Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  A lovely memory, but that's all it was; all he was.

  She opened her eyes to a dark room that was nothing like Kirkclair General, but Rhys's smile was not so different from Finn's. The floor was cold, and she wasn't quite sure why she was lying there when there was a perfectly good bed, but when she tried to sit, Rhys shook his head, putting a finger to his lips before pointing towards the door.

  Flashlight cones swept up and down the dimly lit corridor. A man stopped outside their room, diffuse light spilling across the bed. Rhys crouched next to Joy, one hand on her shoulder, calm and steady.

  The light disappeared almost immediately, the man whistling as he continued down the corridor.

  "BaseSec. Lazy bastards, the lot of them."

  "We're in the lower wards." Joy rubbed her wrist. A medical filament crept underneath her skin, connecting her to a nearby machine. "How did you get us down here?"

  "It wasn't so difficult. I've got access and you hardly weigh a thing. I wanted to take you back to my quarters, but your colleague still had to handle surveillance and alarms. I had to get you hooked up to some proper machinery, or the strain would've been too much. Good thing we were in the pharmacy stock room, though you've blown a hole clear through my monthly budget."

  "I'll ask my superior to reimburse you."

  "Stars, Joy, you've got to stop taking me so seriously." He squeezed her arm. "Except for when I give you medical advice, that is. In this case, I'm afraid you're going to have to stay under my care for a few days."

  "A few days? I need to report back. They'll be–"

  "They are aware. You're to remain on Scathach pending further orders. The man in your head cut his link to your primer to reduce stress on your system. Don't use your own primer at all until I okay it. And when you do go back, you need to tell whoever your med-tech is to give you a proper check up."

  "Med-tech?" She smiled. "You may have a slightly optimistic view of my new team."

  In the broadest strokes possible, she described Room 36B and its crew to him.

  "That's it? Earth have mercy. I thought... That's not the impression your superior gave me."

  "I bet. I imagine he was all we're Tower and we know everything, too. But guess what? Tower hardly know anything. In some ways, we know more than they do."

  "Joy... shit. I should never have got you into this. These fucking amateurs are going to get you killed, and for what? A fool's errand."

  "No, Rhys, you misunderstand. We know more than they do, and that's good. They think that this is their mission, but it's not. It's yours and mine and Lucklaw's, and Hopewell and Florey's. It's Cassimer's. We started this on Cato, and we're going to finish it. The commander taught me to use whatever's available to succeed, and you know what I have? All the information and resources of a Tower room. I don't know about you, but I think that's going to be super useful."

  "Well." He laughed, shaking his head. "The same kind of crazy as the commander. No wonder he likes you so much. You really think a Kirkclair botanist can make towermen her tools?"

  "I think you were right when you said I'm the only one who can see the Primaterre clearly. In the ducts, when I was on the verge of blacking out, I saw the stars, Rhys, and they haven't changed. They're the same stars I was born under, their light constant."

  "Very romantic."

  "Not the name." Although, maybe that too. "The word. The Primaterre Protectorate is the same, as unchanging as the stars. Oh, the length of skirts goes up and down with the fashion, and technological advancements are made in leaps and bounds, but the people don't really change. Cassimer listens to century-old music and Hopewell wears the same colours women did forty years ago, and you cut your hair just the same as Primaterre men did when the Protectorate was founded. I saw some foreign ships on my way to Scathach. The way they looked, the way the music sounded – it was almost alien. But it's not, is it? It's how humanity evolves over a hundred years, as our tastes and opinions evolve and shift. The Primaterre seems like home to me, because in some ways, it is like home. Kirkclair is idyllic to me, because it has all the qualities that the people of my time considered utopian. It's a century-old dream, crystallised and constant. But Rhys, civilisation isn't like starlight. It's in flux, changing many times over a person's lifetime."

  "You calling us stuck in our ways?" Rhys's tone was light, but she could see the discomfort in his eyes.

  "More than that. In the 1490s, Earth missionaries began to make pilgrimages to Mars. In the 1500s, neo-religion had taken root, the majority of Martian colonists worshipping some ancient god or another. A decade later, they persecuted atheists, and the 1520s were rife with sectarian violence. Then came the holy wars in the thirties, and after that, nobody who knew what was good for them professed religion anymore. I was born in 1543, only a few years later, but growing up, religion seemed like a strange and old-fashioned thing. It was history, unthinkable in modern Kirkclair. God was just an expression, holidays were quaint traditions. Ideologies, even extreme ones, came and went during that century, sometimes with whiplash speed and whiplash pain."

  "Because of a lack of purity," Rhys said. "That's what we're taught, that the volatility of the past was born of impurity."

  "Partially true, perhaps. With more reason and patience, the Epoch War might never have come to pass at all. But, Rhys, while Cryo-CatchUp gave me an impression of the Primaterre Protectorate as static, that impression was wrong. The Protectorate does change, just not organically. It's like what you said about smoking – whenever public opinion shifts, it seems to do so overnight, and practically unanimously. No artificial intelligence. No travel outside the Protectorate without special clearance. No smoking. And... you told me not to use my primer, but use yours to check the dates when those things were banned."

  She hadn't checked, didn't know for sure, but wasn't at all surprised when Rhys, frowning, confirmed her suspicion. Seven years after the founding of the Protectorate; twenty-one; eighty-four.

  "I bet something changed every seven years. Maybe nothing big, maybe nothing noticeable, but every seven years, Project Harmony is re-evaluated and the priming improved, and it's not some computer doing it. Why would a computer care about cigarettes when medical advancements have made their harmful effects irrelevant? No, Rhys, whoever is running it, they're people, with their own biases and opinions."

  "The people who created Project Harmony would be long dead by now," Rhys objected.

  "Not necessarily. Remember the silver fortress? Hierochloe manufactured many things. H-chips. Pharmaceuticals – and cryo tech."

  "Fuck me. You're saying that we might get a chance to waste the actual bastards behind the genocide of Earth?"

  "Well, I hadn't thought of it quite like that, but yes."

  "I see one problem with your theory," he said, and she felt a tingle of excitement, because she knew what he was going to say, and it wasn't a problem at all. It was, in fact, the really good part. "The demonic outbreaks. There have been seven recorded since the Epoch War, and sure, the first three do fit your seven year cycle. But the four in my lifetime don't."

  "Because they were special requests. One of those attacks was on a bio-medical research station, right? What if they were about to discover the priming? What if they already had, and were working to stop it? I think all four of those outbreaks were targeted attacks meant to protect Project Harmony. I think that Semele Solutions monitors Primaterre society for threats, and when they detect one, they send their drones to alert and rouse the Project Harmony crew."

  "Their drones? You're telling me Project Harmony is based on Earth?"

  "Oh." She clasped a hand to her mouth. "I don't think I was supposed to tell you that."

  "It's all right, princess. I won't tell." He smiled and helped her sit, letting her lean into him when the dizziness became too much. "But you realise that this changes things, right? We're no longer trying to put an end to a brainwashing programme. We're trying to bring ruthless murderers to justice. If someone is on Eart
h, pressing buttons, they have the blood of billions on their hands."

  "The blood of billions, and the blood of the Hecate's passengers and crew. Somebody at Semele Solutions – maybe even Cooper Keiss himself – ordered that hit. Somebody on Earth pressed a button and killed hundreds of children. Primaterre protects us all? The Primaterre did that to Constant, and then they made him the mouthpiece of their propaganda, a protector of those who would have seen him dead. I think I hate them, Rhys. I think I want to see them burn."

  "I'll gladly help you start that fire."

  "Come with me, be our med-tech. You're not back on active duty for a while, yet, right? Our analysts could use your help decoding the primer." She hoped he'd say yes – if Room 36B needed anything, it was someone like Rhys.

  But he didn't say yes. Instead, he picked up her utility belt, discarded on the floor. The belt pouch was dark, soaked through with liquid, and when he opened it, she saw glittering shards of glass. The primer vial was broken; the sample tainted and unusable.

  29.

  CASSIMER

  "You all right, Commander?"

  He turned from the viewport to find a med-tech staring at him with a grating degree of concern. His HUD replayed the last twenty seconds of audio: "The dermatological damage has been corrected, and the internal damage was minor. Follow the prescription and you should be back on active within the week. You may return to the barracks."

  "Yes. Thank you." Cassimer shrugged his jacket on, buttoning it up before leaving the room. His armour had kept him safe on Vadgelmir, but returned to Scathach and fatigues, he missed its protective shell. Walking felt surreal, like he should really be a corpse floating in space, not alive, not breathing cedar-scented air. The door should've felt cool against his palm, but he felt only numb. Part of him was still on Vadgelmir, holding Lucklaw and whispering half-mad things.

  Two hundred and eleven banneret men and seven commanders had breached Vadgelmir. One hundred and seventy-three had returned, along with five commanders. A remarkable outcome, according to Amager. A bloody miracle, all things considered, Vysoke-Myto had said, and judging by numbers alone, maybe that was true.

  But Cassimer walked among the men, and he saw it for what it was. He side-stepped as med-techs rolled a gurney towards the incineration furnace, and he wanted to stop it, wanted to pick up the dead and limp Lieutenant Yarwick and drop her corpse on Amager's desk and ask him to repeat how remarkable the outcome was.

  Yet what had happened wasn't Amager's fault. It was Athens', for forcing the banneret men deep inside the station. Cassimer's, for not understanding sooner. Skald's, certainly, and that's who his anger should be focused on. Not hot and wild and pointless, but cold and precise, aimed at a single target.

  Lucklaw was still in intensive care. Cassimer stopped by his bedside briefly. The lieutenant was sedated, wouldn't even know that he'd been there, but it felt necessary. A confirmation that they had in fact been rescued from that cell, that the bright light had been a Rampart shuttle and not whatever came after death. A reassurance that Lucklaw was all right, and that Cassimer's last words to him had not been a lie.

  Though that visit was brief, it took him over an hour to get out of the med-wing. He had to see the other commanders, had to see the men, had to show that he was there, that he stood by them, even though all he wanted to do was run until his lungs burned and shower until the void was scoured from his skin.

  Thankfully, the banneretcy common room was empty and silent, but for the nervous scuffling of Juneau's filthy creature. Good, because he needed to be alone. Couldn't handle anymore talking, looks, examinations or debriefs.

  He strode up the stairs to his quarters, turned the corner, and froze.

  This section of Scathach was his alone. Always quiet, always empty, always grey. But now it glowed sunrise gold, warm and welcoming, and he didn't know how to handle that.

  Joy sat cross-legged on the floor, leaned back against the door to his quarters. She'd been reading a book, but she was looking up now, looking at him, and she smiled.

  And as beautiful as that smile was, it was outshone by the nervousness in her eyes; that glimmer of hesitation that made him realise that she felt exactly what he did. The same fear that perhaps three months apart had been too long, that time and distance had made the other forget what they had once felt. That what they had found on Cato had been lost in the space between Achall and Scathach.

  Joy, he wanted to say, wanted to speak her name and tell her that he had lost nothing, that she was his air and his light, that he loved her like he'd never loved another; like he never would love another.

  He had so many things to say to her, but while his mind struggled for ways to voice them, his body had no such doubt. The first step was difficult, the rest so easy that he barely noticed taking them. One moment he was at the top of the stairs and the next, he held her in his arms.

  Her touch was electricity, her warmth a rush, and the relief in her honey-brown eyes as she understood what he wanted to say but couldn't – that relief was like a shot of the best stim he'd ever had.

  He lifted her off the floor, and he must have opened the door to his quarters at some point, but he couldn't remember how, couldn't imagine how he'd managed when all he could think of was her, but they were inside his room's grey walls now, and her lips were on his, his hand running up her thigh, pushing lilac fabric from smooth white skin.

  He should set her down. He should invite her into his quarters properly, offer her a seat. He should say hi, how have you been?

  But his hand had dropped from her thigh to his belt buckle, and there wasn't a should in the universe that could stop it now. Only a no, and he saw no such thing in Joy's eyes, felt no such thing in the heat of her breath. And when she whispered against his lips yes, he was no longer thinking

  only being

  only feeling

  only joy

  * * *

  "It sent me letters." Cassimer lounged on his bed, Joy resting in his arms. Her skin was so pale against the dark grey of his shirt, the deep tan of his skin, and he tightened his hold on her. Wanted to be her armour, her shield. Didn't want for her to have to hear this, but he couldn't keep it from her. "About you."

  "About me? What did it say?"

  He hesitated. "I don't want to tell you."

  "But you will."

  Yes. He would. He had to. He kept it brief and to the facts, and while he spoke, he stroked the length of her arm, ran his hand along her back and buried his fingers in her hair. His hands on her. His hands and nobody else's, and that did make the demon's letters a little easier to bear.

  Joy did not react the way he had imagined she would.

  "On Cato, I touched the lichen only minutes after escaping the wreckage of the Ever Onward. Skald felt me then, but he didn't come for me. I walked that dusty world for seven long months, and not once did he send for me or speak to me, or reveal himself. But he watched me, and I think he enjoyed that. I was his without even knowing it. I touched him. I slept in tunnels where he grew on the ceiling and his drifters watched from the shadows. It was control, but of a different kind than what he is used to. He didn't steal my mind or sing me into submission. I thought I was free, and he relished that. He would have come for me before leaving Cato. As Finn, perhaps, and maybe he would have revealed his true nature, or maybe he would have kept pretending."

  She turned in his arms, her chest against his, her touch sunlight-warm, her eyes honey-sweet, and he had no idea how Skald could have waited so patiently for this girl.

  "But when you arrived on Cato, the balance of power shifted. He hates you, Constant, and he is jealous of you, because I freely give to you what he would take. He sends you these letters because he wants you to feel as he does. But these are my memories, and I know that there's nothing in my past that compares to this at all. You've read his messages – do you really, honestly, think that the boy I dated for a few weeks in college meant even a fraction of what you do? This afternoon alone matt
ers far more to me than the summer I spent with him."

  That was a perspective he hadn't considered: her perspective. It was true that none of the messages had described her feelings. In the shade of an empress tree, another man had told her that he loved her, but the demon had not included her response. Suddenly, her skin against his didn't feel like comfort anymore. It felt like victory.

  "Skald is a thing of want, but all he has are stolen moments. And this..." She placed one palm over his heart, the other over her own. "This is forever."

  * * *

  For a while, it felt as though it might be. As though the world had ceased to exist beyond the grey walls, as though space had been reduced to his quarters, and between him and Joy, there was no space at all. But eventually, the world, in the form of a schedule notification on his HUD, intruded and reminded him of what awaited outside. First, a meeting with Vysoke-Myto and the other commanders, and then the rest of the day, meticulously scheduled down to the last minute. His life was not his own, and a shower gave him time to think about that, hot water and cold regret beating down on his head.

  Then he exited his bathroom and realised that life as he knew it had ceased to exist. Joy sat on his bed, a book in her hands. One of his towels was wrapped around her, her hair smelling of his shampoo. Mundane things made special by her; his entire life, transformed. Perhaps giving Bastion his time wouldn't be so bad if the moments in between could be like this.

  He collected his boots and sat next to her to lace them up. The book she was reading was familiar, its spine cracked and the title – The Secrets of Atlantis – faded. "One of the company's books?"

  "Rhys lent it to me. My primer still isn't fully integrated, and physical books are less of a strain. I suppose he saw the title and figured it'd be right up my street, but as it turns out, it's not really about Atlantis at all. It's more of a romance, about these mermen who–"