Pirate Sun (24 page)

I am unsure of your resources, so offer my own. I am Martin Shambles, proprietor of the Computing Sticks shop on Bower Lane. I would tell you where to drop letters to reach my network but we are out of time. I am willing to act openly for I think everything will be decided in the next twenty-four hours. Send someone to speak to me. I have people, money, arms, and equipment.

He read over what he’d written, then shivered. For years he’d tended this little store, making a modest income and enjoying the work and his customers, all the while coordinating the cells of an organization dedicated to the restoration of the nation of Aerie. Many of his operatives had been captured, but the network had held and nobody had ever traced it back to him.

Folding and sealing the letter, he threw off the dressing gown and headed for the door.

If he was caught in one of the curfew sweeps then everything he’d worked for would be ended in one stroke. He hesitated before opening the front door, then sighed and rooted behind the shop’s counter for the pistol he kept there. It was covered in dust. He slipped it into an outside pocket of his coat and returned to the door.

Voices were coming from the alley. Evidently the prisoner exchange had only just happened.

“Richard Reiss! I can’t believe it!”

Martin Shambles peered into the shadows, where a young man—apparently the newly exchanged prisoner—was embracing a white-haired man with a port-stain birthmark on his cheek. The pilot’s soldiers had left the alley; it was just the admiralty men now, standing in a huddle outside Martin’s shop.

The newly released officer stepped back and stared searchingly into Reiss’s face. “The soldiers just told me that the admiral’s been captured. Is it true?”

Reiss looked shocked, then crestfallen. “Ah,” he said. “Probably. Probably. We had him, Travis. We traveled with him for long days to get here…and then that home guard witch, Antaea Argyre, took him from us. No doubt she’s turned him over to the pilot for the reward.”

“No, she didn’t.” Martin had spoken without thinking. They looked over at him, startled at his sudden presence. “They just took her away, too. Strange reward if she’d turned in the admiral, no?”

Reiss frowned, his port-stain birthmark stretching grotesquely. “Then what happened?”

“I know the young lady in question,” said Martin after a moment’s hesitation. He owed her some defense, he’d decided. “She came to me tonight, but the soldiers were already here and arrested her. She said the admiral was in danger—something about Rush asteroid…”

“But she kidnapped him from us!” Reiss glared at Martin. “Are you saying someone took him from her?”

“Evidently,” he said slowly, “she did give him up, but not to the pilot. She seems to have felt great remorse having done so. That’s why she came to me,” he said, realization dawning. “The poor thing…”

“If the pilot’s got him, we have to act fast,” Reiss said to Travis. “Come on, lads,” he said to the other admiralty rebels, “the boy and I have acted in good faith. We brought you Kestrel! You can see that Travis here knows me. Now is the time to let me into your inner circles. I
have
to talk to your leadership!”

“As do I.”

This stopped them all. They turned to look at Martin Shambles. He shrugged. “The time for masks is over. Your side is going to need the help of my side. I want the admiral freed, and I can help you do it.”

“And who are you, exactly?” asked Richard.

“I’m a friend of Hayden Griffin.”

The name had a definite effect on Travis and Richard—their eyes widened, they looked at each other, and Travis swore. Then both of them started asking questions at once.

Martin laughed, holding up a hand. “You need to deliver your news to your own people. Do that, return here. Say, two hours? Then we’ll sit down and, maybe for the first time, all of us will know each other.”

Without waiting for a reply he turned and walked away into the shadows of curfew. He heard them whispering excitedly together, then they drifted away. If they had an ounce of sense, they’d be waiting here when he got back.

He smoothed the note in his pocket, speculating. With the right bills in the right hands, his little letter would fly to its destination. With luck, before the night was out he would know who, or what, the bankers were.

FACES SMEARED PAST
Chaison, the words dripping from their mouths following a few seconds later. The whole world was melting and running like wax, except for the lights—city lights crystalline and bright, colors solid as stones.

He’d had a fever once after a sword-cut had become infected. Then, as now, Chaison had known he was delirious. Now, as then, knowing didn’t help in the slightest.

His mind still rang from what the false Telen Argyre had done to him. The metallic tang of her thoughts and memories lay all through him, a soiled feeling he was afraid would never leave. He turned frantically from thought to thought, memory to memory, looking for something—anything—that might just be his and not tainted by her invasion. He turned round and round inside himself while cool night air washed over his face to the thrum of a boat’s engines.

“—he recover?” That was Gonlin, the leader. Who was he talking about?

Artificial nature is here.
The conclusion was inescapable. Having seen inside the false Argyre’s mind, Chaison knew what was in store for Virga. Everything touched by A.N. must become a tool, a product, a commodity or a consumable. A rose couldn’t be left to be a rose, it must be transformable into a lily or an orchid at the whim of its owner. Even experience and memory had to be made flexible, interchangeable. The whole world must be consumed.

It was obvious now that the woman who had taught Chaison about the technology called “radar” had never been human. Aubri Mahallan had arrived in Slipstream, a vagabond traveler claiming to be from the “tourist station” that perched on the outer skin of Virga. Venera had taken an interest in her, and that interest had led his wife to “discover” the location of the key to Candesce. In retrospect, Mahallan must have led her to the discovery. Mahallan had seemed ordinary enough—and she probably thought she was. It was likely, though, that she had never been born, nor been a child, her personality instead assembled out of open-source components somewhere in the roaring data infinity of Vega. It almost didn’t matter, until you realized that instead of a human subconscious, the unconscious processes that had driven her had an agenda completely disconnected to her conscious dreams and hopes. The false Telen Argyre’s mind made it clear to Chaison: under artificial nature, a human consciousness rarely existed as more than a mask over something alien, unforgiving, and cold.

He just hoped that Aubri never had to find that out about herself.

These few thoughts, strung together for a few seconds, seemed to stabilize Chaison’s world. He blinked and realized that he was strapped into a seat in a three-engined boat that also contained Gonlin, Telen Argyre, and several of Gonlin’s thugs—former home guard members if you believed Antaea. They were arcing between the giant revolving cylinders of Rush which were just now being touched by flickering dawn light. Directly ahead was the admiralty and, beside it, the pilot’s palace.

Was that the
Severance
hanging in floodlit isolation near the admiralty? Shock at seeing it made the world lose its coherence again. He forgot where he was, disconnected images fluttering through him of yo-yos and paper airplanes, of running along iron roadways as a child. He saw the serious faces of other children, staring back at him from weightless hovels near his parents’ estate. Chaison heard himself asking a question and he no longer remembered what it was, only that it hadn’t been answered.

“Faster!” The word cut through his mind and all the strange images collapsed. He was back in the boat. Gonlin and his men were staring back, past Chaison’s shoulder—at what? Straining, Chaison turned his head to look as well.

It rose from the forested curve of Rush asteroid, shaking trees from its wings with contemptuous ease. The dawning light of Slipstream’s sun drenched the precipice moth in gold. It hovered in midair for a moment, then exploded into motion.

“Faster!”
Gonlin’s voice held an edge of panic. It made Chaison laugh to hear it. Here was a man who still had much to lose. It was funny to be on the other side, having lost everything, and to realize just how pointless and silly this man’s fear was.

—Which thought made him turn again to look forward. Yes, they were definitely approaching the pilot’s palace. Was he being turned over for the reward? Then why was Telen Argyre here with Gonlin? Exposing her meant drawing the precipice moth after them. They could only be doing that under desperate circumstances. Their hidey-hole must have been discovered.

He laughed again. “That thing is going to eat you sooner or later, you know,” he said to Argyre. She didn’t reply, but Gonlin shot Chaison a superior look.

“Not if the pilot’s men kill it first,” he said.

Chaison looked between Gonlin and the approaching moth. He saw the plan now: lure the moth into range of the palace guns, and be done with it. “You think they’re going to fire on a precipice moth once they figure out what it is?”

“If it starts tearing holes in the palace to get at us, yes,” said Gonlin. “Because it’ll look like it’s after the pilot.”

“Oh, that won’t play well in the streets.” Chaison laughed. “A defender of Virga attacking the pilot? He’ll look even more the villain than he does now.”

“Who here has ever seen a moth? The pilot will just say it was a monster you’d fished out of winter to wreak havoc on Rush. Besides, we’re bringing him
you,
aren’t we? No, I wouldn’t worry about how this plays, Fanning.

“The pilot will destroy the moth for us, and then we’ll find your wife and recover the key.”

“You actually think you can control
that
once you get there?” Chaison nodded at Telen Argyre, who seemed to be ignoring their conversation. “I’ve been inside her mind, Gonlin. She has no intention of just ‘dialing down’ Candesce’s protective field. She’s going to destroy it.”

Gonlin said nothing, and Chaison realized that he knew this perfectly well—had, perhaps, from the day he’d made his alliance with this monster. “Did you give Antaea’s sister to them? As a gift, or sacrifice? Surely she didn’t volunteer for it.”

For the first time, Gonlin looked troubled. “She brought it on herself. After the Outage we fought back incursions from outside. Telen cornered one of the intruders, but instead of destroying it she made the mistake of trying to talk to it. By the time we found her, she was already like that.” He nodded to the woman sitting next to them. “We could have put her down right there—we had enough moths—but luckily the only people there were part of our little group. Malcontents. So I decided to take a chance, and negotiate.”

“But it’s not going to honor any agreement that leaves Candesce intact.”

Gonlin shrugged. “I know. I’ve given up on that. The best plan now is to let artificial nature transform Virga into something new. For those of us who’ve positioned ourselves right, we stand to become gods when this reality,” he gestured around them, “dissolves into the greater universe.”

He leaned in close, and said with calm certainty, “Virga is doomed, Admiral. A month from now, none of this will exist anymore.”

“And what will replace it?”

Gonlin smiled. “Anything we want.”

THE SHOUTING AND
sound of heavy-weapons fire started just as Antaea reached the top of the marble steps above the palace’s docks. Kestrel was several steps ahead of her, with dignitaries and palace guards converging on him from several sides under the warm lamplight of the opulent reception hall. They all faltered in their tracks as the first deep
chumpf
of gunfire made the floor shake.

Kestrel looked back at Antaea. She shook her head uncertainly.

Someone shouted “It’s the
Severance
!” and a general panic took hold. Kestrel yelled for order but people were scurrying everywhere now—all except Antaea’s guards, who moved closer to her. One took her arm, whether protectively or to keep her from running she couldn’t tell. Kestrel stopped a man with a tall plumed helmet and demanded that he find out what was going on and report back. The man stammered something, bowed, and raced away.

“It could be the
Severance
,” Antaea said as Kestrel walked back to her. “If they’ve learned that Chaison’s been captured…”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” he said. “Things could get ugly. Gentlemen,” he addressed Antaea’s guards, “could you escort this lady to one of the secure guest apartments. Make sure she cannot leave.” He hesitated, then smiled tentatively at Antaea. “I won’t let any harm come to you. I just have to sort out…some things…with the pilot.”

Antaea let herself be led away. Golden statues and rich tapestries adorned even this, a lower entranceway. Their opulence was obscene—they spoke of that heartless divide between rich and poor that Telen had fought so hard to bridge. At the moment Antaea wanted nothing more than to see it all burn.

Was Chaison somewhere within these walls already? Was he hurt? Or was he too to be put up in a “guest apartment” and eventually forgiven because he was, after all, nobility—even as his supporters were executed en masse outside?

She shook her head. He wasn’t like that; it was just her grief making her think these things.

There was a shout from behind her. She turned, her guards pausing as well to look back. The man in the plumed helmet was racing back down the hallway, souting something. “—Monster!” was the only word Antaea caught.

The man holding her arm dragged her forward again. “Wait!” she said. “I think I know what’s going on.”

“Not your business,” said the soldier. “Come along.”

“But—” She strained to hear what Kestrel and the other were saying. “Not the
Severance
,” came across clearly, as did “threatening the palace.”

“Kestrel!” she shouted, digging in her heels. “It’s a precipice moth! It’s here to stop an abomina—” Her guards hauled her through a pair of iron doors which slammed shut behind her with a heavy finality.

A few minutes later Antaea found herself standing alone in the center of a pleasant little sitting room. This place was a prison, but it was a prison for nobles. She imagined the suite had at times held hostages from neighboring nations and local miscreants with power whose crimes had become so excessive that they could no longer be ignored. There were soft settees and divans, carved side tables with floral arrangements on them, and wide doors that led to a polished-stone bathroom and large bedroom, respectively.

There were also two tall windows at the far end. She moved to these, throwing back the heavy velvet drapes to reveal barred glass. Beyond it was the city of Rush—and a sky full with beauty.

Morning light and haze softened everything to pastel delicacy. Far to the left and up, the massive million-ton town-wheels turned four by four with their banners rippling in the wind; their backdrop was long streamers of golden cloud. Rush asteroid was half-painted into the haze to the lower right, a forest folded in upon itself. Its nearer end was surrounded by a puff of its own weather. Above the asteroid the countless outlying buildings and estates of the city’s weightless neighborhoods glittered in the limpid air like sparks frozen in midflight.

These points of reference rotated slowly around Antaea as her own town-wheel spun. Dead-center of her view was the besieged
Severance
and behind it, the admiralty. The
Severance
was a scarred can, the gun emplacements surrounding it painted camouflage bluegray, their interconnected rope stabilizers a faint spiderweb against the air. Then around them, the pilot’s own guard-ships and, in a last shell, a cloud of much bigger vessels loyal to Chaison Fanning. Throwing a long black shadow through it all was the wheel of the admiralty itself, which rivaled the pilot’s palace in size.

It seemed like every gun and telescope in Slipstream was focused on the
Severance
—yet dozens had swiveled away and more were following, as spotlights zigzagged crazily through the vista and horns sounded among the ships. Flashes lit the air and writhing balls of smoke blew outward as the precipice moth ran a gauntlet of hostile fire straight for the pilot’s palace.

Antaea grabbed the bars of her window and screamed, “Come on!” She bounced off her feet, hauling on the cold metal as though she could rip it aside, feeling for a moment as if she could. She felt every motion of its body as the moth spun and dodged the cannon fire and rockets that were raining on it. Antaea had lived inside this moth’s brother for long days during the Outage, not so long ago—and this very one had carried her sister.

She could see every detail of its silvery body now, including the terrible wounds from shrapnel that etched it. “Just a bit more! Come
on
!”

The firing ceased as the moth got within shouting distance of the palace. The gunners couldn’t shoot anymore without risking a hit on the palace itself. Antaea reared back, laughing with delight, as she saw the moth flap stolidly up and out of sight—directly above her. She imagined it coming to perch atop the roof of the pilot’s bedchamber, its clawed feet squashing the gargoyles and splintering the slate shingles. In fact, after a few seconds some chunks of masonry fell past her window, on their way to disturb the morning of some poor soul in the surrounding city.

“Come on then!” she shouted. “What are you waiting for? Dig the bastards out!” There was only silence, from the guns and from overhead.

The moth had the false Telen bottled up again. As before, at Rush asteroid, it wouldn’t risk human deaths to get at the thing. The palace guard wouldn’t risk destroying the wheel to get at it, so, for the moment, the situation was a stalemate.

Antaea whirled away from the window. Suddenly all the luxury around her just seemed obscene. She kicked over a side table and it fell with a satisfying crash. Before she knew it she was demolishing everything in the room.

Much to her satisfaction, nobody came to stop her.

“
WILL SOMEONE STOP
that infernal racket!” Adrianos Sempeterna III, pilot of Slipstream, put his hands on his hips and glared at the painted ceiling. When the muffled explosions finally ceased, signaling the end of the attack on the moth, the monarch nodded sharply and said, “
Thank
you.”

Sempeterna returned his attention to Chaison. Chaison glared back from where he’d been forced to his knees on the familiar marble floor of the pilot’s reception hall. His head was clear at last, and he would have to find some way to keep it that way. He couldn’t let this simpering dandy see how vulnerable he was.

The pilot was physically unimpressive, with a bleary-eyed face hovering above thin shoulders, and white, spidery hands that twined around one another when they weren’t roving about his costume, unconsciously adjusting ribbon, button, or hem. Today, Sempeterna was a vision in turquoise: his hair was invisible under a brocade cap of that color and a stiffly starched train fanned out behind him, rasping across the floor whenever he turned. Chaison was still having strange thoughts and as he watched the pilot move he wondered what small cargo of dust and lost trinkets he was accumulating under that train.

The one thing the pilot did have was a voice. He seldom put the right words into it, but when given a good speech to read he could, as the proverb went, bring even a statue to tears. His eloquence was neatly tied to his sense of self-preservation, and Chaison had often thought that this was the only reason he was still alive.

Kestrel stepped out from behind a lamplit pillar. “Your majesty,” he said. “I’ve returned.”

Sempeterna blinked at him. “Why, so you have, Kestrel, so you have. Good job!”

“We have important matters to discuss,” said Kestrel as he approached. He was holding a big sheaf of paper in his hand.

“Good heavens! You’re a free man for no more than ten minutes and already you’re coming to me with
paperwork
?” The pilot’s face was an almost cartoonish study in incredulity. “Could you just relish your restoration for a moment, Kestrel? Besides, I have yet to savor my own victory.” He smiled at Chaison. “Something I intend to do right now.”

He waggled a finger, and a palace guardsman hauled Chaison to his feet. He brought Chaison to stand near Sempeterna at one of the cathedral-like reception room’s huge stained-glass windows. Chaison had been in this room many times, but never here; this raised dais would have held a throne in any other kingdom, but in Slipstream it instead held a few divans, side tables, rugs, and potted plants. Slipstream’s pilot did not rule from a throne, but from a lounge. Of course no one but him, his ever-present bodyguards, and a few trusted servants could set foot on the deep pile carpet that surfaced the dais, so technically Sempeterna was granting Chaison a tremendous honor by allowing him up here.

He strutted up to Chaison, train shuffling. “So, your little plot finally comes unraveled,” he purred. “—No, don’t speak!” he said, holding up a hand. “You’ll spoil my moment.”

“There was no plot,” said Chaison. “You know that.”

“Ah, as to that.” The pilot examined his fingernails. “It’s expedient that there should have been one. Oh, don’t look at me like that! This is politics, man, and you’re falling on your sword for a reason.” He bent down, as far as his clothing would permit, to look Chaison in the eye. Pitching his voice almost to a whisper, he said, “Your actions were noble, and maybe someday I’ll be in a position to publicly acknowledge them. Probably not, granted the story and example I’ll have to make of you. But we both know that the public good is more important here than the truth, don’t we? Or isn’t it? Chaison, look me in the eye and tell me that it’s more important to clear your name than to end this insurrection and prevent the shedding of any more blood.”

For a moment Chaison couldn’t speak. He was about to say, “We can do both,” but Sempeterna had straightened up again and was laughing. “Ah, what a relief!” he said. “You had me a tiny bit worried there for a while, Fanning. Your supporters were so…zealous.”

He appeared to notice Gonlin and his party for the first time. “Are these the good folk who turned the admiral over?” Somebody nodded. The pilot walked straight to Gonlin and shook his hand. “My gratitude and that of Slipstream shall be eternal,” he said gravely. “Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“Gonlin Mak, of the Virga home guard.”

The pilot dropped his hand and stepped back, visibly startled. “Well! So the guard felt it best to intervene, did they? Wise decision, I’m sure. You felt the prospect of anarchy in Slipstream to be too great? Or was it…” He glanced upward, and his eyebrows rose in sudden comprehension. “Has Fanning been consorting with monsters? Is it his creature perched atop my palace?”

“Precisely, your majesty,” said Gonlin.

“Yes, I’d thought as much,” said Sempeterna. “I trust you’re here to dispose of it?”

“We may…need your help with that,” admitted Gonlin.

Chaison snorted derisively. He was having trouble holding on to the thread of the conversation but clung doggedly to what small scraps he understood. He should be telling the pilot something right now, but he couldn’t quite figure out what. A helpless rage filled him. He wanted to strike Sempeterna down right here and now, but couldn’t even get to his feet.

“An opportunity to help the home guard help me! I’ll certainly take that.”

Gonlin hurried on. “The monster is not only after you, but us as well. I beseech you to let us take sanctuary here in your palace until the creature is destroyed.”

“Of course! That can’t be all you want for delivering me the admiral? It is? Well, of course, you
are
the famous guard…Good, then!” Sempeterna turned irritably. “Oh, what is it?”

Kestrel stood at his elbow, the sheaf of papers held in front of him like a shield. “It’s about the
Severance,
” he said quickly. “You must see these.”

“The
Severance,
you say?” The pilot eyed the thick folder, which Chaison could now see held a number of photographs. “Why is that of any relevance anymore? We have the admiral.”

Kestrel took a deep breath and said, “The admiralty rebels claim to have evidence that the admiral was telling the truth about the Falcon fleet’s intentions. This is a copy of that evidence. They want to open talks with you, or else they’ll make this material public.”

For a full ten seconds the pilot stood stock-still, gazing at the folder. Then he took it from Kestrel’s hand. “What do we have here?” he said lightly. He flipped it open, peering at this and that picture and sheet of paper. “Documentation…from the
Severance
’s logs and cameras. Clever, clever…”

“Particularly worrying, sir, are these images.” Kestrel turned them around for him to look at.

“Men in the air,” said Sempeterna, bemused.

The words hit Chaison like a shock of cold water. He looked up at Kestrel. Antonin was staring back at him. Chaison nodded at Kestrel, tight-lipped.

“The admiralty claims that no fleet would have any reason to do maneuvers with their boarding craft full of men,” said Kestrel. “Waterbags would do for ballast if the operation were to test the fleet’s readiness. Boarding maneuvers are best done separately. The only reason for those men to have been there was if they were going to be used. In an actual invasion.”