Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  One eye was better than two, but not enough to stop Joy's hands from trembling. She felt sick, or trapped, or both.

  "If I'm caught–"

  "You won't be," Rhys said with comforting conviction, but then he added: "I'll do what I can to stall the proceedings. If they postpone the court-martial until the commander's returned to speak on your behalf, you may have half a chance."

  "Speak?" She had to bite her lip to force the nausea down, because Constant would do more than speak. Summary execution, Hammersmith had said, and chances were she'd not face the firing squad alone. "No. If I'm caught, make sure it's over before he finds out."

  "Joy." He took her hands. "I couldn't do that, and you know it. In any case, it doesn't matter. You won't get caught. It's just a quick crawl through some air ducts. You'll be back here before you know it, mission accomplished."

  Here was the pharmacy stockroom. Rhys had access, and the night shift pharmacist was a friend of his – the kind of friend who'd apparently not ask questions, and who spent far too much of the night silver-eyed instead of watching the pharmacy. He hadn't even noticed them come in, and courtesy of Elsinore, the logs would not show Rhys's pass being used.

  "So, you ready?" Rhys flicked open his lighter, putting the flame to a cigarette.

  "Not even close. Are you sure this is going to be enough?" She secured her helmet seal for a third time. The suit she wore was a light-weight, almost flimsy, silver. It looked like a clean-lab suit, but Rhys, who had procured it, claimed that it was the type of exo-suit that Scathach's maintenance crews used when working on the station's exterior. The ducts she was to crawl through were partially external, sections running along the station's hull. There'd be gravity, but next to no oxygen, and they'd be very cold.

  "It'll be fine." He rolled his eyes at a message that blinked on the wall, angrily red: NO SMOKING. "Have they got sensors in every bloody storage cupboard these days? Didn't use to be like this, you know. Sure, smoking's always been banned on Scathach due to the fire hazard, but it didn't use to be doctrine – just one of a thousand rules and regulations, like hair length and tattoos. They even used to sell cigarettes on the station, but about fifteen years ago, it was like it became doctrine over night, and smoking went from being a personal choice to everybody's bloody business. I guess that's half the reason I still do it. Even back when I believed, I couldn't imagine that demons would give a shit about smoking. That idea's too damn stupid to swallow, though clearly, that didn't stop the station chief from implementing anti-smoking sensors all over the place. Don't suppose the man in your head could do something about it?"

  "Rhys, please. I need you to focus."

  "No, you don't. You need me to prattle on about stupid things so that you forget your own worries. Look at your hands – not half as shaky anymore, are they?" He pointed to the open vent in the ceiling. Rhys had pried it open while Elsinore stopped the automatic alarms from going off. Joy had done nothing at all, and that was really the way she'd prefer to keep things, but Rhys put his hands around her silvery waist. She could stall no longer. "You're as ready as you'll ever be. Okay?"

  "Okay," she whispered, her breath misting the suit's plastic visor.

  "Then here we go." He lifted her, hoisting her off the floor with ease. Her hands found the lip of the vent, and she pulled herself inside, her feet pushing off Rhys's shoulders.

  Rhys shut the vent behind her, the rasping sound travelling ahead. Her dim visor lights were a fuzzy semi-circle of light pooling on the duct floor. Not much, but it was something, and she began to inch forward.

  "How are you doing up there?" Rhys asked.

  It felt unreal. Like a dream within a dream; like she'd never left her cryo pod, or as though maybe the pooling light was a thing she could reach. When she did, she'd be back on the Ever Onward, once more waking to a dead ship, once more made to climb into a vent. Events would play out as they had, and she'd eventually find herself in Scathach's air ducts again, trapped in cyclical horror. Or maybe Constant would make a different choice in that Nexus alley, and she'd get to experience a whole new horror.

  That's how she was really doing, but if she told Rhys even half of it, he'd think she'd gone mad. Worse, he'd worry.

  "Fine. It's hard to move, but I'm managing."

  "What about breathing?"

  "No problem." She paused, sliding around a tight bend, then added. "You're not too subtle when it comes to fishing for compliments on your work."

  "Compliments? Me? Hardly."

  "Well, it's either that, or you're worried that something might go wrong with the lungs you made me. And personally, I'd really rather like to believe that you're just a glutton for flattery."

  He laughed, and that was good, that helped here in this dark space where every shadow reminded her of Duncan.

  Her visor fogged with chill, her suit's thin gloves sticking slightly to the floor. She had reached the external ducts. Space, held at bay by force fields, glimpsed between the open slats of vents. Climbing gear was mounted next to a maintenance airlock so narrow the station maintenance crew would have to crawl inside. The idea of a job that required regular duct visits and, worse, climbing up and down the station's exterior, almost made her glad to be a towerman.

  She stopped at a junction. "Elsinore?"

  "Left," his ghostly voice whispered. "Halfway there, Somerset."

  As she took the left, he spoke again: "Apologies if I'm quiet. Scathach is difficult. Many alarms. Many cameras. But you're not alone. I'm with you."

  "I can tell," she said, as a droplet of blood splashed against her visor. Being Elsinore's conduit was taxing for both mind and body. Conduit. Not so different from vessel, and she shivered at the thought. But it was necessary, and the nosebleed wasn't so bad, and so she soldiered on until a stab of pain shot through her temple.

  "Blood pressure spiking, Joy. You need to tell your colleague to ease off."

  "This isn't your op, Captain. You have orders – follow them, and follow them quietly."

  "You're not my superior–"

  "Please." Their voices rolled like boulders through her head, adding to the pounding headache. "I'm okay, Rhys. I've reached a gas-tight damper – I think this is it."

  "Affirmative. Alarms disabled. Go ahead and open it."

  The gas-tight damper consisted of several vertical blades set inside a metal frame. They were currently open, but in case of an emergency, they would shut, isolating the primer vault ventilation system. To pass through, Joy had to dismantle the frame.

  Easier said than done with gloves on. The locks were latches, simple to use, but her fingers slipped clumsily over them. Every breath felt hot and lacking in oxygen, the walls pressing in on her. When the frame finally came off, she laid it down and wriggled over it to reach a vent where white light filtered through.

  The words SEMELE SOLUTIONS were embossed on the vent rim. The company was everywhere, like a thing that once seen could not be unseen, their name on everything from industrial equipment to construction material. Scathach's pharmacy sported entire shelves of medical products labelled SEMELE. Hierochloe had once been nearly as ubiquitous, especially once the h-chips had caught on, their adverts at every train station and in every news stream.

  Perhaps Hierochloe hadn't ceased to exist after their name-change to Primaterre. Perhaps they'd simply split in two – Primaterre the nation, with Semele remaining as the corporate arm.

  "Sensors switched off. Targets en route, prep for drop."

  The drop in question was nearly three metres, and she turned awkwardly to secure her line to the duct wall. The thin line that would be her way back up again was attached to a weird magnetic cup that didn't look nearly strong enough to hold her weight, but Elsinore had assured her it was. Well, she supposed she'd find out soon enough.

  Below, the vault door gave a great hiss as it began to open. People were entering, their voices bouncing through the duct, and her visor lights were still on. She switched them off, tried to breathe, but t
hough her lungs still worked fine, her chest ached, pain shooting from her shoulder down her arm.

  "Hey, kid, whoever the hell you are, you need to ease off or she's going to fucking die up there." Rhys, so beyond worried that he sounded angry.

  "If I don't mask her thermal and digital, she'll be spotted. I doubt that'd end any better."

  Please, Joy texted, every letter a red strain, be quiet. I'm okay.

  Blood had begun to pool inside her visor. She tried to look past it, focusing on the thin strips of light between slats in the vent. Two men stood below her. One she recognised as Station Chief Amager. The other was presumably the med-wing manager.

  "...should increase security now that we know the demon has taken an interest in primers."

  "The station budget won't allow for it. Especially not now, on the brink of war. The cataphracts alone are taking a huge bite out of our expenses, and Vysoke-Myto's always chasing me about upping the banneretcy's ammunition budget. Stars only know what you and your medics are going to ask me for. Don't think I didn't notice you browsing Oriel's new catalogue earlier."

  "Have you seen their new reactive tissue nanites? They're applied like a topical cream, and their sensors detect incoming projectiles. A split second's advance notice, but it's all they need to instantly deploy, adding a new layer of epidermis nearly as tough as ballistic weave. Casualties are going to drop significantly."

  "Fantastic. More soldiers alive to waste bullets and complain about needing more. Just what I need."

  "Mercy, Amager, your sense of humour is bloody dour. No filters."

  "Who says I'm joking? But sure, I'll get you your reactive tissue. Just remember that I'm the one who'll hear the complaints when dessert's off the mess menu." Amager stepped back as the primer storage unit opened. Cold mist rolled out, curling around the station chief's feet. "Anyway, how much of this do you need?"

  "Don't worry, Amager, I'm not about to bankrupt Scathach. Enough to activate a dozen primers will do. I've got one banneret medic returning to duty who requested a restock of his med-kit for tomorrow, and an order from our outpost on Tamar to fill. Plus a few to keep as spares on the station – Command seems to think that we may find new recruits as our territory expands." The med-wing manager pressed a button on the storage unit panel, and inside the glass case, the machinery began to whir. The conveyor belt moved vials into position and the dispenser filled them with raw primer before they continued into the activator.

  "Command is very optimistic. So far, our only confirmed battlefield is Hereward. They really expect we'll find potential meritorious citizens among that rabble?"

  "Well, if Commander Cassimer could find a recruit on Cato..."

  "Somerset." Amager didn't sound too enthused. "I doubt she'll end up worth the cost of recruitment."

  Maybe not, but she was seriously considering dropping a vent on the station chief's head.

  "Looks good on the posters."

  "Looks good." Amager scoffed. "Half the reason she was recruited in the first place, I'm sure. Hopefully, these primers won't be wasted on a commander's whim."

  "If she caught the eye of a banneret commander, she can't be completely without merit. They're not like you or I, able to overlook little impurities. And stars, she's Earthborn, from the time before the Epoch War. Pure, no doubt about it."

  The hospital manager collected the activated primer vials from the conveyor belt, carefully placing them inside a lockbox. "Even if personal feelings tipped the scales, so what? Do you know what it's like to see patients like Cassimer come and go? Not a word as they're carried in half-dead, not a word as you're patching them up. Complete silence until they get up and leave with a polite thanks. Lifers like that don't even ask if they're going to be okay. They can lie on your operating table, teeth gritted, guts spilling everywhere, with this blank, neutral look in their eyes that says hey, do what you can, Doc, whichever way this turns out is fine by me. That's not natural, and it sure isn't healthy. The next time I see the commander, if he grabs me by the arm and tells me not to let him die, I'll consider that well worth the thirty million she cost. You can't buy that out of a catalogue, Amager."

  "Sentimental old fool." Amager shut the storage door, and from across a span of hundreds of light-years, Elsinore intercepted the locking signal. "In any case, what do you think about..."

  Their voices faded, cut off entirely as the vault door wheezed shut. The mists settled as condensation on cold glass, and it was time for Joy to make her move. She shuffled over the edge – head first, blood spilling across her visor, smears obscuring her vision – and lowered herself onto the clinically clean vault floor.

  The storage door opened, but when she pressed the panel to select (1) primer vial to be dispensed, nothing happened.

  "It looks like the cycle is waiting to be reset by the locking signal. I'll need a minute. Hang on."

  Hang on. Easier said than done, because–

  –she swayed, blinking, shocked to find herself inside the primer vault. She'd been asleep, hadn't she? Asleep and dreaming of Constant on an operating table, dreaming of his blood and how it wouldn't stop flowing.

  Except it wasn't his blood that wouldn't stop flowing; it was hers. Rhys was speaking, and Elsinore too, but though they were inside her head, they both seemed very far away.

  "...get her out of there now..."

  "...not blowing this op, only need a few more minutes..."

  "Fuck the op–"

  A stab at her temple became a fork of lightning zapping through her brain. The world turned to darkness shot through with ghostly white retina lines, and the ground wobbled. She ran a gloved finger across the primer storage's frosted surface. So close, and so far away. Answers and solutions inside tiny vials, the key to set them all free and right the wrong done to Constant.

  She could do it. She could hang on. She just needed to sit down.

  "Deploying script. You might feel a–"

  A fist to the side of her head, so hard that she collapsed. Her visor popped open, her lips touching cold hard floor. Not so bad, almost better than sitting down, because she could close her eyes and pretend to sleep and–

  "Joy!"

  Rhys's voice was so sharp that her ears rang.

  "Joy, you need to get up!"

  And then she realised that it wasn't her ears or his voice that made the ringing sound. An alarm was going off, the walls painted red with flashing light. An unfamiliar, computer-cold voice spoke:

  "Contaminant detected. Purge initiated."

  She pushed herself to her knees and saw the abstract pattern her blood had made on the floor.

  "Rhys?"

  "Thank the fucking stars, I thought we'd lost you. Get up, and get out of there now."

  "The primer hasn't been dispensed."

  "Never mind that. You need to leave."

  "This isn't your op, Captain. Somerset, thirty seconds and I'll have a vial for us. Stay put."

  Elsinore had never given her an order before, and his voice quivered, unfamiliar with authority. But Joy was no stranger to taking orders, not anymore, and she closed her visor tight, breathing in hot-iron air. While she waited, she cleaned up her blood with a spray that Hammersmith had told her would erase all trace of her DNA. Decontaminant chemicals hissed down from ceiling sprinklers, pattering like rain on her silver suit, but leaving blood behind was too dangerous.

  The conveyor belt chugged forward, skipping past the activator, and before Elsinore could tell her to, she stood on wobbly legs and grabbed the vial.

  Door locked, no trace left behind, primer vial secured in her belt pouch. All good, so good that she could almost breathe again. The line tightened around her waist as it began to retract, pulling her upwards into a darkness that had fuzzy, expanding edges.

  "Good," said Rhys, her light and her anchor. Elsinore seemed to have faded away like a ghost. "Replace the vent and stay secured to your line. The next few minutes won't be pleasant, but don't be afraid. Wait for the purge to finish, and
then come back to me."

  With a series of clanking sounds, the external vents opened up. A rush of air swept through the duct, strong enough to pull her along, throwing her against the walls. It rustled her silver suit, whistled along the rim of her visor. A plunging shaft opened up into the vacuum of space. She hung above it, secured by her line, as decontaminant chemicals evaporated from her visor and suit. The sudden rush of cold bit worse than any Cato spider, and she wished she'd thought of wearing some thermals.

  When it was over, she could hear the vault door open, voices echoing through the duct.

  "An organic contaminant according to the system," the med-wing manager said. "It all looks in order, though."

  "You were just in here with Amager, right?" A female, unfamiliar voice. "He probably flaked all over the floor. The system's sensitive and might have read his skin cells as a contaminant."

  "It wouldn't be the first time," the manager conceded. "Still, I'll have BaseSec do a sweep. Got to give the night shift something to do to keep them on their toes."

  BaseSec. Would they crawl through air ducts looking for intruders? Lucklaw had been BaseSec once, and the impression he'd given her of his former brothers-in-arms tended to make her think that no, they wouldn't. But she couldn't be sure, and she had to hurry.

  Turn after turn, bend after bend, and sometimes she could see space through vents, black and twinkling with stars. Sometimes she saw space even when she closed her eyes. And then her head became too heavy, her heart too weak, and she lay down flat.

  "I can't do it, Constant," she whispered.

  You can.

  Not him, not really him, just an Imaginary Constant to replace Imaginary Finn. She knew that, but she didn't care. Any Constant was better than none.

  Look at the stars, Joy.

  They glittered all around her; motes of retina flashes or actual constellations? Her fingertips grazed points of light, painting the black with lines of afterglow. And there, brightest all, shone the constellation of Libra.

  Follow their light, Joy. Follow it back to me.

  27.