To Crush the Moon (28 page)

But that exuberance was not to last, for the creature had made demands. Lightly at first, and then angrily, and then with threats of force. Had it realized its peril it might have kept up the illusion awhile longer, and so escaped into the world, into the ruined solar system, into the universe at large. But the experiment was structured so that keeping his creation alive required a conscious act of will on Bruno's part. In his first stab of real fear, that concentration had wavered and the delicate quantum waveforms had collapsed. The monster had died. Bruno had buried it in secret, and never breathed a word about it to any living person. Iridium Days, indeed.

In the wake of this final failure, he'd powered up his grappleship—one of the last of its kind—and sent it puttering into the void without him. Marooning himself, yes. Perchance to starve, though he'd ultimately failed at that as well.

“I turned you off,” he says now. “I buried you in space. I would have fed you into the fax if it had been working. I
should
have fed you into the sun.”

On the throne, the ancient robot considers these words, and slowly nods. “Or vice versa. It's . . . good to see you, Father. I had no idea you were still alive. When first my resurrection was upon me, I . . . thought myself awakened by providence. I
felt
it: the finger of God upon me, commanding life. It commanded nothing else, but the . . . ship had awakened as well. From nowhere had appeared a sparkle of stored energy—enough to carry me down, to this . . . world I found myself circling. I survived the crash, and if the fax machine was dead for you, Father, then the . . . finger of God must have touched it as well. For I stepped into it once, and out of it twice. And from that moment, my . . . path has been clear. To reestablish a monarchy over all that exists.”

The story makes no sense—the “Glimmer King” is clearly deranged—but Bruno can picture this much: one robot overpowering its faxed twin, strapping it down, tinkering with its circuitry until resistance ceases and obedience is absolute. And then feeding this perfect soldier back into the fax machine to create an army. Capturing first a village, then a fortress, a city, a world. Spreading outward in relentless waves, to fill the universe with some strange echo of Bascal's would-be paradise.

Ah, God, Bascal
did
have vision. Would so many have followed him otherwise? To their ruin and his? He'd understood the human heart as well as his mother, though he'd used the knowledge very differently.
Very
differently.

“Stop all this,” Bruno says to the thing in the chair. “Please. You're defective; your very construction prevents you from grasping the horrors you've spawned, the horror you
are
. The responsibility is mine. You have no idea what I've done here, through you. But take my word: the society you dream of cannot be built on a foundation of murder. It must be freely chosen, and chosen anew with every morning. It must be the sum total dream of all who dwell within it.”

“Ah,” says the Glimmer King, “but the mind of meat is wounded by its own imperfections. It is you who cannot conceive the totality of my vision. I knew it the . . . moment I awoke: that in the quantum-crystalline purity of my thoughts I was blessed, and more than blessed. Do not blame yourself, Bruno, for it was . . . God's own hand that crafted me. You were merely the instrument.”

“What the hell is going on?” demands Radmer. “Is this the Glimmer King? This? Bascal's recording in a robot body? Are you
kidding me
?”

And finally, the robot's head swivels toward Radmer. There's a sound, a kind of electronic gasp or grunt or snigger, and then Bascal's voice again: “Conrad Mursk? Do I . . . dream? Is that you I see before me, fighting at my own father's . . . side, whom once you fought against?”

“Aye,” says Radmer, and spits on the inside of his helmet dome. “Though I'm called Radmer now, and have sworn to kill you on sight.”

“Radmer!” says the Glimmer King. “Ah! How many . . . times we've heard that name, Hugo and I! From books, from songs, from the lips of tortured prisoners! I . . . should have known it was you, always sticking your nose in the business of others. How little surprised I am to find you here! I knew someday we would . . . face each other again, and you would be called to account for your wrongs against me. And yet, now that the . . . moment is here I can only recall that you twice saved my life.” He spreads his arms. “Give us a . . . kiss, me boyo, and join us in remaking this world.”

“If you owe me anything, then stop this war,” Radmer says coldly. He, too, seems little surprised now that the shock has worn off. It makes sense; Bascal's name had been mentioned more than once in connection with the Glimmer King, by the robot soldiers themselves! The Senatoria Plurum in Nubia had even written it into their formal record, which Radmer claimed to have carried away with his own hands. But surely the real Bascal had ended his days swinging from a Barnardean lamppost, a lynch mob's noose slowly throttling the life from his damnably hard-to-kill body. And even if he hadn't, could he have come so far? Marshaled the resources of his dying colony to send his only self back here? Perhaps, yes. But he didn't.

“Ah,” says the Glimmer King, sounding regretful. “I could wish for you to . . . disappoint me, but alas your character holds firm.” He rises from his throne, steps down from the dais, and walks toward Bruno and Radmer.

“Halt,” say Bordi and Zuq together, raising their blitterstaves to block the way.

But suddenly the battle is on again; robot soldiers are swarming the two, and though they fight hard to protect their charges, there are only two of them against an infinite supply of attackers. They're driven back, and the Glimmer King continues to advance.

“Halt,” Radmer warns him in the same tone, raising his own staff.

But the Glimmer King's mind, however defective, is faster than meat. In his impervium hand is a miniature blitterstick, of the sort sometimes carried by Olders in this world. Of the sort Radmer himself had carried, until the battle of Shanru afforded him a stouter weapon. With it Bascal easily blocks Radmer's feint, and where the two sticks touch there's immediate trouble; they attack each other as easily as they attack mere impervium. There are sizzles and pops and flashes of light, and both weapons fall to dust.

Then, with offhand grace, Bascal kicks Radmer hard in the stomach, and raises a hand in the air. As if by magic, another blitterstick flips into his grasp, hurled by one of the robots somewhere in the room. He touches it to Radmer's suit, which has some built-in resistance and doesn't immediately fail. But it does burn and sizzle in glowing, expanding rings, and Radmer shouts, “Escape sequence!” Unnecessarily, for the suit, sensing that he's not surrounded by vacuum or poison, is already peeling away. Better no armor than dying, defective armor! There's another blow to Radmer's stomach—unprotected this time—and he falls away, gagging and coughing.

And then the Glimmer King is attacking Bruno, striking down his staff and his armor. There is no expression on his blank metal face, but his body is fluid with rage.

“You've ruined my . . . only fax,” the robot says angrily, over the din of battle all around. “You've set me back a hundred years. I should kill you both in the most horrible ways. But in memory of our . . . history I will simply deactivate you.”

And with that, he punches again. Very hard. Bruno's sternum is reinforced with diamond and fullerenes and assorted species of brickmail, and the heart behind it is as tough as a treader wheel. But there are valves; there are weak points. Underneath it all he's still a creature of flesh and blood. The strike is precisely aimed, and Bruno feels something give way.

How astonishing it is! He feels himself collapse, watches the world spin around him, sees the floor come up to smack his helmet. He can actually feel his blood pressure dropping—it's a distinct sensation, like standing up too quickly—and for a second or two he's simply fascinated by the novelty of it all. Internal hemorrhage; the blood spilling warmly inside him.

But then the Glimmer King is looming over him, preparing to deliver some coup de grace, and Bruno feels a flicker of worry at what awaits him. He
is
afraid to die, at least a little, and he's even more afraid of leaving this business, his final business, unfinished. In the end, a man owns nothing but his past.

But the robot says, “What does it mean that I crave your . . . forgiveness? Malice hurries me on, and yet my . . . heartless soul is toxic with remorse. In loosing so much creation upon the worlds, you've entrained . . . forces to which our mere passions are unequal. Shall we sit among the ruins and lament? Embrace your . . . fate, Father. I beg you.”

To which Bruno replies, weakly, “Son, the office thrust upon us we'd've handed you gladly, eons ago, if you'd shown the maturity that chair requires. We're still waiting, I'm afraid.” His voice drops to a rasp. “Shall I tell you the secret of rule? It's love. Simply that. They'll forgive you anything if—”

But something's wrong; among the shots ringing out, several have struck the Glimmer King himself, in the chest. The darts bounce right off the impervium, whining and buzzing off into the room somewhere, but the sites of their impact are dead gray circles, and the next volley punches right through. The Glimmer King's hull is thin, lacking in countermeasures. Now it gapes, throwing off sparks. At the end of the day, he's little more than a crazed household robot.

He looks down at himself, staggering, then looks to the figure of Radmer seated on the floor, his back against the wall, a well-aimed rifle tucked beneath his arm.

Indeed, Bruno sees,
all
the robots are looking at Radmer. All motion has ceased, and if a featureless metal head can convey shocked betrayal, then the room is drowning in it from every angle. There are no more Dolceti; Zuq and Bordi have dropped somewhere, amid the heaps of slain enemies.

Says the Glimmer King, “Nineteen years ago, when I was fallen fresh upon this world, when I glimpsed the cheering twilight and heard the rustle of leaves and the trilling of birds, this second life seemed precious indeed. I knew it would be you, Conrad. Someday, somehow, my dearest friend, I always knew it would be you. Alas, this body sheds no tears.”

That said, the thing collapses to the stone floor and moves no more. Nor do the other robots move; they're frozen in place like statues, with blank surprise written across their bodies. The army of Astaroth is defeated.

Radmer drops his rifle and crawls to Bruno's side.

“Sire! Are you hurt?”

Looking up at his old architect laureate, Bruno gasps out a chuckle. “You could say so, yes. My heart is broken at last, my chapter in history drawn finally to a close. It feels so strange, and yet I know exactly what to do. To die. The arc of my life has led me to this moment fully trained. Are
you
hurt?”

Radmer looks pained at those words. “I'll live. Oh God, I'm sorry, Bruno. About your son, about everything.”

He doesn't bother with platitudes, with assurances, with medical lies. He has, Bruno thinks, seen too many dying men.

“My son left us long ago,” Bruno says, and now his voice is just a whisper. His limbs are cold and numb; he needn't move them ever again. “But you're still here. Shall I claim you for my own? Don't be sorry, lad. I'll let you in on a secret, my own private sin: I have no regrets.”

He would fondle an air foil if any had survived the journey through the fax, but they, too, are gone. And it's a pity, for they illustrate so much! But perhaps mere words will suffice. “To make a thing of fragile beauty and wonder, Conrad—even to
try
—is a worthy task for human lives. I'd do it all again, every moment of it.”

He'd like to say more about that, but there isn't time. There isn't need. He appears to be finished.

chapter twenty-five

in which power fails to corrupt

Radmer wept for hours. For Bruno, yes, and for
Bascal. For the Olders and Dolceti, for Xmary and Tamra and the Queendom of Sol. And for himself, with the misfortune to be the last of them all.
If ending comes to all things,
he wondered,
and gives them meaning, why do we despise it so?

When he was finished weeping he slept, for his body was tired and his injuries serious. He never knew how long he slept, for when he awoke, the twilight over Astaroth was unchanged. But he felt a little better—his body was healing itself—so he found a kitchen all decorated with cobwebs, and made a fire from the dusty wood he found there, and grilled up the last of his olives and fatbeans. Oh, what he wouldn't give for a flavor designer now! He'd been eating this slop for a thousand years too long. He was ready for something new, or an end to all of it.

When his meal was done he found his way outside, and located a shovel, and dug seven graves in the rocky polar soil. Incredibly, there
were
some small trees here, and birds warbling from their branches, and soil-grubbing bugs and worms for the birds to eat, and tufts of grass to house the bugs. It was a whole twilight ecology, which apparently had grown here all by itself, for Conrad Mursk had never scheduled or budgeted such a thing. And it was quite beautiful, really—a fitting place to leave his friends.

So that's what he did.

Six weeks later he found himself addressing the
Furies, in a darkened chamber deep within the battered city of Timoch.

“. . . and that is the tale, I'm afraid. The long and short of it, for better or worse.”

Said Danella Mota, “You've concealed information from us, General. Important information, which might have colored our judgments and informed our actions.”

“I withheld only suspicions, Madam Regent. As you said yourself, I hardly know you.”

“Ah.” Pine Chadwir clucked. “But we had history's greatest hero right here in our midst—King Toji himself!—and you told us nothing.”

“King Toji never existed, Madam.”

“Towaji, then.”

“Still. The creatures of fable bear little resemblance to the human beings of actual memory. His name was Bruno, and he once taught university. The rest is mere happenstance.”

Which was neither completely true nor completely fair, and would have been a perfect opening for Spiraldi Truich, the oldest of the Furies, to further demolish Radmer's pretenses. But Spiraldi was among the casualties of the siege; she'd died on the walls with a rifle in her hands, protecting her people as a good ruler ought.

So instead, Radmer took the opportunity to change the subject. “When will new elections be held, Madams Regents? And in their wake, will it still be you who address me here in this chamber?”

“Likely not,” answered Danella Mota. She lifted a Luner globe from its rack and turned it idly in her hands. “With the southern hemisphere in such disarray, Imbria and Viense are the only real nations remaining. And we're wounded, both. We can't leave the south to its fate, and neither can we help them—or each other—through separate efforts. We must work together—truly together—to clean the mess and build this world anew.”

“A global government?” Radmer asks, impressed with the audacity of such a scheme, at such a time as this.

“A global monarchy,” says Pine Chadwir. “And then a Solar one, to rival the glories of old. And now we come to the deeper purpose of your summons here, General, for no living person remembers the glories of old more fully or more truthfully than you.”

Oh. Crap. Radmer doesn't like the sound of
that
.

“No one has fought longer or harder than you, for the peace and justice of Lune.”

Worse!

“No one knows this world better than you, who built it.”

“Stop right there,” Radmer says. “I am
out
of the leader business, and I mean forever. Once we're done with our little chat here, I'm going to hightail it under the veils of Echo Valley and never come out. I'll rot my brain. I'll walk a groove in the soil with the endless reptition of my steps.”

“A selfish gesture,” says Danella Mota.

“Not at all,” says Radmer. “This isn't my world. We speak different languages, Lune and I. If I'm as wise as you suggest, then listen to me now: choose your leaders from among yourselves. The past is dead because it
killed itself
. Through better management than mine.”

“There is renewed interest in the Old Tongue,” says Pine Chadwir. “In the old ways. In yourself.”

“I said no.”

More words would certainly have been exchanged on the subject, had a page not chosen that moment to run in screaming, “A ship! Madams Regents, a ship has landed!”

“Inform the port master,” said Danella. “All cargoes are welcome, but we're in session here, boy.”

“Madams, please, it's a
space
ship!”

And so it was that C. “Rad” Mursk came face-to-face
with Ambassador Tilly Nichols of the Biarchy of Wolf and Lalande.

“You look just like your pictures,” she said, shaking his hand out there on the cement of the Timoch International Airport. Her gleaming starship hulked in the background like the end of a world, appearing less like something out of history than something out of its most fanciful stories—a Platonic dream of starshipitude.

“And you look . . . familiar,” he said, trying to place the woman's face.

“You knew my birth mother. Bethany.”

“Ah! And how is the Queen of Lalande?”

“Retired,” said the ambassador, “and thrice reincarnated. When I left Gammon she was a little girl on a solar farm, way out on the western coast. But she remembered you a little. And my father, King Eddie; she said she was going to find him someday and marry him all over again. But she asked me to give you her best. Poor dear; it never occurred to her that you might be dead.”

“I certainly might. Everyone else seems to be.”

“Well,” said Tilly, “I'm sorry for your people's suffering, and I want you to know, we're here to help. We tried remote activation of your inert systems, and when that didn't work we tried synching to the remains of your collapsiter grid. And when
that
didn't work, we decided to show up in person. We're installing a wormhole gate now, so you should be up and running in a few days. Then we can start in on educational travel and the real-time transfer of materiel. This place looks like a long, long shortage of just about everything.”

Conrad gawked. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to him like that! “What and what? You're . . . Young lady, I don't even know what you're talking about. Did it ever occur to you to ask permission? To await an invitation for your help?”

“Fallen colonies are often too proud,” she said. “We understand, having been there several times ourselves. Only with great determination and patience have we elevated ourselves to what you see.” She nodded back at her ship, from which strangely attired workmen were already unloading crates and tubes of . . . something. “And it must be particularly galling, for the very seat of humanity to fall. . . .”

“Fall where?” he demanded. “Enlightened lives are played out here all the time, as always.”

“
Short
lives.”

“Oh, so. Does quantity suddenly matter more than quality?” That sounded lame to him. What he really meant was something grander, but he lacked the words. He had always lacked the words.

“If there isn't time to achieve personal fulfillment,” said Tilly, “then yes, I would say quantity matters. In the Biarchy, we strive for milestones and then reinvent ourselves upon their achievement. Before we grow stale. We join the Exploration Corps, which will soon be visiting a hundred new stars. Or the Diplomatic Corps, which visits the old ones and invites them into the wormhole network, which we call the Muswog. Five systems and counting! The point is, we
have
these choices, and we make them freely.”

“Hmm. Well. I believe I understand your offer; you've clawed your way up from the ashes of your parents' great blunders, and it has made you strong and clever and smug. And now, in your boundless generosity, you seek to deny the same privilege to the people of Lune. The only thing wrong with this place, kiddo, is people like me who never cleaned up our toys. But that's all finished now. Help? What do you expect to help us with? What is it you think we need?”

“That's what I'm here to find out,” she said reasonably. “I asked to speak with someone in charge, and you're the one they sent. Has there been . . . some error?”

“Definitely,” he answered, turning his back on her and everything she stood for. “Like your mother, I'm just some farmer who used to be somebody.”