To Crush the Moon

by Wil McCarthy

  Old-fashioned cast iron bells are ringing up on the wall now—alarms from the guards close enough to observe the fray but not close enough to be caught in it. Still, the gate—a simple affair of welded steel bars and plates—swings slowly open on squealing hinges, and Radmer strides casually into the city. Not waiting to be summoned like a dog, Bruno trails close behind.

  The city within could have been clipped straight from Bruno's Old Girona childhood: an environment of stone and brick and heat-trapping colored glass. A cluster of hundred-story towers stands anomalously at the center, ringed by artful moats and bridges, but few of the other buildings are more than six floors high, and (per Radmer's warning) none seem enlivened. Between them, streets of diamond and cobblestone and muddy gravel slope gradually down toward the seashore.

  And on the streets are crowds of dwarfish, big-headed men and women dressed in drab spectral colors. Fluttering gray shadows cling beneath their chins and eyelids, the undersides of their arms. Reactive skin pigment—an adaptation generally used for shedding heat. These people are Eridanians, he thinks at first, but on the heels of that he notices other engineered features as well: the six-fingered, dual-thumbed hands of Sirius, a hint of the thick, trollish skins of Barnardean extremists. Also the occasional head of translucent blue-green hair—a photosynthetic adaptation that had started right here in Sol System, under the very nose of a disapproving Queen Tamra.

  At the moment, these strange, patchwork people are scurrying back or fleeing outright, their eyes wide on the opened gate. “Olders!” some of them cry.

  “What are they?” Bruno asks quietly.

  “They call themselves ‘human beings,'” Radmer answers without irony. “They're the people of Lune.”

  “Ah. Well. What do they call us, then? Olders?”

  “Or bandits,” Radmer agrees, “or indeceased, which is an unkind word indeed. But our numbers have faded over the centuries—especially here in Imbria, which is a hard nation to inhabit in secret. They sometimes hunt us, so we try to keep out of sight.”

  “Some of us do,” says Sidney Lyman, materializing suddenly at Bruno's side. He glares pointedly at Radmer. “Others don't ever learn, no matter how much misfortune they bring down upon the rest of us. These ‘humans' go through spurts of curiosity and outreach, seeking us out as historical reference works, which is fine except that it lays the groundwork for the next round of bloodletting. Know thy enemy, eh?

  “And of course it's worst for our own children. Immorbidity doesn't breed through; if they stay with us, we watch them grow old and die. We're like statues to them, unbending, wearing down on a timescale they can scarce perceive. But if they join the mainstream of human society, they do so as tall, five-fingered freaks. There aren't even ghettos for them, not anymore, so the freak show never ends. Many of them do become bandits, in the times when relations are poor. And our dear Radmer here is always stirring things up.”

  “Was always,” Radmer says. “It's a habit I'd long abandoned.”

  “Until these lucky days,” Lyman answers, with more than a hint of bitterness. “Now you've gone all the way to Varna, braving radiation and vacuum to bring this . . . gift to the Imbrians. How very noble of you.”

  “I like to think so, Sid. Really. If this civilization falls, what do you think will succeed it? Another Queendom? Another dark age? Do you really want to find out? Most of the time, the people of this city give little thought to our existence, except as characters in ancient songs.”

  “But now they need us, in your opinion,” Lyman mutters. “Even if their own opinions disagree.”

  “Yes,” Radmer says simply. Then, “I asked you to bring me this far, Sid, and you've done it. I won't ask any more. In fact, I'll invite you to leave before things get any worse.”

  “And abandon you here for lynching?”

  Radmer laughs humorlessly. “I've been here a hundred times, Sid, and they haven't managed it yet. I'll be fine.”

  “Meaning no offense, sir, but I think we'll wait here a minute and see what happens.”

  “Hmm. Well. Suit yourself.”

  And presently, as if called forth by this exchange, a new set of guards appear—first a dozen, then two dozen, then a hundred strong. They're dressed all in yellow, and in addition to rifles and swords they carry, here and there, the elongated wormhole pole-arms which Lyman has called “air pikes.” A few of them, Bruno notes with surprise, are quite obviously female.

  “Ah, the Dolceti,” Lyman says, in almost welcoming tones.

  “This is more serious,” Conrad murmurs to Bruno. “The nation's elite guard, trained in blindsight through the channels of fear. Don't underestimate them.”

  “I hadn't,” Bruno says, meaning it. He has no idea what any of these terms mean, or what anyone here might be capable of. Blindsight? Channels of fear? The name “Dolceti” itself is suggestive; it's about as unTongan a word as human mouths can utter, and assuming it descends from some species of Latin or Greek, it might mean “sweet” or “pleasing.” It might also mean “pain” or “chop” or “deceit,” or even “whale.”

  “You lot are under arrest,” says one of the Dolceti—not obviously marked as a leader but certainly carrying himself that way. His dialect is not quite as impenetrable as the wall guards' had been, though it does sound forced, as though he's dredging up some ancient tongue he'd learned and half forgotten.

  “Y'all near c'rect,” Conrad Mursk says back to him, in what sounds to Bruno, again, like flawless Lunish. “We're t'be escorted to the Furies.”

  “On whose authority?” the Dolceti wants to know.

  “Mine,” Radmer answers calmly. “As Third Protector of Imbria.”

  That sends a ripple of surprise through the guards. “You're Radmer?”

  “I am. Are you the captain here? Is Petro dead already?”

  “Petro retired twenty years ago, when the haunted towers came down. I'm the captain, yes.”

  “Well, Captain,” says Radmer, “I'm afraid we don't have much time, for the enemy's scouts are in yonder hills already, and will soon pin you against the sea. Come now: close the gate and do as I ask.”

  At that, the Dolceti captain moves with amazing swiftness, drawing a short sword—an ordinary one, though an air foil hangs at his side as well. In an eyeblink, he leaps forward to lay the iron blade across Radmer's neck. “I take no orders from—”

  But Radmer has stepped aside, not quickly but at just the right moment, with the ease of long practice. Centuries of practice—millennia. He's out of reach, untouchable. Then, with no greater urgency, he tosses a nearly full canteen at another Dolceti, whose rifle is aimed exactly between Radmer's eyes. The guard doesn't flinch, but he does swat the projectile aside with a viper-quick motion, letting his rifle waver for a second. Which gives Radmer enough time to draw his blitterstick without seeming to hurry.

  Intended mainly for use against robots, a blitterstick—or blitterstaff, or blitter-anything—is an ungainly and rather cruel weapon to turn against human flesh. Rarely lethal, its shifting wellstone patterns—caustic and thermally abusive, alive with pseudoatom disassembly brigades—leave puckers and burns and worse disfigurements which, in a medically impoverished environment like this one, must surely be permanent. But Radmer's only other weapon is a pistol, far more lethal.

  What happens next strikes Bruno as something like a chess opening: no one attacks, but everyone glares and sidesteps, aims and tenses, lining up for a kill. The drop of a feather will set them off, but neither side is crass or undisciplined enough to engage. Not first, not in cold blood. The Dolceti outnumber the Olders ten to one, though, and from the looks on their faces they seem to think it will be enough. To penetrate the diamond weave beneath a soft Queendom skin? To shatter the brickmail and impervium of faxborn Queendom-era bones? Probably not, but they can still drag a man down and pinch his nose shut until he smothers. And they seemed prepared to.

  “Always a pleasure, coming here,” Radmer says. “The Imbrians of Timoch
are such a fine, appreciative people.”

  For a moment, Bruno toys with the idea of unveiling his true identity. Perhaps the shock value will defuse this situation, and get the Olders inside without bloodshed. Then again, he would be a figure as remote in the Imbrians' past as Aristotle and Alexander were in his own. Would they believe him? Would they recognize his name, or understand its burden of significance? Would they even care?

  He is spared any further thought on the matter when a voice from atop the wall calls out “Glints!” in a tone that registers panic across all possible dialects. Bruno turns, looking back across the sloping plains he and Radmer have just crossed at considerable peril. And indeed, yes, the enemy is still at work out there: he sees the unmistakable glints and flashes of sunlight on superreflective impervium. Less than five kilometers away. Less than two.

  Behind him, a ripple of concern passes through the Dolceti.

  “You must attack,” Radmer says, simply and without fear. “They're only scouts, but they're right here, barely a rifle's reach from your capital gates. And if they report back, the Glimmer King will know I've been to Varna and back in a sphere of brass. He'll know I came here afterward. Assuming he doesn't know it already.”

  “Varna is in outer space,” the Dolceti captain replies, as if to a child's bad joke.

  “Aye,” says Radmer. “I had to launch from Tillspar, over Highrock Divide. All I can say is, thank God for pulleys. You might be interested in my catapult, by the way; properly cocked it can bombard any point on this planette's surface.”

  “You lie,” says a voice in the crowd somewhere.

  “Do I? For what purpose?” Radmer's tone is patient. “The enemy is that way, friend, and if you swear this man's safety”—he points at Bruno—“upon all that is holy and dear, then I will fight at your side to defend these ill-forged walls.”

  The captain is angry but not stupid; he considers the offer, considers the evidence before him. “What's special about this man?”

  “Wisdom,” Radmer answers. “And if you will not pledge his safe conduct to the Furies, then you'll have two enemies, and no friends, and soon no country to defend.”

  “Very diplomatic,” the captain grumbles, then steps forward to offer his hand. “I'm Bordi, grandson of Petro.”

  The two men shake on it, prompting Sidney Lyman to mutter, “You'll be the death of me, General. But I'll not let you enter this fight by yourself.”

  “Nor I,” says the Older named Brian, and the others grunt in assent.

  “Natan,” says Bordi, gesturing sharply to one of the taller Dolceti. “Stay here, you and Zuq. Guard this Older, this font of wisdom, until I return.”

  And with that, the Dolceti are off and running in a hooting, jabbering mob that quickly settles into three perfect V formations, like flights of geese. Not to be outdone, Lyman's Olders follow on their springy well-leather boots, quickly overtaking the Dolceti, leaping right over the “human beings'” oversized heads and dashing out in front, to form a smaller, faster V of their own.

  “Be safe,” Radmer says to Bruno, not in a kindly way but as a command. Then he, too, is sprinting toward the enemy.

  Bruno still carries Radmer's binoculars, and they're of ancient design, wellstone lenses and all. He lifts them to his eyes now, and can clearly resolve the enemy squad: another group of twenty, moving rapidly toward the city on feet so dainty and small that a baby girl's ballet slippers could easily fit them. They carry no energy weapons or projectile throwers, and except for the swords, and the black iron boxes affixed to the left sides of their gleaming faceless heads, they could easily pass for Queendom-era household robots. Valets, yes. Scullery maids. But already Bruno knows, from bitter experience, how fast and strong and remorseless these impervium soldiers really are. Delicate killers, bent on some demented form of world domination for this unseen Glimmer King.

  “If 'ts metal they want,” says the Dolceti named Natan, “I say let 'em have it. Right through the ocular sensors and out through the box. Bap! I want to be out there, old man, not wiping your withered old nose.”

  “Your captain must have great faith in you,” Bruno says, trying for some reason to be kind to this man, who seems little more than a figment of his senile imagination. Thus far he's been driven forward by curiosity alone—a desire to see this thing through to the end, like a play. None of it feels real.

  “Fester these robots,” Natan spits. He might use the word “devils” or “child molesters” in milder tones.

  “They were once our servants,” Bruno says to him, because he's not sure Natan even knows this.

  “Really?” says the younger Dolceti guard, Zuq. He's shorter, with light green hair underneath his yellow cap. “Well thank you very much. We've nothing but your Older mess to live in, and this really contributes. Thanks for the Shattering, too, and the Stormlands. And for Murdered Earth while we're at it.”

  “You're welcome,” Bruno says dryly. His grief burned out a long, long time ago, and if he starts bogging himself down now in pointless guilt, then where will it lead? Whom will it benefit? “If you had seen the Queendom in its heyday you'd understand. It seemed worth any price. Truthfully, it still does.”

  Yes, and there is a damning indictment, for he and Tamra had built, in the words of Rodenbeck, “a house of collapsium and straw.” And they knew it at the time. How could they not? It took a lifetime of determined self-deception to ignore the generation problem, the population problem, the limits of mass and energy and physical law. What had they been thinking?

  But then, in all fairness to himself, what could he, Bruno de Towaji, have done differently? He didn't create the Queendom; he was conscripted by it. And he hadn't known—couldn't have imagined—how thoroughly his early discoveries would rewrite the human story. Once collapsium was out of Pandora's hands, into the ham fists of Prometheus, Bruno had been as hard-pressed as anyone just to keep up. Perhaps if he'd guessed the future better, or raised a gentler child, or succeeded in his later research . . .

  “Well,” he says, suddenly glummer, “if my apology helps, then be assured you have it. We've left some terrible messes behind.”

  “I can't understand your prattle, old man,” says Zuq.

  “Maybe you should shut up,” Natan suggests.

  And in spite of everything, Bruno finds his neck growing warm, for no one has spoken to him like that since his earliest days at Tamra's court, and rarely then. Even the megalomaniac Marlon Sykes had been polite—often deferential—toward his fellow declarant-philander. Well, usually.

  He waves a hand at the yellow uniforms, and in his best professorial tone he advises, “Overconfidence is the chief failing of elites, boy. The robots will have no trouble finding you in these canary suits.”

  “We don't hide from our enemies,” says Zuq. “Our enemies hide from us. That's not overconfidence, it's psychology. And my rank is ‘squad leader,' not ‘boy.' This is Deceant Natan.”

  “Well,” says Bruno, “‘old man' isn't my rank, either. I won't invoke ancient titles that mean nothing here, but I was fighting robots when the Queendom itself was young.”

  And so he was. They'd made him king for it! But the Dolceti's point is taken nonetheless: he isn't a king here, nor a soldier, nor even a guest. If anything, he's a sort of commandeered munition, hauled from the mothballs of history and pressed back into service. He can't really imagine what knowledge Radmer thinks he possesses, to turn the tide of this war. His Royal Override has already failed to halt the enemy's advances, though in fairness to Radmer it did give them pause. They do carry within them some vague memory of the old allegiances.

  Bruno raises the binoculars again, and sees to his mild surprise that Lyman's Olders have already engaged the enemy, with Radmer and the canary-colored Dolceti not far behind. The robots fight well—they fight perfectly, with the fluidity of dancers and the cool precision of clockwork. Their swords flash in elaborate sweeping arcs, as if spelling out glyphs in the afternoon air. But oddly enough, the Dolc
eti are faster. And the Olders are certainly more cunning, and anyway the robots are—for once!—badly outnumbered.

  One of them manages to raise an antenna—the robotic equivalent of a scream for help—but it's quickly cut down by the swords of human beings. The mast is a telescoping wand of impervium, theoretically unbreakable, but it isn't all one piece, and everyone seems to know where to hack, where the vulnerable joints are. Meanwhile, the box on the robot's head explodes in a hail of metal bullets. The other robots are down just as quickly, and the only casualty Bruno can see is a single Dolceti guard, holding her throat while a spray of blood jets between her fingers, turning her yellow tunic bright red. She looks calm, but she'll be dead within the minute.

  And Bruno takes this as a bad omen indeed, for if twenty robots can strike a blow against the elite guard of this world's strongest nation—with Queendom technology assisting, no less!—then what will happen when the robots return in their hundreds of thousands? In their millions? Radmer has been right all along: without a miracle, the city of Timoch doesn't stand a chance.

  Damn Conrad Mursk anyway, he can't help thinking. This isn't the first time the boy has swept into Bruno's life, turning everything on its head. Even in the days of the Queendom, Mursk had always had an uncanny talent for trouble.

  book one

  the

  barnardyssey

  chapter one

  in which the arrest of a drifter

  proves troublesome

  The ship had seen hard use over long years; her sides were streaked with burns and gouges, with dead spots where the hull's wellstone plating had given out, leaving man-sized squares of inert silicon. She was one of the old starships, no doubt about that: a round needle thirty meters across and seven hundred and thirty long, capped at either end by a faintly glowing meshwork of blue-green dots: the ertial shields—essentially a foam of tiny black holes, emitting weakly in the Cerenkov bands. The ship was otherwise dark, her running lights extinguished. There was no sign of her photosail; the compartments that should hold it were open to vacuum, their doors torn away. The streaking patterns suggested this had happened long ago.