Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Dana blinked at that, and looked around her. “Is this the same mountain?”

  “No,” he said calmly. “This isn’t the mountain, Dana. That mountain is a long way from here.”

  “What’s it called? I want to see it.”

  “It’s called Athos,” he said, and watched her dissolve into a fit of laughter. “Shut up.”

  “You named yourself after a mountain!”

  “It was a significant mountain.”

  The laughter had been a bad idea, because Dana couldn’t stop now and oh, maybe she was crying after all.

  A look of panic crossed Athos’s face, and he summnoed the others. “I only signed up for anger and denial,” he said, and propelled Dana into the arms of Porthos and Aramis.

  They bundled her away from the courtyard, into a small and comforting room that was almost warm. Dana buried her face in the chilled coat of Porthos and sobbed loudly, messily, while Aramis stroked her close-shorn scalp.

  Milord was gone. He had done exactly what he came here for, made the most predictable move, and they hadn’t been able to stop him. He had got away with it. Ro, damn her, was helping him, of course she was. The Cardinal must still have some use for Milord de Winter.

  That betrayal hurt more than it should have.

  A horrible noise was coming out of her now. It was embarrassing, but she couldn’t stop it. Tight arms pinned her down, kept her safe, her friends taking turns to hug her as she cried.

  Dana felt the sharp stubble of a close-cut beard against her cheek and realised it was Athos who held her now. She could hear Aramis and Porthos talking in low voices, across the other side of the room.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Dana gasped.

  “Love is what kills us,” said Athos, his voice rough. “Nothing else can destroy the human race half so fast. I suspect he was sent here to hurt us in the worst possible ways. It’s the only explanation.”

  Dana head-butted him lightly. She had no more words.

  “Okay,” said Porthos in a businesslike voice, coming back to them. “Dana, you ready to get back in the game?”

  “Is it revenge time yet?” Dana asked in a small voice. She was tired of all these feelings.

  “Here’s the thing,” said Aramis, bright-eyed and excited. “They left in the hire skimmer, the same one you and Cho arrived here in, Dana.”

  Dana frowned at her. “So?”

  “So, Planchet can track it.” Aramis waved a clamshell at her. “We know which way they’re going.”

  “That’s good,” said Athos. “Let’s go.”

  Porthos and Aramis both gave him a look. Dana knew that look. It was an expression they usually used behind his back.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” she said in a low voice.

  “From their current route,” said Aramis awkwardly. “Planchet suspects they are heading for the province of La Fere.”

  Athos nodded as if this was no more or less than he had expected. “If anyone attempts to talk to me about my feelings,” he said stiffly. “I’m going to throw them out of the skimmer. Why aren’t we in the skimmer already?”

  Porthos gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”

  “I will end you,” he growled.

  They made their hasty farewells to the shellshocked star nuns and headed back out to where the Musketeers had docked the skimmer some way back down the snowy steps. Athos stayed protectively close to Dana all the way. She wasn’t sure whether to hit him or hug him, but she settled for saying nothing at all.

  Athos made some calls from the skimmer. He spoke quietly in his New Aristocrat voice: he gave co-ordinates and sent texts, and his face was so thunderous that no one – not Dana, Aramis nor Porthos – dared to ask him exactly what he was doing.

  “We’re going to have some company in La Fere,” was all he told them.

  “I’ve had a thought,” said Porthos.

  The others looked at her, except Aramis who was piloting the skimmer.

  “Well?” Dana said expectantly.

  “There’s no way Agent Cho didn’t know we couldtrack the skimmer. Maybe she’s not on his side after all.”

  Dana stared at her shoes, and thought about throwing up.

  La Fere was a thousand square kilometres of grey rock, picturesque lavender hills and pale green grazing land. Hardly anyone lived here; there was one medium-sized town near the Bethune border, a handful of rural villages and a scattering of farms.

  As far as Athos was aware, the whole place got along swimmingly without any occupants playing lord of the manor from the d’Auteville estate.

  Then again, Olivier Armand d’Auteville was believed to be dead. For all Athos knew, the estate could be crawling with distant cousins who had turned the place into a strip club/casino.

  The thought of a giant disco ball rotating from the ceiling of his Maman’s picture-perfect salonniere, or the family silver being sold off to pay for a bulk batch of roulette wheels, would be enough to make him smile, on any other day.

  Here he was, chief phantom in his very own ghost story, about to face the worst demons of his past. Sober.

  “I don’t understand why Milord would return home like this,” said Porthos – and Athos had to work very hard to conceal a twitch at the word ‘home’ in this context – “Surely he knows that the La Fere estate is the most obvious place for us to look for him.”

  “Sometimes the guilty seek penance,” said Aramis, wearing her ‘religious contemplation’ hat. “The worst criminals often want to get caught.”

  “He’s doing it to make me follow him,” ground out Athos. Wasn’t it obvious to the rest of them? “To force me to go home. All he has left now is revenge.”

  “That’s why he killed Conrad,” said D’Artagnan in a small voice that reminded Athos all over again how damned young she was. “Revenge against me.”

  “Of course,” Athos said, only to be faced with blazing expressions of both Aramis and Porthos, in matching performances of ‘shut up Athos, you just said something tactless.’ “I mean – who can truly know the mind of a madman?”

  “Good save,” D’Artagnan said dryly. She had not missed the expressions.

  The tracker led them directly to Foilles, the village nearest the Auteville manor. Home. Aramis brought them down practically on top of the hire skimmer that was identical to their own, on the outskirts of town.

  “That’s my ship!” said Dana, her head coming up as she recognised the bright yellow eyesore that was the Buttercup, already docked on the grass alongside the skimmer and Athos’ own Pistachio.

  “I got in touch with the engies,” Athos admitted.

  “Good idea,” noted Porthos.

  Athos shrugged uncomfortably, aware that he had been taking the lead on this, something he generally preferred not to do. Responsibility was a terrible addiction that destroyed lives. On the other hand, his husband had just murdered D’Artagnan’s boyfriend, therefore Athos was going to accept a certain amount of responsibility until the bastard was dead. He could quit leadership any time he liked. “If there’s a chance we can get this sewn up this afternoon, I don’t want to waste any time getting us off the fucking planet,” he grumbled.

  Aramis leaned over and prodded him in the stomach, to let him know that she saw through him, always.

  Like Athos needed a bruised abdomen to know that.

  The four Musketeers spilled out of the cramped skimmer and onto the grass. Pigtails and Bonnie emerged from the Hoyden and ran towards them with a reluctant Bazin trailing behind.

  “No sign of Milord,” said Pigtails, the words bursting out of her with juvenile excitement. “But we found Agent Cho easily enough.”

  “Is it too much to hope she’s in the pub?” Athos said wistfully. The home-brewed beers of the Foilles watering hole was one of only three things he missed about his home.

  Pigtails blinked at him. “How did you know?”

  Grimaud waited for them outside the Fleur and Anchor, swaddl
ed in a thicker star scarf than she usually wore, and scowling at the world. A tension that Athos had not even realised he was carrying unwound at the sight of her. He always felt better when he knew she was near, and safe.

  “In there?” he asked without greeting.

  Grimaud nodded, peered at him for a moment as if checking for injuries, and went back to pretending he didn’t exist.

  “Musketeers inside, engies out here in case there’s trouble,” Athos commanded.

  The engies grumbled about this distribution of labour.

  “For when there is inevitably trouble,” Athos clarified. “If you spot our target, or anyone suspicious, do not engage them on your own.”

  The engies all took on oddly similar expressions at this piece of advice, even Bazin. How did that level of sarcasm even work on an android face?

  “It’s sweet that you think you’re in charge,” Bonnie informed him.

  Aramis staved off any possibility of an Athos-and-engies smackdown by steering him inside the pub. Porthos and D’Artagnan followed close behind.

  Nostalgia swept over Athos like a heavy curtain full of knives. The smell of this place was exactly the same: beer and coffee and browning pastry, soaked into the deep grey stone of the walls and the slate of the floor.

  He knew the barman, though he didn’t remember his name – an old man with a flat expression who (of course) knew who Athos was the second he stepped in the door.

  This was a mistake. No going back now.

  After a brief sweep of the room with no sign of Agent Cho, Athos stepped up to the bar. “Black hair, scar?” he said.

  The barman made a grunting noise and pointed. “Courtyard.”

  “Cheers.” The lack of questions made Athos feel oddly lightheaded. It had always been like that in here, he remembered. Everyone knew who he was: the young Comte from the big house who lost his parents too young and married an outsider straight out of university, then later executed his husband on the village green for being an alien spy. No one had ever said an unnecessary word about any of it, when he was in here and needed a drink.

  “Does everyone talk like that around here?” he heard Porthos hiss to Aramis. “A whole town full of Athoses!”

  They crowded into the doorway that opened on to the walled courtyard: Athos with D’Artagnan beside him, the other two squishing into them from behind.

  “Oh no,” D’Artagnan breathed.

  Special Agent Rosnay Cho paced back and forth in fury, arguing with empty air. She flung her arms, hissed between her teeth, and got up in the face of her invisible opponent. An arc-ray twirled between her fingers.

  There wasn’t room to draw a sword, so Athos went for his stunner, knowing Porthos and Aramis were blocked from making the shot. He didn’t bank on D’Artagnan, who slipped out from his side and marched right up to the raving agent.

  “You idiot,” D’Artagnan accused, shoving her. “You drank something he gave you?”

  “Of course I didn’t,” Cho said, whirling on D’Artagnan. Not pointing the arc-ray at her, as such, but not holding it safe by her side, either. “What the hell do you think I am?”

  “How about a traitor?”

  Cho scoffed, then turned to address empty air again. “Shut up you. Keep out of it.”

  “You’ve got Winter in your head,” D’Artagnan accused. “Don’t you?”

  “He slapped a patch on my wrist while I was flying the skimmer,” Cho admitted sullenly. “What do you mean, traitor? I’m leading this fucking mission.”

  “We were supposed to be working together!” Dana howled. “Until you ran off hand in hand with the target.”

  “I would have brought you along for the ride, buttercup, but you were too busy being catatonic over the death of your boyfriend and somehow I don’t think your presence would have made Milord less suspicious of my motives!”

  “Shut up, both of you!” Aramis ordered, stepping between D’Artagnan and Cho. “This is all very sweet, getting your feelings out in the open, and usually I’d be all for it, but I’d like to ask a question. Can he –” And she indicated the empty space where Rosnay Cho had directed her non-D’Artagnan-related anger, “Hear what we’re saying?”

  “How am I supposed to know how this works?” Cho demanded.

  “I think he can listen in,” D’Artagnan said sourly. “If it’s like the others. Why do it otherwise?”

  “Then I suggest we get on with arresting our target without a digital spy in our midst,” said Aramis.

  Agent Cho looked murderous. “You can’t leave me out of this. This is my mission.”

  “I think we’re past that, aren’t we?” Aramis countered.

  Athos lost what little patience he had left. He lifted his arm and shot Agent Cho through the head with the pearl-white beacon of his stunner. She crumpled and D’Artagnan caught her awkwardly, lowering her to the ground.

  “That’s one way to win a conversation,” said Porthos.

  “She didn’t tell us which way he went!” D’Artagnan protested, looking down at the unconscious Cho like she could will her back awake.

  “I know which way he went,” Athos said sharply. “Come on. We’ve got one more stop to make first.”

  He headed back through the pub, with three Musketeers following him. He heard Aramis hang back to instruct the engies about returning Cho back to the ships, but did not slow his pace to give her a chance to catch up. That was why she had those long legs, after all.

  Finally, Athos stopped at the edge of the village, and knocked sharply at the bright red door of a whitewashed building. A familiar figure emerged: cloaked all in red, her face masked and her hands covered.

  “Mother,” said Athos, and kissed the gloved hand that extended to him. It felt like ice beneath the light silk. “Time to go.”

  The red cloaked figure nodded and set out before him, leading the way out of the village and up the well-trod path to the higher pastures and the over-sized house that had been built to overlook the entire province.

  “Come on,” he said to his friends.

  They glanced awkwardly at each other before hurrying after him. “Athos, is that actually your mother?” Porthos asked.

  “No,” he said honestly, surprised she had thought so. “My mother’s dead.”

  “Then –”

  “That is my priest,” he explained, following the red mother up the path towards his worst nightmare.

  His three best friends in the world followed him without further comment.

  59

  The House of Athos

  The silence on the walk up the slope was comforting, though Athos knew his friends were burning with questions. It was remarkably restrained of them to hold back.

  The red mother did not speak either, and that was a different kind of comfort. He remembered her as an acolyte, holding the cup and knife for the old red mother when he was a child. The acolyte was the one who had taught him the Elemental rituals that were expected of the eldest son of a great family, long before he became cynical about everything else that was expected of him.

  The old red mother had passed into retirement or death since Athos had left Foilles. He did not ask the questions that might be expected from a local man, recently returned home. He did not care what had changed in the mean time.

  They reached the tall gates, marked with the sacred symbols of fire and water, earth and air. The red mother halted, her dark-painted mouth barely visible beneath her deep red hood.

  Athos breathed on the lock and placed his palm there. He did not need to state his name. House recognised him, and let him through the security field.

  “Welcome home, your grace,” House said in a clear voice that rang out from the empty air.

  “These are my guests,” said Athos, not wanting to address the title for now, though it made his skin crawl. “The red mother is to be awarded the same security privileges as her predecessor.”

  “Understood, your grace,” said House smoothly. “Welcome to Auteville Man
or, mother.”

  The priest bowed her head in silent acknowledgement.

  “House,” Athos went on. “Please recognise Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan. They are personal guests, to have security privileges for the ground floor zone only.”

  “Welcome, Porthos, Aramis, D’Artagnan,” said House. There was a different note in his voice there, as if he was proud that Athos had returned with friends.

  No, that was stupid. House felt nothing. Athos had always let his imagination run wild. He needed to resist such childhood habits.

  The red mother and the Musketeers stepped through the security field. Athos led the way up the path again, not looking around to see their reaction as the manor came into view. After years calling a space station home, it was embarrassing to realise quite how much space the d’Auteville family thought was reasonable for them to take up.

  “House,” he said to fill the silence. “Have we had any visitors since I left?”

  House recited a litany of failed attempts by Athos’ distant relatives, lawyers and other officials to breach the security field over the last several years. If anyone ever questioned whether it was possible for an AI to demonstrate smugness, here was the evidence.

  Athos had been so very angry, in the immediate days after Auden’s execution. He was drunk, of course, and furious at the world. He was certain that when he abandoned the manor, he had left the door wide open, and vocalised no orders to preserve the house for his return.

  He had never planned to come back here.

  Perhaps he had given House some security instructions after all, as part of a drunken rant. Perhaps House had simply and quietly tidied up after him, making an assumption on behalf of the Comte de la Fere when the man himself was unable to make the right call.

  Either way, there was one person, he was certain, whose access had never been revoked, because he was dead and even Athos had not been that paranoid. Not then.

  “House,” he interrupted, as he reached the door. “Have we had any visitors recently?”