the others stood. “We’re going to our ship and leaving right now. Carina, thank you, but we can find the way ourselves.”
He gestured, and the others got to their feet and followed him from the auditorium.
“What happened?” said Siegfried.
“We’ll talk about it more on the ship,” said March. “Don’t speak here.”
They crossed the commercial concourse, walking past the shops that sold every vice March had ever heard of and some he had never encountered. After ten minutes’ brisk walk, they reached the anteroom, and then passed through the cargo airlock and into the Tiger’s empty hold. March took a deep breath of the slightly colder air. It was only his imagination, he knew, but the air in here seemed cleaner somehow.
“I would wager that you and Mr. Odin had an interesting conversation,” said November, leaning against the wall next to the airlock. Siegfried stood next to him, and Alan began pacing back and forth, his shoes clanking against the deck plates.
“That’s one way to put it,” said March.
“So what did you talk about?” said Northridge, her suspicion clear. She stood between March and Alan, her arms wrapped tight around herself.
“He invited me to return to the Final Consciousness, and I told him to go to hell,” said March. “That’s the five-second version.” He shook his head. “Damned if I know why he bothered with it. He had to know he couldn’t flip me. Strangest thing. The entire time he kept fiddling with this golden coin.”
“Coin?” said Northridge.
March shrugged. “Or an electronic component of some kind. It looked like it had circuits imprinted on both sides. Anyway, I refused to join him, he boasted that he planned to destroy Calaskar within five years, and that was pretty much that. The whole thing seemed pointless.”
“I think I can guess at the point of it,” said Alan with a frown.
“What do you think?” said March.
“A delaying tactic,” said Alan. “He wanted to draw your attention away from something.”
“Probably,” said March. “Hard to imagine what, though.”
“What are we going to do now?” said Siegfried.
“We’ll undock and start a hyperspace calculation,” said March. “But we’re also going to figure out which ship the Oradreans are using. They’ll load the biomorphic fungi aboard that ship, jump out-system, and then transfer the weapon to the Machinist frigate. We’ll have to see if we can stop them, or if we can have the Navy intercept either ship.”
“I do have a suggestion about what we should do next,” said Alan.
“I’m listening,” said March.
“We ought to follow Dr. Siegfried’s plan,” said Alan.
March glanced at Siegfried, who looked baffled.
“My plan?” she said. “I don’t have a plan. I…”
March’s instincts screamed a warning.
It had been a trick.
He looked back just as Alan leveled his pistol at Northridge’s back and fired. Northridge screamed, staggered forward a step, and collapsed to the deck, smoke rising from the plasma wound in her back.
March started to reach for his own pistol, but Alan was faster, his gun swinging around to point at Siegfried.
“Reach for the gun again, Captain March,” said Alan, “and I’ll shoot her.”
Chapter 8: Double Cross
“What the hell?” said Siegfried, her voice going up an octave.
Northridge let out a long groan and twitched.
“What the hell is this?” said Siegfried, her eyes wide and shocked.
“Do shut up, Dr. Siegfried,” said Alan, his eyes darting back and forth between March and November, though his gun remained pointed at Siegfried. “God, but I’ve gotten tired of listening to you drone on and on during this trip. Melissa was right. You are tedious.”
“Maybe you should be pointing that gun at me, or maybe at November,” said March.
“Maybe,” agreed Alan with an affable smile. “You’re both the greater threats. But I’m willing to gamble that November is a fast draw and that you could soak up at least one plasma bolt with that Machinist arm of yours. But I’m also willing to gamble that neither you nor November wants to see Siegfried shot in front of you.” He pointed with his free hand at Northridge’s motionless form. “See, that’s why I shot her. Just to prove that I’m serious.”
“You shoot Siegfried,” said March, “then I guarantee you’ll die five seconds after her.”
“Yes, but she’ll still be dead, won’t she, the poor dumb bitch?” said Alan.
No one said anything. Northridge let out a steady low, keening whimper of agony. The smell of burned flesh and cloth was quite sharp.
“Why?” said Siegfried. “God, why? You were having an affair with her and…”
“In point of fact, I wasn’t,” said Alan. “I…”
“Because you killed the real Lieutenant Alan,” said March.
Alan said nothing, but his smile widened.
“I’ve seen this trick before,” said March. “You killed the real Lieutenant Alan and buried him in a cellar somewhere on Calaskar, and you took his identity and his ID documents. When you traveled from Calaskar to Exarch Station…none of it required a genetic check. You just had to play the part and smile a lot. Probably Dr. Northridge didn’t have any idea that you weren’t the real Lieutenant Alan.”
“She didn’t,” said Alan. “I have to admit, seducing her was part of my cover, but I did enjoy it. Though she made the most irritating sounds while in bed. Someone ought to have told her that panting like
a dog is no way to keep a boyfriend. But, well, I doubt that’s going to be a problem she faces in the remaining few minutes of her life.”
Northridge let out another whimpering groan, and her hand twitched.
No. It hadn’t twitched. It was moving.
She still had her gun in her holster. Centimeter by centimeter, her shaking hand was moving towards it.
March needed to stall. He also needed to keep Alan’s attention on him for as long as possible.
“Fine,” said March. “All of this wasn’t to kill Northridge, was it?”
“Of course not,” said Alan. “The Final Consciousness doesn’t care about some marginally competent bitch of a biologist. But keeping two Alpha Operatives of the Silent Order from interfering with the auction and killing them at the same time, that was worth doing, wasn’t it?” His smile turned into a smirk. “I might even get joined to the hive mind for this.”
March took a step back. A frown flickered across Alan’s face, and he took a step closer to March and to the side, keeping his gun trained on Siegfried and his field of vision on both March and November.
But he hadn’t glanced once at Northridge.
“What the hell are you talking about, man?” snapped Siegfried.
“Dear God, you’re slow,” said Alan. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Both our illustrious Captain March and our pompous Mr. November are part of the Silent Order. That’s the Calaskaran intelligence agency and black ops service if you haven’t heard of them.”
“I’m not an idiot,” said Siegfried. “I knew they were connected to the Calaskaran government somehow. The details are less important than keeping the biomorphic fungi from falling into the hands of…well, of murderous thugs like you.”
“The Final Consciousness is the next step of human evolution, Dr. Siegfried,” said Alan, his eyes still flicking back and forth between March and November. “Those who are part of it will become living gods. Those who are not will become extinct.”
“A true believer, then,” said March. “That’s good.”
“And just why is that good?” said Alan.
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