Lord Banshee- Fugitive

by Russell O Redman

  The Lunar Council was outraged by the executions, but also understood that they were frighteningly vulnerable. Trying to register a mild protest and protect their own people, they passed a resolution forbidding Martian Justice officers from entering the Lunar Cities and halted all further extraditions to Mars until proper safeguards could be negotiated. The Imperium invaded the lunar port facilities, occupied the cities, and charged the entire membership of the Lunar Council with high treason. Those who had opposed the motion surrendered to the Martian authorities and were mostly pardoned. The rest disappeared underground and were the subjects of savage manhunts. Martian prosecutors were infuriated to receive the same treatment they had given to officials from the Governor’s office on Mars and declared that it was treasonable to make that comparison.

  When it became clear that the diseases developed in the weapon labs on the Earth made effective punishments, the Martian authorities withdrew their own people from the Moon, leaving only turncoats and collaborators in charge, then blew diseases through the air system using virus bugs. They reasoned that the current population of traitors could be exterminated and a new population brought in who would be loyal to the state. The plan failed because the viruses they used had been designed to be resistant to hard vacuum, ultraviolet, and most caustic cleaning agents. Afterwards, the brightly decorated hallways, lined with children’s art, were inhabited only by the desiccated corpses of their former inhabitants.

  The diseases were carried back to Mars by returning veterans, who often arrived on ghost ships filled with the dead. Some of the plague ships crashed directly into Mars. Thrifty colonists attempted to salvage the metal fragments, without realizing that they were still carrying live virus. Some diseases were brought in as samples of bugs intended to jam up a rival faction’s factory or farm, but which instead released a disease for which there was no name, no diagnosis and no cure.

  Out in the Belt, the leaders of the Martian factions had built fortress-palaces dug into asteroids. When the diseases appeared on Mars itself, the factional plutocrats slapped a comprehensive ban on immigration and trade into the Belt from the inner worlds. It only delayed the inevitable. Some of the plague ships, filled with dead crew, sailed past Mars and were salvaged in the Belt. When people in the Belt fell ill, whole colonies were isolated and left to die of disease and starvation.

  It took longer to kill the entire population of the Earth, but the number of lethal diseases that had been released and their ability to lie dormant indefinitely without losing their virulence made the end inevitable.

  The plutocrats huddled in their palaces, trying to decipher the chaos they had unleashed on the inner worlds, seeking the tactics that would allow them to flourish while their rivals perished. The L1 and L2 colonies were stripped of their engineers, doctors and biologists, who were shipped surreptitiously to the Belt by rival factions, along with all their ships, transports and tugs. Precision factories were plundered of their stock, along with their workers. Existing factories in the Belt were incapable of producing precision machines; until they could be upgraded it was necessary to lay in a sizable collection of spares.

  Control of a biologist or engineer could give a faction a decisive advantage, so these highly trained people became targets for kidnapping and assassination. As they died, their less qualified students became targets in their turn. It never was possible to build a new Earth-quality factory in the Belt and within a few decades it became difficult to build even the simpler freighters and warships that formerly had used parts manufactured on Mars. With no spare parts, the refineries that produced steel and weapons-grade uranium began to shut down. Without raw stock, even the simpler factories also ceased production. The few that remained became targets for raids, and the defunct sites were scavenged for anything of value that remained. The palaces began to confiscate whole production runs of uranium to ensure that their reactors could operate while civilization rebuilt itself. As the factories stopped producing parts, the farms shut down and famine stalked the Belt. Isolated farming clans were raided for food and slaves. Any dead were carried back to the palaces and real meat entered the diet of the nobility, who argued that they needed better food because of the great responsibility they carried.

  Ships died one by one and could not be repaired. As each palace became isolated, the peasants revolted, murdering the nobility. In their despair, they would then shut down the reactors, weeping and chattering their teeth in the dark hallways of the freezing palaces. The last human life died in the Belt three centuries after the executions.

  The dream started as we fled to the Moon, hiding in the deep levels of Lunar cities where people went for privacy. The Martian agents knew we were there, but not in which city, and received no cooperation from the Lunatics. In their exasperation, they began dropping kilometre-sized rocks on every lunar city. We died in the fourth city, but no one else knew we had been there, so the destruction continued until everyone on the Moon was dead.

  The Earth rose in rebellion, and the TDF fleet in space was annihilated. Without a fleet, the Earth was helpless to stop the rain of huge asteroids, dinosaur-killers and larger, that fell from the skies once or twice each year for fifty years. Nothing was left alive larger than bacteria, eking out a slow existence in rocks three kilometres below the surface.

  The Imperium retained control of L1, L2 and Mars, but with no external enemy to occupy their attention the subordinate factions began the long fight to replace the Mao dynasty. The plutocrats in the Belt struggled to remain on top of the endlessly shifting combat. From time to time, a strong dynasty would replace a weaker one and the Imperium would stabilize.

  Unfortunately, the Imperium was an absolute tyranny that was also an obligate technological society; disagreeing with a political overlord was treason, even when the overlord was factually wrong about a technical issue. That had not mattered on the early Earth, where it had been possible to run out the door into a boundless wilderness, but the Earth was now barren. Each round of fighting destroyed another irreplaceable part of the puzzle that was civilization.

  Eventually, the long trips to L1 and L2 were abandoned as uneconomical. The precision factories were moved out to the Belt, but immediately became the targets of raids by jealous rivals. During a particularly violent change of dynasty, the last three precision factories were destroyed and could not be rebuilt. The refineries and factories began to shut down, and after them the farms. The last human beings froze to death in their palaces five centuries after the bombardment of the Moon began.

  The dream started as we surrendered ourselves to the Martian authorities when it appeared possible to negotiate a pardon for Leilani. Instead, they imprisoned both of us and extradited us to Mars. In mid-flight, a pirate attack lead by the Dominion Groundbreaker faction killed everyone on the ship and drove off the protecting squadron of fighters. Comparing our frozen corpses to the older pictures, they declared that the Mao dynasty had misidentified the Ghost and Ghost Wife, who were still at large. They demanded that Shi Hongdi abdicate and be replaced by their own leader, the eminent Zhuwen Hongdi of the dynasty Dom.

  The now-pointless search for the Ghost continued on the Earth. One by one the Ghost Followers were arrested, tortured into false confessions, and executed in public along with their families to the third degree of relationship. Hundreds of other Ghost Followers were denounced by their rivals and executed along with their families.

  The regional militias and the TDF split between the two contesting emperors and began the slow contest for power. New weapons entered the combat. Low-level nuclear weapons could target the foundations of a single tower in a city, killing an entire clan in a single strike while leaving the rest to pay taxes. At least, the Martian nobility assumed that each tower was inhabited by a single clan. Why else would they chose to live in such a cramped space on a green and flourishing world?

  As the fighting escalated, poison gas became a preferred method of population removal. Invisible clouds of death drifted over riv
al population centres, seeping slowly into the deepest basements where defenceless families tried in vain to hide. It was simple and effective, and could be delivered by missiles, bugs, or even in packaged food stuffs for targeted attacks.

  The Moon lived in terror of the nightmare in progress on the Earth but made no complaint. It did not matter. Miko Bruce of Qinghai Mining made a claim for the throne and threatened to destroy every lunar city if they did not open their ports immediately. Some did and were occupied. Some did not and were destroyed. Shi Hongdi could not afford the troops needed to reoccupy the lost cities but retaliated with acid bugs designed to attack airlocks. As each set of airlocks failed, people fled deeper into the cities until there was no place left to run, no oxygen, no food and no water. When the last airlocks failed, the Moon became again the lifeless rock that it had been for four and a half billion years before the arrival of humanity. The dark and empty hallways were inhabited only by children’s art.

  The succession war had ravaged Mars before it reached the Earth. Bugs of all kinds infested the Martian cities, killing people and converting their bodies into bug factories. Without airlocks, pipes to transport water, and safe food storage, Mars became as uninhabitable as the Moon.

  The final confrontation on the Earth involved tens of thousands of cheaply manufactured nuclear weapons that produced massive amounts of highly radioactive fallout. People died in the fighting, from radiation poisoning, or from cancer, and there were no children because of radiation induced sterility.

  The fighting moved into the Belt, a war of extermination where surrender was impossible. Refineries, factories and farms were destroyed for momentary military advantages, and could never be rebuilt. The last human beings died in the farms of L1, well supplied with food but lacking every other resource needed to survive in space.

  The dream started as we fled to the Earth but separated. I kept myself far enough away that Leilani would be warned if I was arrested, but close enough to respond if she felt herself in danger. My usual response was to engineer a “sighting” that would draw the Martian agent off her track. The rest of the team helped when they could and together we kept her safe.

  Eventually, with the Council still in charge of the Earth’s economy, the political and legal situation seemed to stabilize. I began to relax, to hope that it might be possible to come to terms with the Imperium.

  I did not realize how closely they were watching, that they were engineering each approach to Leilani to see how I would react. One day, they made a feint, I arranged a “sighting”, and the trap closed on both of us.

  We were imprisoned in cells on opposite sides of a walkway, in plain view of each other. They began to abuse Leilani, and one by one we revealed the secrets that had protected the team. When they arrested Marin, they learned about the second comm unit that was providing me with protection from torture, and after than I was as helpless as any other man.

  They learned of the broadcast function built into our comm units. Toyami was driven insane with pain and emojis, then forced to broadcast her nightmares to us all to weaken our resistance. The executions, even the ones that lasted two days, were a relief when they started, even though we all were forced to experience the torment as it happened.

  The Ghost and Ghost Wife were executed in public, after which the Terran Resistance rose in rebellion.

  The last human died in the fighting far out in the Belt as two rival emperors destroyed each other’s fortresses using ships already made uninhabitable by radiation.

  2357-03-09 20:00

  Crossing the Bifrost

  I struggled awake but lay silently. I could vaguely remember the end of the last dream, in which a century of warfare had exterminated everyone on the Moon, Mars and the Belt, replacing the Belters with robotic mining machines. Similarly, the human populations of L1 and L2 had been replaced by robotic factories. To protect their owner’s investments, the robotic mines and factories were guarded by autonomous robotic warships armed with nuclear missiles. The remnant human population was confined to a few hostile regions on the Earth. Recognizing that every threat to their operation came from the Earth, the robotic defence forces finally launched simultaneous attacks on every human habitation. The machines were self-repairing and would remain on permanent guard against any future species that attempted to leave the planet’s surface.

  The next dream had been starting as I awoke, still hopeful that Leilani and I could escape as refugees to the outermost colonies in the Belt. That optimism crumbled into dust as I recognized the impossibility of reaching the Belt alive.

  The others clustered across the room, talking quietly.

  Sergei, “Poor Brian. The Banshee has been howling in his dreams every night. No wonder he has had a sore neck.

  “But those are not ordinary nightmares. They each form a logical sequence, once you accept the opening scenario and the visceral hatred that drives the opposing forces. Their realism is what terrifies me the most. I can vouch for the vengefulness of Martian society. Every offense must be repaid double, or the injured faction will lose face.”

  Raul, “It is the same so-called honour society you read about in the sagas of Viking-era Iceland and in the organized crime families of ancient Europe and Noram. I wonder if some of those crime families emigrated to Mars or the Belt when their traditional employment became unprofitable on the Earth?”

  Toyami murmured, “What have I done?”

  Sergei, “He is trying to tell us something that he cannot say out loud. Like the warning about the destructive power of the emojis. These scenarios are all different yet have important similarities.”

  Raul, “The size of the forces is greater than anything I imagined but makes sense. The stealth fleet is greater than I imagined as well. Their drives are stronger than we need, but sensible if they were originally intended for commerce amongst the asteroids. And we would never have been aware of them since we were not looking for the right signature.”

  Begum, “When we bothered to look at all. Secrecy and treachery are the children of corruption. It is increasingly clear that the people who knew what was going wrong deliberately made everyone else look the other way.

  “Raul, I know it is the official term, but it is so wrong to call that cycle of violence an ‘honour society’. Revenge is intrinsically dishonourable. It is a standard lesson in the social dynamics of war, something every officer is supposed to avoid. When fear of revenge is your only mechanism of justice, a single, minor offense can grow explosively. It is like striking a match in a hayloft: the fire quickly spreads to the whole barn.”

  There was horror in Leilani’s voice. “The common element of every dream is that everyone dies in the wars. The match is struck when he tries to save me. I am the reason everyone is going to die.”

  Toyami, “How could I have been such a fool?”

  Sergei, “No Leilani, you have it backwards. He has a plan. He knows how to save you. He needs our help, so to save you he will save us. To save us he must save the Earth. To save the Earth he must save Mars, and somehow, he believes that can be done. Right now, he is just checking to see if he can do it in person. He already decided that he could not, and I expect he will reach the same conclusion again. The only way to save you is to save everyone else, except himself.”

  Toyami, “I call myself a Buddhist. How could I have made such a mistake?”

  Leilani, “It is not working. He is seeing only death.”

  Sergei, “Leilani, listen to me. He is working on it. I am a romantic fool and I recognize another one when I see him. My father thinks I am a hopeless clown, and he may be right. I have chased every romantic cause I could find. You saw me on the Deng. I went to Mars because I read a scrap of paper before I shredded it. Brian is like me, only much smarter and better focused.

  “Think back. Just before the Soiree, he said he wanted to have ‘that party’, and you went all weird. Do not deny it, you did! It meant way more to you two than to the rest of us. Was that the coming-ou
t party that you never had after Vancouver? I thought so. He would not have it then because it would have placed you in mortal danger. He only asked for it on the Mao because it was too late; you were already in danger. We all knew you were a pair.

  “Leilani, he is madly in love with you and will save you no matter what. To do that he must save everyone else. He is trying to wrap up all of humanity and lay us at your feet as a token of his love. He says he hates Martians, but that is mostly fear talking, fear for your safety. Eve thinks he still loves the Martian people, and I believe she is right. He was trying to save them when he returned from Mars, but now he has an even better cause. You are the reason we will all be saved. I have never met a more romantic man anywhere.”

  Toyami, “What have I done? I am so sorry, Brian.”

  Raul, “Is this being recorded?”

  Toyami, “Yes, I have been recording every one of Yama’s hells since he went to sleep. I did not put the opaque helmet on properly. I was too overwrought to sleep, so within minutes of when he started to broadcast again, I turned off all your comm units, removed the helmet and started the recording. I thought it would be useful to see what his dreams were like.

  “I almost went insane myself, feeling his pain and fear unfiltered, until finally I was forced to turn off my own comm unit. I was almost too frightened to do that. Oh, what have I done?”

  Raul, “You were right, it will be useful. He is giving us a warning of the kinds of things that might happen. In the ancient world, feuds in those ‘honour societies’ raged until someone had the courage and wisdom to stop them. Brian thinks he knows how to do it. Sergei is right, Leilani. You are his main motivation, his driving reason to make this work.

  “Our former ministers need to see this, as soon as humanly possible. Did we all sample the dreams through the night? Yes, I thought so. We will have to warn the ministers not to view them through the comm units. I picked bits here and there along the timelines. The pain and despair are much worse later in each dream.”