by Nick Webb
“You were right,” the voice said.
About what? Nhean was about to ask. Then he realized the voice wasn’t talking to him at all.
“I told you,” a female voice said. Something was wrong with it, but Nhean couldn’t figure out what. “Your Mr. Dorian was very thorough, just as he was with the other human. But these two are unexpectedly obtuse.”
“Even to you?” the first voice asked. It sounded at once curious and repulsed.
Hanging by his collar, struggling weakly against the handcuffs as he dripped water into the bucket in front of him, Nhean tried to think who he might be hearing.
“Even to me.” The woman sounded annoyed. “It was harder than it should have been to bend the drone to my will on Vesta. And in the end, I failed—and he destroyed Vesta because of it. It has been near-impossible to get anything useful out of him since.” She paused. “I wonder if I broke him,” she added thoughtfully.
Ka’sagra. Lying about Parees and Vesta. She’d been the one who ordered Parees to destroy Vesta and kill millions, and now she was blaming it all on him. Nhean scrabbled around and dove in the direction of the voice as his captor’s hands slipped off his collar. No one had been expecting him to try to run toward his captors, but he didn’t get very far in any case. James Dorian landed heavily on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs, and hauled his head back by the hair for him to look up into Ka’sagra’s alien eyes. Beside her….
Celestine. Of course. Nhean felt his lip curl.
Ka’sagra did not do anything so uncultured as jump. Her mother superior mask never slipped. “Of course, you were a surprise, too,” she observed to Nhean.
“Given up trying to save the world?” Nhean snarled at Celestine. “Figured you’d work with her to blow the whole thing up?”
Dorian’s gun—or something similarly blunt—struck the back of his head, and Nhean saw stars.
“That’s enough, Dorian.” Celestine sounded genuinely aggrieved. He crouched down by Nhean and laid a fatherly hand on one wet sleeve. “Have you acted all this time out of fear of Ka’sagra? Why did you not ask me for the truth, my son? I would have explained our larger goal to you without hesitation.”
He was so sincere, and so calm, that Nhean felt a flicker of doubt.
Then he looked up into Ka’sagra’s dead, mask-like eyes, and knew he had been right about her. Whatever story she had spun, she had spun it well. Her hooks had been sunk into Celestine long ago, and no words Nhean could speak would change the pope’s mind.
But he had to try.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “She’s the one who destroyed their star. She thought they would all die in their home system and reach ascension, as she calls it. But she failed. And now she’s been working to set us against each other and destroy each other since the exodus. She’s sending bombs to the sun as soon as she … figures something out.” Honestly, he had no idea what she was waiting for. He was just praying to all gods that Dawn figured out what the hell it was in time.
Celestine looked at Ka’sagra, but she was far too clever to give herself away. She stared down at Nhean in an exquisite performance of sympathy.
“Mr. Tang,” began Celestine, “pardon my vulgarity, but how the bloody hell do you destroy a star?”
Ka’sagra smiled that dead smile again. “Tel’rabim’s lies are many,” she said. “And they are inventive. Some are so outlandish that they might even be true. How he came up with this one, though—” She shook her head at Celestine. And now Nhean noticed Worthlin in the background. His face was … uncomfortable. He probably wasn’t used to seeing such violence. Mormons were a squeamish lot.
“It’s a death cult. She’s not leading a humanitarian group. It’s a fucking death cult,” Nhean croaked through his ragged throat.
Worthlin scoffed. “Vulgarity is the refuge of a weak mind. And … cult. That insult has been hurled at my people for over two hundred years. Cult. Please. Give us a break, Mr. Tang. And now you hurl it at this woman here? She may be other, my dear friend, but she has helped us. Immensely.”
Nhean’s eyes went from the scowling Worthlin to the beatifically smiling Ka’sagra. “Then what do you think her plans are for these stolen ships, hm? Enlighten me.”
“Good heavens, man, you already know the answer to that,” said Worthlin. “It’s what we’ve been telling you all along. She’s helping us protect all our colonies. All of them, not just a few chosen by Walker. And when Telestine society sees our resolve, and our cooperation with the daughters of ascension, they’ll force Tel’rabim to end this senseless war.”
Nhean grunted an ironic chuckle. “That’s your grand plan? Good God, you’re stupider than I thought.”
Ka’sagra intervened. “Let this man rest. He has been fighting for his survival—under false pretenses, yes, but surely humans are not so cruel as to punish the truly misguided. We must find a way to convince him of the truth—then there will be no need for methods such as these. He will tell us what we wish to know.”
Celestine hesitated, but he nodded over Nhean’s head to James Dorian.
Nhean landed on the metal floor with a thump and a groan.
“Do you think we have time—”
“Of course we have time,” Ka’sagra said soothingly. “Come. We will talk. I have the twelve ships I need. But I worry that … The Dawning, as they call her, may be trying to betray us. I believe she is nudging Tel’rabim into a final confrontation with us over Earth. All the signs point to it. We will discern what has been done. And we will undo it.”
She let the two men precede her out of the room, however, and at the doorway, she turned to smile at Nhean. I’ll be back alone, her smile said. What you can conceal with words, you cannot conceal in your thoughts. I will break you.
What in the world was she up to? What did she want? Why wasn’t she just launching her bombs into the sun immediately, instead of all this drama with the Funders?
What were they after? Twelve ships?
They’d been interrogating him about the remains of the Exile Fleet. Something about those ships was important enough for Ka’sagra to put her apocalyptic plan on hold.
And now talk of Dawn. At the mention of her supposed plans, Nhean immediately knew that was part of Ka’sagra’s plan—she was projecting. Hinting at her own goal. She was goading Tel’rabim and humanity into a final battle over Earth. But why? Why now? And what was Ka’sagra doing with exactly twelve ships in the meantime?
What was it? What was he missing?
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Earth
London
Rychenkov is coming for you.
The thought appeared out of nowhere, words that made no sense, and Pike sat bolt upright, spilling Walker off his shoulder. She gave a sleepy groan of complaint. They’d holed up back in the shop called Boots, but unfortunately, the bedding was rather lacking. A few old cushions they’d found after their … extra-curricular escapade.
He hadn’t felt that satisfied in years.
“What is it?” She was rubbing her eyes.
“I don’t … know.”
Rychenkov is coming to get you. The thought was patient.
“Dawn?” He looked around himself, feeling more than a little crazy. Walker was certainly looking at him like he was.
He got the distinct sense from the frustration that suddenly ran through his mind that he didn’t need to speak aloud. Suddenly the mental image of Dawn rolling her eyes heavenwards to ask for patience flickered at the edge of his vision.
Did you find what we need? He took a moment to try to send the thought.
She was already responding; she had sensed his question the moment he thought it. I have a direct link into their archives. Yes … yes, I think so.
“Pike, seriously, what the hell is going on?” Walker was staring at him worriedly, and he realized he’d been making faces to go with the thoughts he wasn’t saying aloud.
It took a moment to remember how to speak out loud. Was
this how Dawn felt, all the time? No wonder she was a mute for all those weeks. “Rychenkov is coming to get us,” he explained.
“And the rest of our crew? We can’t just—”
“She says it’s important.” He looked at her, and then winced as a series of images crashed into his mind. “Bombs. A weird sphere thing. Ships, all networked. No, not networked. Specifically cut off from a network. Ships on a twelve-pointed sphere, one, five, five, one—oh, God, it’s the iridium bombs. She’s sending the bombs into the sun, she just needed ships that she could control without being found. She needed…” He listened to the thoughts tumbling through his mind, and shook his head in frustration. “She needed twelve ships, for twelve bombs. Each will deliver to a different place. And … something about the networking … detonate at the same time, twelve magnetohydrodynamic thermonuclear blast fronts converging at the same point from twelve directions, hyper-resonant constructive interference … good Lord, girl, I don’t even know what these words mean….”
He could practically hear the girl’s sound of frustration. Human ships, she told him. They had to be human, otherwise a Telestine could stop them. They had to be linked to a very particular kind of network, one Ka’sagra could work with but no one else could. One constructed out of drones themselves.
She wasn’t leaving anything to chance this time, said the girl, quite clearly, in his head. She won’t make the same mistakes she made in their home system.
Can you stop them?
No. The thought carried every piece of despair she felt about that herself. It was impossible, they’d be piloted by Telestines and therefore not susceptible to her control. They’d be on human ships, hooked to computers that were different from the type she could manipulate remotely. She knew some tricks, yes, but not enough—not nearly enough.
She wasn’t strong enough. After all her preparation and training and Nhean’s work on her, she still wasn’t strong enough. She couldn’t reach that far. She needed to be MORE. The thought came into his head like a scream, and he found himself trying to soothe her, wanting to take her in his arms and tell her it would be all right, that he’d stop the ships himself if it was the last thing he did.
You need to go with Rychenkov and get to those ships. The thought was strangely dispassionate. She was taking refuge in logic. I’ll stay here, and see if I can find anything that will help you. But you have to go now. Take the admiral, you’ll need her ships. Don’t worry about the rest of the Intrepid’s survivors—I’ll redirect the Telestine patrols to avoid them.
“Wait, you’re staying here? No. Absolutely not!” He didn’t even realize he was shouting the words out loud rather than thinking them.
Walker was looking at him like he was crazy. But Dawn seemed to have heard him anyway, and her voice flowed over his mind. I’ll be fine. Trust me. We don’t have time, my friend. Go. Stop Ka’sagra. Save us all. Hold on … shit. Nhean needs me.
She vanished from his head just as they heard the sonic boom burst above them.
“That’s Rychenkov. Come on.” Pike grabbed Walker’s hand.
She yanked her fingers out of his. “Pike. What is it?”
“Ka’sagra has everything she needs,” he said bluntly. “And depending on whether she’s sent her ships toward the sun yet, we have almost no time to stop her. So come on.”
They burst out from the shop onto the debris-strewn street.
She made a motion out towards the river, in the direction she supposed Wales was. “What about the rest of them? I can’t leave my people here!”
“She swore they’d be safe. Come on!”
And he took off running for the intersection where he saw the Aggy II would land.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Near Earth
EFS Pius
Brig
The door closed behind Ka’sagra and Nhean lay panting on the cold floor. Hope, once something that had burned hot inside him, now seemed very far away. It was an emotion that had nothing to do with his current situation. He was lost.
Perversely, he was also thirsty. He struggled up and made for the vat of water, walking awkwardly on his knees. He lowered his face to the water to sip.
“I don’t think she actually knows how to break you,” a voice said.
Nhean coughed, choked, plunged face down in the water, and only barely managed to get himself up again. He stared across the room to where Parees sat, looking a bit bewildered.
He’d forgotten Parees was here. Oxygen deprivation did things to your brain, as it turned out.
“Oh?” he said finally.
“She isn’t very good with human thoughts,” Parees said. “There are some parallels between human and Telestine minds, things that are easy to exploit: resource hoarding, sexual desire, anger.”
Nhean stared at him.
“But if you think about it,” Parees said, “she’s never quite managed to get humans to do what she wants them to do. Tel’rabim’s the one she always succeeds against. She couldn’t ever get Walker to be as foolhardy as she wanted her to be.”
Nhean began to laugh. He was still hoarse from the water and it hurt, but he couldn’t stop. “Walker was far more foolhardy than….” He sighed. “Not important.”
There was a silence. “What makes you think she won’t be able to break me? With a concerted effort….” He was imagining the feel of long fingers combing through his brains, and the thought made him want to throw up.
He was so afraid that he felt lightheaded. No one was coming for him. Panic rose up, choking him, and he only barely heard Parees’s voice in the background.
“—almost enough to fight her,” Parees was saying sadly. “I had stopped thinking like one of them. She didn’t know what to make of me.”
Nhean looked over at him.
“But she figured it out,” Parees said sadly. “I felt her get around everything in my mind and my finger just squeezed on the trigger and then he was dead.”
He was speaking of Essa’s death, Nhean suddenly realized. He bowed his head. After all the betrayal, all the weeks he had wanted to find Parees and scream, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ all he could think now was that he had somehow failed this young man.
Just like he’d failed Maria Hollywood. How he’d failed everyone that ever depended on him.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, dammit. He tried to pull himself together.
At some point, Parees had decided to become abandon his programming. He had tried to become not a drone, but a human. And Nhean had never noticed the shift, had never thought to ask any of the questions that might have led them to the truth.
The sound of keys in the lock made them both turn.
“Be human,” Parees hissed desperately to himself.
But the person who came into the room was not anyone they recognized. The man walked with a strange, jerky gait, and fumbled with the keys to open the cell door. His eyes did not quite focus as he strode into the cell and began to unlock Nhean’s handcuffs, and when he spoke, the tone of his voice was perceptibly off.
“You do not have much time,” he said in that strange, forced voice. “The Funders’ Fleet will move soon. You must take a shuttle. Walker needs your help to stop Ka’sagra’s ships.”
Only then did Nhean understand. “Dawn?”
“Yes.” The man stated the word without inflection. He pulled a knife, still wet with blood, out of his pocket and passed it to Nhean. “If anyone questions you in the halls, kill them. Take a shuttle. Approach the human fleet at magnetic north. Tell them Pike and Walker will join them shortly.”
“And you?” Nhean asked the drone.
“I will stay here.” The words were disconcerting in their jerkiness, and he couldn’t tell if she meant that she’d keep the drone there in the cell, or if she herself would remain on Earth. The drone moved to Parees and began to unlock his handcuffs. “I can’t stop the ships she has now. You have time while the Funders meet together to decide your fate. But not much. You must go now. There are se
curity drones outside. They will accompany you to the shuttle bay. It should give you a cover story.”
She was as good as her word. They left the drone who unlocked them in the cell, staring vaguely at nothing, and hurried through the hallways with the four other security drones that Dawn had somehow, miraculously, managed to reach out and control all at once.
Her abilities were growing quickly now. She was … becoming. Becoming something far greater than Tel’rabim ever imagined, most likely.
Nhean had helped design these ships, and he knew the layouts better than any save the engineers. Between service hatches and back corridors, they hardly needed the main hallways at all. When they did use the thoroughfares, most people either glanced at them with mild interest, or turned their faces. Those would be drones, most likely—Dawn must be manipulating every single drone on the ship.
A gunshot.
One of the drones to Nhean’s right collapsed, spurting blood from his chest.
Two more gunshots, two more drones down.
Nhean finally caught a glimpse of the hallway ahead of them where a man with a gun took aim at the final drone, who was now trying to push him into a side passage.
Dorian.
“I thought you’d try something,” the man said. He fired again.
The last drone was dead. Shot through the head.
He must stop thinking of these people as drones. They are people, dammit. Just like Dawn. Just like Hollywood and Parees.
“Come out, Tang,” said Dorian. Nhean glanced across the corridor and saw that Parees had ducked down the opposite side passage.
“I’ll pass, thank you,” Nhean replied.
He heard Dorian’s footsteps down the corridor, approaching the intersection that led off to the two side passages. Nhean tried one of the doors. Locked, of course, and probably keyed to not accept his palm-print. “You’re just prolonging the inevitable. The Funders Circle is meeting right now, and they’re going to pronounce you guilty.”