by Wil McCarthy
“I'll check my schedule,” Brown answered carefully. “Meanwhile, with your permission, I'll recheck the status of fleet maneuvers.”
“Later,” Tamra suggested. “I prefer your attention to be more tightly focused.” Which was true, for she did value Brown's tactical opinion. He was without doubt her second or perhaps third choice for the job. And anyway the “fleet” right now consisted of just Malu'i and a pair of lightly armed and largely inconsequential grappleships. There were other assets en route, but the closest of them was still six light-minutes downsystem of here. A really high-powered nasen beam could of course strike from that range, but not with precision. Not without absurdly high risk to the two hundred million human beings onboard Perdition. So for the moment, Malu'i was effectively alone in the conflict, and must act carefully indeed, or else wait two days for backup.
To Xmary the queen said, “Have you formulated a plan of attack, Captain?”
Xmary looked up from the console in her armrest. “Working on it, Majesty.” Then, to Brown's Information officer, “Where's that blueprint, Lieutenant? I need to know exactly how much antimatter is in there, and exactly where.”
“That's difficult, ma'am. I can show you mass concentrations and annihilation signatures, but anything else is guesswork.”
“Deductive guesswork,” said Xmary. “But if you lack the necessary skills, then forward me your data.”
“Aye, Captain,” Information replied, suitably chastened. “My preliminary analysis is also appended.”
“Thank you. Ah. This is good. Your Highness, I propose a three-pronged attack. We can litter the space in front of Perdition with radar-bright proximity mines. We'll dial them to minimum yield—they shouldn't even penetrate the aft nav armor—but Doxar won't know that. He'll have to assume the worst, and that will tie up his propulsion. He's flying backwards, right? Decelerating toward the planet he covets. He'll be juking laterally, and holding the gamma-drive exhaust out in front of him to clear the path. And even so, he's likely to suffer a near miss or two. Give him something to worry about.”
“Hmm,” Tamra said, considering that. “And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile, we launch a salvo of ertially shielded grapplets, minus the warheads. At maximum acceleration, they should reach Perdition in under thirty minutes. Targeting the drive section, one hit could slice the magnetic choke clean off, with almost no collateral damage.”
A grapplet was a munition whose only propulsion was a gravity laser. It fell to the target under its own artificial pull, and if the grapplet was ertially shielded then it fell very quickly indeed. Malu'i only had five such weapons in its inventory, though, and could produce no more, for their shields were of collapsium and could not be faxed.
“Those are unstealthed munitions,” protested Admiral Brown. “Their release will give away our position.”
“Briefly,” Xmary conceded. “But we'll maintain evasive maneuvers throughout the deployment, under full invisibility. The last time I did this I was inside the chromosphere of a star, where heat dissipation and signature management were nearly impossible. This'll be a lot easier, for Perdition, on her pillar of flame, cannot hide from us at all.”
“Hmm.”
“The third prong is right out of the navy textbook: a nasen beam to the external engine assemblies. We have to be very careful not to destabilize the aye-ma'am plumbing, or the whole ship will go up. But again, it should be possible to take a scalpel to their magnetic choke, after which the failsafes will simply shut down the drive. Uncontrolled reactions should be limited to a few kilotons—hardly noticeable.”
This all sounded plausible enough to Tamra, but just to be safe she turned to Brown and said, “Opinion?”
“Standard doctrine calls for a breaching of the enemy's hull, Majesty,” Brown replied at once. “However, given the refugee status of this opponent, Perdition's crew is unlikely to be backed up on any sort of durable medium. Any deaths we inflict will therefore be permanent. Under these assumptions, then, Captain Li Weng's plan strikes me as both humane and effective.”
Xmary added, “We'd need to launch the first two waves now, Majesty. There isn't time for debate—not unless you're willing to erode our positional advantage.”
“Hmm.” If there was one thing in the universe Tamra hated, it was snap decisions. Still, sometimes they were necessary, and delaying them was itself a snap decision. “Very well. You may proceed, Captain.”
The appropriate orders were given, and within the minute both salvos were away.
“There is one additional danger,” Xmary noted. “There could be spies aboard Malu'i who are capable of revealing our position. This information is of limited value to Doxar, given ten minutes of round-trip signal lag”—She checked a reading, and then amended—“sorry, nine minutes' lag. But it would give him a fighting chance. With all that aye-ma'am onboard, he's got a lot of energy to throw around.”
Admiral Brown coughed out a chuckle at that. He was a good man, and a kindly one, but Tamra had the distinct impression he enjoyed catching out his replacement in a statement like that. “You hardly need worry, madam. This crew—this exact crew, save for yourself—has served together for centuries. We're as much a family as we are a military unit. If there were criminals or Fatalists, turncoats or sympathizers among us, we should know it before now.”
“Of course, sir,” Xmary said.
More was said and done after that, but there was an air of busywork about it, until finally the fifteen-minute mark drew near.
“Do you suppose they'll go quietly?” Tamra asked Brett Brown.
“They're overmatched,” Brown said, as though that answered the question.
“They're desperate,” Xmary countered. “They're prepared to die, to kill, to cripple our networks. You can't imagine the conditions they're leaving behind.”
And as if in agreement, Doxar's face reappeared in the hollie. “Y'all seem not to comprehend. Possibly we'm explained it badly. You're thinking, ‘We can survive without Nescog.' Maybe so. But we can break it and send the pieces tumbling. Very dangerous.”
“Just divert your course,” Tamra said to him, firmly and reasonably.
But was there time for that message to travel back and forth? She'd given a deadline, and could not now retract it. She killed the hollie and asked Xmary, “Time to nasen beam firing?”
“Ten minutes, Highness. That's all the grace period they get.”
There was no point wishing it otherwise; the great-grandchildren of Sol had returned, broken and furious, blaming Tamra for all that had befallen them. And shouldn't they? Who, if not she, had crafted their fate? Who else could possibly have changed it? And now here she was, preparing to punish them—perhaps to kill them—for her own failures.
Her anger vanished in a sudden wash of guilt. Her sense of duty remained as strong as ever, but her sense of what her duty was had come unglued. How did it come to this? What was she to do?
Of Brown and Li Weng she asked, “What are the odds we'll blow up that ship?”
“Unknown,” Brown said without delay. “The number of variables—”
“Make an estimate,” Tamra instructed. Then wondered: did her people even know how?
“Thirty percent,” said the governor-captain, who was herself a refugee from the stars. A victim of Tamra's failed policies, of imperfect data and shortsighted advisors. Of simple hubris.
Tamra nodded, absorbing that. “I see. And the chance that we'll kill at least one person? Permanently, irrevocably? For no greater crime than the seeking of asylum?”
“That's all but certain,” Xmary said quietly.
Tamra brooded, and would have wept if she didn't still need her face for negotiating. She'd been fifteen when they made her Queen of All Things. An orphan, grieving for her drunken, foolish parents. Was it any wonder she'd made mistakes? How could she not? She grieved now—she ached for that lonely girl, on whom such burdens were heaped. What a bitter cup to drink from!
To Xmary sh
e said, “Tell me if that ship changes course. If they twitch, if they move at all, I want to know about it. Immediately.”
“Aye, Majesty.”
“Time to nasen firing?”
“Six minutes.”
A while later: “Time?”
“Four minutes.”
Later still, Xmary piped up with a guarded, “Perdition is turning, Majesty.”
“Oh, thank God,” Tamra said, feeling suddenly clammy and limp. “Stand down all weapons and prepare to destealth.”
But Xmary remained rigid in her captain's chair. “Ma'am, the maneuver could be defensive. It could be offensive. It could mean anything.”
“Yes, yes. Is their drive beam pointed through the heart of civilization?”
A pause, then, “No.”
“Does it impinge on any habitats?”
“No.”
“Then we've room to de-escalate this encounter. Stand down all weapons and prepare to escort Perdition into high orbit over Lune.”
“But Majesty,” Brown protested. “The economy—”
“Will muddle along somehow. Stand down all weapons, Xmary. That's a decree.” Then: “Navywide transmission: Royal Override, all channels, all devices. Cease hostilities and escort Perdition to Lune.”
History records this command as Tamra's greatest—and final—mistake, and perhaps that is so. But erring on the side of compassion had always been her way, and if nothing lasts forever, then at least a queen should die as she has lived.
Was there a spy onboard Malu'i? A saboteur? Was there perhaps some superweapon onboard Perdition, whose design and function has since been forgotten? In any case, these words were Tamra's last, for Malu'i exploded three seconds thereafter, in a flash of light so brilliant it was visible to telescopes as far away as Eridani itself.
And then the Nescog fell.
The last official act of the Queendom of Sol was a simple radio message eleven hours later, from a King Bruno mad with grief. “The speed of light is hard upon us, my friends. God forgive us our sins. I cannot rule, with confidence, any region larger than the Earth and moon together. Full legal authority is hereby transferred to the regional governors for the duration of this emergency. Royal Override on all channels, all devices. Be brave, and uphold the ideals for which we've stood.”
And so they did, those citizens of the Queendom, for the bravely fought decades it took the shattered Nescog—nearly a trillion miniature black holes, equaling the mass of several Earths—to alight upon the planets of Sol, one by one, and crush them to oblivion.
Accipe signaculum doni Spiritus Sancti.
“A denouement gives flight to mere incident,” Wenders Rodenbeck wrote in the classic Past Pie Season, “freeing us at last from the rigid rail of time. Berries wither, leaves fall, and the mourning dove bows her head, with a song of distant spring beating frozen in her breast.”
book three
twilight over astaroth
chapter fifteen
in which the plight of a
world is examined
“In light of your past service to the nation of Imbria,” says the woman named Danella Mota, “we are prepared to forgive the excesses of your men on the ramparts today.”
They are deep within the city of Timoch, on the hard-pressed world of Lune, where three women—with shadowy Eridanian faces and six-fingered Sirian hands—apparently rule over humanity's strongest remaining nation-state.
“The Furies are most generous,” Radmer answers, with a bow of the head that is surely calculated for maximum ambiguity. Is he being surly or ironic? Is he partly or wholly sincere? Bruno can't tell.
A partial answer comes when the second woman, Pine Chadwir, admonishes him, “That term is no longer considered polite, General. We are, as always, the Board of Regents of the Imbrian Nation.”
“Ah, yes. My failing memory is abetted by your grandmother's sense of humor in these matters, Madam Regent.”
But “Furies” is a good nickname for these three old women, who command a quarter of Lune's surface from this very room, the Silver Chamber. They are seated on a dais ringed by aides and pages, scribes and whispering advisors, but the room's three primary lights—halide-filament vacuum bulbs, Bruno thinks—point straight down at them, with a smaller, dimmer bulb casting a cone of yellow around himself and Radmer.
Behind them, the Olders Sidney Lyman and Brian Romset—who were permitted to accompany Radmer as bodyguards—exude an air of angry but fearless distrust. And in counterpoint, a dozen Dolceti guards in canary-yellow uniforms loom quietly in the shadows behind the dais, looking grudgingly respectful but ready for anything. Dead before you hit the ground, villain, their looks seem to say, though if it came to that Bruno could probably take down one or two of them himself before succumbing to any serious injury.
But all things considered, the chamber is exceedingly quiet, and the lighting makes it seem dreamlike as well, and the seated ladies mythic in proportion and demeanor. All they need is a spindle, loom, and scissors to complete the effect. But out of courtesy they speak the Old Tongue—essentially Queendom-standard English—and Radmer, with a different kind of courtesy, does the same. That makes them seem more human, and anyway Bruno is well familiar with the psychological tricks a leadership can employ to enhance its mystique, its air of natural authority. The Queendom was founded on these principles, long before he'd been drafted as its king.
“Do enlighten us, Radmer, with your reason for this accostment,” says the third Fury, whose name Bruno can no longer remember from the introductions. Sprain? Spirulina? Something like that. “It may surprise you to learn we've an invasion to repel.”
“The very reason I'm here,” Radmer tells her, “for I watched Nubia fall to the Glimmer King's armies. I know very well what Imbria faces in the coming weeks.”
“Our guards report you've distinguished yourself in clashes against the enemy.”
“Aye, madam, on Aden Bluff and outside your gates, and in Nubia before that.”
“We also had a string of reports out of Highrock. That you supervised the construction of a very large catapult? Using the Tillspar bridge as its lath?”
“That's so, madam.”
“And this catapult is capable of flinging a hollow canister completely off the planette?”
“Not to escape velocity, madam. The capsule falls back again unless its rockets are fired. But yes. The VLC can also bombard any point on Lune, though its accuracy is measured in kilometers, and its firing time in days. If we knew the location of the Glimmer King's palace—assuming such a place exists at all—then with a hundred shots we might have a hope of hitting it. But I doubt we'll be granted the time such an experiment would require.”
“Indeed,” says Pine Chadwir. Then she pauses, looking apologetic, as though her next words will sound insane. “But one of our agents observed you climbing into such a canister, being fired at the heavens and not returning during the three days of his observation. Is there any truth to this?”
“Aye, madam. The Imbrian astronomer Rigby believed there was someone living on Varna.”
“The slowest moon. And also the most distant?”
“Correct, although there was a farther moon in days gone by. And since traffic to Varna ended with the Shattering, any population there was likely to include Olders from the Iridium Days or before. Specifically, Rigby was of the opinion that the group was small—possibly a single individual.”
Understanding blooms in the eyes of the Furies. “This man?” They point at Bruno, studying him closely for the first time.
“I'm called Ako'i,” Bruno tells them. Not a name but a title: Professor.
This prompts some surprise on their parts. “He can speak!” And this is no idle exclamation, for Bruno passed the time on Varna as a kind of sleepwalker, repeating the same few tasks over and over again, day in and day out. Unaware of the passing centuries—unaware of anything, including himself. Beyond his first few weeks on that neutronium island, he can't rememb
er a single thing until Radmer's arrival.
Indeed, until a few hours after that, for the sleepwalking did not immediately subside. He had spoken—even held fragmentary conversations—but either his brain's neocortex had not fully engaged, or else its hippocampus had been sluggish about laying down new memories. “Neurosensory dystropia,” they called it. Or “maroon sickness,” or “zombitis,” which wasn't even a proper word. In extreme cases it was irreversible.
In declining that final trip from Varna to the chaos of an overpopulated Lune, Bruno had been trying, in a way, to draw an end to his long life. But he hadn't really understood what awaited him. Now the image makes him shudder: the “indeceased,” wandering like animate ghosts, wearing grooves in the countryside with their feet. According to Radmer, whole villages had been known to succumb, going blankly through the motions of life until their crops eventually failed and they starved.
“I can reason,” he assures the Furies. “Though perhaps not well.”
They study him some more, furrowing and clucking. “Radmer, dear, this is a season of ill omens. The sun has been kicked twice, fair Nubia has fallen, and rather than fleeing, or pledging your sword to our defense, you've brought us an old man. Your ways have always been strange—since the world's very creation, we're told—but this is truly baffling. What do you seek from us?”
“The sun has been kicked?” Bruno repeats, wondering what such a thing could mean.
“A metaphor for eclipse,” says Radmer. “Murdered Earth transits the sun, which appears to explode and then re-form. Lesser kickings occur when one of the other murdered planets passes in front of something.”