The Colonists (The Movement Trilogy) (16 page)

I believe that beneath what we see, she and the Council wish the best for people, Noor said.

Then you are not the intelligent man I thought you to be, Ylla said. The Noor I thought that I knew would have seen through this falsehood. She intends to wield you, Noor. Like a cleaver. She will sweep you through the people and you will feel them break upon your blade, and it will be as much your fault as hers. That blood will be yours, Noor. I see it on you already.

There will be no killing, Ylla. Only enforcement, for the good of the people.
 

You're blind. You don't see. Maybe you don't want to see.

Noor had lunged forward, had thrust his face close to hers. I see only the starvation of my family! he had shouted. I see their struggle. My struggle! Every day of my life, there has been uncertainty. Now, for once, I know where food comes from. I know where money comes from. I have both, and both I can give to my family. What would you have me do?

Ylla was unmoved, and unafraid of Noor's passion.
 

There are better ways than this to ease struggle, she had said to him. Better, better ways.
 

I have looked all my life, and I haven't found any, Noor said.
 

You haven't looked hard enough, then.

You don't know me very well, Noor said.
 

I thought that I did, Ylla said. But you're right. I don't.

She had gathered her things that afternoon, and he drank whiskey and stared at the wall. He didn't look at her as she put her clothes calmly into her luggage. He didn't look up when she left, and didn't acknowledge her goodbye as she closed the door.
 

He finished the bottle by morning.

•
 
•
 
•

The ache moves through him slowly, rattling him, as if he has grasped a vibrating beam and transferred its reverberations to his own body. He had sought her out after that day, after he had vomited up most of the whiskey and slept himself sober. She had disappeared from the operative crew, and nobody knew where she was. He'd returned to the lower wards, where he was treated with fearful deference now -- the uniform was like a mask -- and had found her family's compartment. But they had not seen her.
 

She had vanished completely.
 

He had searched for her throughout his entire career. When the Council sent him to Skyresh, he scanned the crowds for her face. When he was sent to a prison colony on Oberon, he looked for her in the cells. No matter how unlikely his destination, no matter his mission, locating her was his priority. But he never found her.
 

How interesting that she has found him now.

•
 
•
 
•

She comes to him as though real.
 

He knows she cannot be, because she has not aged. Her skin is pale and smooth and unlined, her dark eyes large and youthful. She walks as one who has never grown tired, one who has never known sadness or carried the great weight of the years.
 

He tilts his head back and sends his thanks to Uitvinder.

Dankie
, he whispers.
Dankie, Uitvinder.

Who do you pray to? she asks him.

He almost cannot believe his ears. You speak, he says.

Of course, Ylla says. Who do you pray to? I don't know them.

I pray to Uitvinder, Noor says.
 

Who is Uitvinder?

He is the Great Inventor, says Noor. The one responsible for this body, for this mind. I am his creation.

I've never heard of him, she says, moving closer.

Noor is suddenly ashamed. Don't look at me, he says.

Ylla pauses. Why not? I've missed you.

I'm old, he says.
 

You're handsome still, she says.

Noor lifts one arm, and the loose, old skin that sheaths his muscles sags about.

Look at my skin, he says. I am a paper man. I am old. I'm not the Noor you loved.

I did love you, didn't I, says Ylla.

I hope you did, he says.
 

You've missed me.

Greatly, he whispers.

You've tried to find me.

All my days, Ylla.
 

She touches his face, and he closes his eyes at the coolness of her touch.
 

But you didn't find me, she says.

I never did.
 

Did you ever ask our superiors?
 

Noor bows his head. I was afraid to.
 

You know the answer, then.
 

Please don't tell me, he says. I've spent my life dreaming that you did not fall prey to them. I've imagined such lovely futures for you.

You know the truth, Noor.
 

He begins to cry. No.
 

You know what they do to defectors. You know what must have happened to me.
 

No, he says, weeping. Please, don't tell me. No.

I don't need to tell you, she says. I'm sorry.
 

He falls to his knees, and bows his face to the floor. The sound that emerges from deep inside his chest is foreign to him, and haunts the empty chambers of the ship around him. He moans and weeps until he is exhausted, and then he falls asleep, curled in a small, withered ball on the floor.

Noor carefully folds his bedroll, then loops twine around it and knots it tight. He tidies his small quarters, collecting the paintings he has pasted onto the walls into a pile. From a locker, he takes clothing from his past life.

The uniform hangs on his narrow frame like a curtain. He fastens the cuffs, smooths the trousers. He slips his feet into the smart black shoes he has not worn in thirteen years. With a pair of scissors, he neatly trims his beard into something clean and respectable.

He prepares a responsible meal. Small portions, careful distributions of vegetables and meats. He sips from properly aged wine, but not too much.
 

He listens to a pleasant sonata, and takes in the view of the black once more. There's still nothing there. No stars, no planets, no moons. No
Koerier
.

When the sonata ends, he descends belowdecks.

In the engine room, the once-dark fisher-class engine now spins like a pinwheel. It glows, lovely and pink. Had the sonata still been playing, it might have seemed a little romantic. But he knows that this instrument, this now-beating heart, is rocketing him through the solar system at unprecedented speeds, carrying back to the rotten, putrid nest he had so happily fled.

Noor turns to the cargo panels, and enters a security code. He opens the door and is met by the sight of spare fuel rods. Since he has drifted for thirteen years, he has never depleted the supply. There are several dozen rods, enough to propel the
Matroos
for nearly five thousand years.

Now, one is enough.
 

He hefts one of the rods into his hands, a little surprised at its weight. It very nearly takes him down to the floor, but he summons all of his strength. For his age, he has retained that strength very well.

Noor staggers over to the pulsing, rotating engine. He sings his song as he works:

Though I may wander

Though I may drift

Though my useful days have passed

My shepherd guides me

My shepherd guides me

My shepherd guides me

Kindly to his door

May I find my Ylla after all, he whispers.
 

Noor lifts the fuel rod above his head, and with a final whispered prayer to Uitvinder, he plunges it directly into the heart of the
Matroos
.

And becomes a star.

•
 
•
 
•

Far, far away, deep within the Citadel walls, Mirs Korski leans over the solar maps, conferring with his officers. Models of ships are pushed around on the surface of the map as they debate strike plans.
 

Korski notices movement at the corner of his vision, and glances up.

At the distant edge of the solar map, an attendant removes the tiny marker designating the
Matroos
.

Korski waits for the attendant to put the ship's marker back on the board, hopefully much closer to home now. But the attendant walks away, carrying the marker with him.

Korski hangs his head.
 

MIRS

His desk is cluttered with paperwork and half-empty coffee cups and chewed-on pencils. Smoke lingers in the air from the cigarettes that he puffs and then stabs out in a little metal tray. The overhead lighting needs replacing. It buzzes and flickers and snaps, but he barely notices.
 

Mirs leans back in his chair and pages through yellow binder.
 

Six more reported dead, he reads.

He glances at the number marked on the board to his right. It has been erased and updated so many times that the board has gone smeary behind it.
 

436, the number reads.

Marcus, he shouts. Marcus!

The door to Mirs's office creaks open, and Marcus, a lean man with a blank expression, steps in.

Sir, Marcus says.
 

Mirs pinches the folder between his thumb and two fingers and holds it up. Marcus nods, and crosses the room to pluck the folder from his boss's hands. He flips the binder open with one hand, then walks to the board and erases the last two digits with his sleeve.
 

Mirs watches as Marcus updates the number.

442.

How many are still unaccounted for? Mirs asks of Marcus's back.

Marcus closes the binder and drops it onto the burn pile next to the board.
 

There are still one hundred sixty unaccounted for, Marcus says.
 

Jesus Christ, Mirs says. Are they all going to turn up dead?

I don't know, sir. Probably.
 

Fuck, Marcus. A little optimism wouldn't poison you, would it?

My apologies, sir. But they did detonate a moon. If anybody anywhere is still alive, I might be surprised.
 

Speaking of survivors, Mirs says. Have they found anything?
 

I've heard a rumor, Marcus says. Let me gather some facts.

Marcus nods curtly and leaves, pulling the door closed behind him.

If they're fucking alive, Mirs shouts, I want them to stop.

The door remains closed.

Goddammit, Mirs mutters, and leans back in his chair again.

•
 
•
 
•

The first time that Mirs was called before the Grand Council, he was asked to betray his mentor. He did so without hesitating, and was asked to assume responsibility for the Operative Corps. The Council was in its sixth iteration then. It was now in its eighth, with the passage of Councilman Jans.

Councilman Jans was perhaps Mirs's only friend on the Council.
 

His replacement was not so kind. Councilwoman Delah believed the Operative Corps's methods were primitive, violent for the sake of violence. What she didn't understand was the need for violent enforcement. When an operative is nine hundred million miles away from the Citadel, and faced with local revolution, violence is the only solution.

When the locals rebel, you put the locals down.
 

Mirs is called into the council chambers just after breakfast.
 

He turns to Marcus, who hands him a screenview.
 

If you hear gunfire, you come get me out, Mirs says, but the joke falls flat.

He leaves Marcus on the bench and heads inside.
 

The council chamber is the most opulent space on the Citadel. It smells of history and power, and is lit dimly enough that only the gold in the room glitters. Mirs is greeted just inside the doorway by Councilman Barat, who leads him across the grand foyer to the gallery.

The other three councilpersons sit behind high desks of marble and gold. The lighting in the room has been designed to leave their faces in shadow, while exposing the subject of their investigation -- today, Mirs himself.
 

Please, Barat says, indicating the marble seal in the center of the gallery.
 

Mirs stands there, exposed, while Barat disappears behind the desks. The councilman's footsteps echo in the chamber as he ascends the short staircase to his own desk. Once Barat is seated, Mirs fights a chill. The ostensibly friendly councilman, now draped in shadow, looks as cold as Death himself.
 

You're looking tired, Mr. Korski, says Councilwoman Delah.
 

Mirs bows his head. I sleep little these days, he confesses. There is much on my mind, and much to do.

Let's dispense with the chatter, says Councilman Orczyk. Mr. Korski, a report will start us off nicely.

Mirs nods, and produces the screenview. It illuminates and he opens the document Marcus has prepared for him.

Councilmen and women, Mirs says, nearly twelve weeks have passed since the event on Deimos. As you know, in the immediate aftermath, details were hard to come by, and my teams have worked around the clock ever since. We've taken quite a blow in the Operative Corps, as you all are well aware, and it is my expectation that the numbers will only grow larger in the coming weeks.
 

Quite a blow, you say, Delah says. How large now?
 

As of yesterday evening, Mirs says, we have four hundred forty-two confirmed deaths in the Corps. There are still some one hundred sixty operatives unaccounted for.
 

The unaccounted-for operatives, Barat says. Were they all assigned to Deimos?

About a third of them, Mirs answers. The rests were local operatives on Olympus.
 

All active-duty? asks Orczyk.

Most, says Mirs. Three were retired, and one was hospitalized and about to be decommissioned.

Councilman Lasiliac interrupts. These numbers are sobering, to be fair, but they pale beside the character assault that the Citadel has been subjected to. This attack -- this awful, malicious, unholy attack -- has weakened the good name of the Citadel throughout the system. The Operative Corps may be in dire straits, Mr. Korski, but this blow will spark uprisings -- very probably extremely violent uprisings -- throughout the entire goddamned system. We'll be feeling these effects for a very, very long time, and what I want to know, sir, is why your men weren't able to stop it.