After Moses: Wormwood

by Michael F Kane

  Matthew raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were his right-hand man around here.”

  The man stroked his mustache. “Please. This fool holds us all in terror, but there’s not many around here that wouldn’t mind seeing him take the boot.”

  Dan struggled against Matthew’s grip. “Braxton! How dare you—”

  Matthew gave him a good shake. “That’s enough of that.” He gave the majordomo a hard stare. “Come on then. Looks like you get to help me disassemble a kingdom.”

  By the time they reached the veranda, Abigail had made a pile of unconscious or injured guards, and the rest were sitting quietly in a circle. “They had an awful lot of bark,” she said. “But I wasn’t impressed with the bite. Looks like you caught the big fish. What do you think the people in the city will do with him? I bet they hang him.” She stooped over to look him in the face. “No, that would be too easy for Warlord Dan. Maybe they’ll feed him to his pets. I bet even the vegetarians will make an exception for this guy.”

  Dan trembled and covered his head with his arms.

  “Well, you got your wish, Abigail. We’ve knocked a third-rate dictator off his throne. Now we’re left with the consequences and clean up. Dan, figure out how to get your lackeys to surrender, or I give you to Abigail. Braxton, anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated.”

  Matthew pinched the bridge of his nose. He could already feel the beginnings of a monstrous headache.

  HALF A DAY LATER, OFFICIALS from both the University of Ganymede and the Vatican showed up on Metis. Truth was, Matthew didn’t know who else to call. The crew of the Sparrow wasn’t really equipped to help the people of Metis set up any form of self-government, and those were the only two institutions in the Jupiter Neighborhood that were near-universally trusted.

  Four shuttles set down in the open area between the city and the former zoo. After a quick meeting with the delegation from the church bringing humanitarian aid, Matthew and Abigail turned to the group from the University.

  “Professor Jerome? We uh... Have your foxes. And a lot of other specimens.” Matthew took his hat off and ran a hand through his sandy hair.

  Jerome Whitlock, an older man with a pair of square spectacles, chuckled in response. “I see. We’ll take stock of what’s here in the next few weeks and do what we can to protect any critically endangered species.”

  Abigail jabbed a finger at the stone wall behind them. “We went ahead and returned the foxes to their pen. Have you thought about leaving them here and maybe working with the people of Metis to reopen the Jovian Wildlife Park and Zoo to the wider public?”

  The professor tapped his chin thoughtfully. “It’s a good thought. Perhaps the University can make this happen. I’m going to insist on taking the foxes with me, however. We’ve been working on a sustainable and self-sufficient nature preserve on Ganymede. We need a medium-sized predator for the food chain we are hoping to build. If we can save the red fox, it may just be the perfect link in the chain.”

  She nodded. “I’ll take you to them.”

  Matthew watched her lead one group of scientists away. Unfortunately, he had others to meet with. Along with the ecologists, the university had sent a pair of economists, a handful of political scientists, and anyone else they thought would have the knowledge and expertise to help the people of Metis get back on their feet. Matthew didn’t really have a lot of input on the matter, but between the church and the academics, Metis was going to get the fresh start they needed to govern themselves for the first time since Moses’ disappearance.

  At long last, he dragged himself back to the Sparrow. In the common room, Davey and Grace were catching up on the radio program they’d missed in all the action. Matthew made sure to lay a hand on Davey’s shoulder as he passed. “Good work out there today.” Davey nodded, but Matthew could see the hint of a smile.

  He found Yvonne in the cockpit. “Have you finished solving all the solar system’s problems yet?” she asked.

  He laid his hat on the console. “No, but somehow everyone thinks that’s something I’m capable of accomplishing. We’ve started to develop a bit of a reputation.” He gestured out the window at the keep in the distance. “They wanted to know how I thought the warlord’s wealth should be split amongst the population he and his family have spent a century plundering. I don’t have those kinds of answers.”

  Matthew noticed that she was getting more streaks of gray in her hair. Maybe the stress of the last few months was getting to all of them. Yvonne regarded him quietly for a moment. “Perhaps people just want to believe in that East Wind that Whitaker wanted you to be.”

  The Wind of Change.

  He decided to shift the subject. “I don’t think we can do undercover jobs anymore,” he mused.

  She laughed. “Matthew Cole. The least personable celebrity in the solar system.”

  He eyed her. “That bad, huh?”

  “To the outside world, yes. To your crew? Well, we know better.”

  It was better to just ignore that. “How do the books look after this?”

  “Black ink, with plenty to spare.” She pulled up the monitor and flipped through a few sheets to show him their finances. “We’ve got enough to pay back the operations loan that Dominic bought out.”

  Matthew nodded. They’d been working jobs hard for the last few months to get into a better financial state. Money hadn’t exactly followed their fame. Despite the Emperor of Venus’ invitation, Matthew was insistent on not heading that way until they had the cash on hand to pay him back. He looked at the numbers and did some quick math in his head. “And it looks like we’ll still be in good shape afterwards.”

  “You know he’s not going to take the money, right?”

  He grimaced. “Yeah, I know.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes as Matthew finished his perusal of their finances. To his mind, Yvonne was still working miracles. The number of things she’d taken over and made her own astounded him on a daily basis. Even now that she was no longer a virtual prisoner on the Sparrow, she still worked harder than anyone else on the ship.

  “You know,” he said quietly, “with that bounty removed, you don’t have to stay with us. We want you around, of course, but you’re a doctor and—”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Matthew Cole,” she snapped. “This is my place now.”

  “Hmm.” And as expected, the moment her bounty was mentioned, the air in the room chilled. “I wish you’d tell me how it happened. I’m grateful, of course, for your sake, but I can’t help but think there’s more to the story.”

  She stared out the window. “It’s fine. What happened is... private.”

  “And if you change your mind and need a willing ear, I’m on your side.”

  “I know that. And I won’t. Are you through interrogating me?”

  He sighed. “Yes. I’ve been up for over a day now. As often as I promise myself not to let this happen, it keeps happening.” He stood. “Good night, Yvonne.”

  She muttered in response, and he left the cockpit for his cabin, too tired and bewildered to try to puzzle the mystery out any further.

  Yvonne stared out the window for over an hour, her emotions twisted in a labyrinth that was impossible to unwind. She’d spent months trying.

  If Matthew was still asking about what happened, then that meant he hadn’t thought to look at the Sparrow’s security footage of that day. The day Kudzu died and she regained her freedom.

  It was a terrible idea. She knew it was, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  Quietly she stood and closed the door to the cockpit. Everyone else was asleep by now anyway, but an iron grip had closed around her heart. She turned the monitor back on and pulled up archive footage from the security cameras. It took her only a moment to find the timestamp.

  There it was, as if it was yesterday. Her pulling the trigger and screaming at Kudzu, impotent in her rage. And then Piggy finishing the job. She looked away, part of her shocked at the violenc
e of it all. Part of her disappointed it hadn’t been her to end it. Piggy had set her free, but he’d denied her the closure she craved. Her lip curled in frustration as she watched the scene play a second time and made her decision.

  Matthew would never understand. He’d be worse than Bishop Elias had been. Love your enemies and all. They’d even forgiven Grace’s grandfather, Arthur Morgensen, of all people. But Kudzu wasn’t Arthur Morgensen. Kudzu had been a monster. A murderer. She saw in her mind Tomas dead in their clinic as she saved the ungrateful animal’s life.

  No, Matthew would never understand, and he could never be allowed to see this footage. She grabbed a data chip and downloaded the video. Then she deleted it from the Sparrows archive.

  Yvonne slipped the data chip into her pocket. It was better if they all just went on with their lives. Tomas and Kudzu were both gone. The loose ends had all been sorted.

  And if any more reared their heads, she would deal with those ghosts herself.

  Chapter 2: Lanterns in the Firmament

  My father, Emperor Dominic the Second of Venus, was one of history’s more colorful characters. His love for grand stories and adventure is well known at this point, and I must stress that these accounts are true. Some have called my father a silly man, and a weak leader.

  I won’t argue the first, after all I grew up in the same household as him. But I must protest the latter.

  What makes a good leader? Is it the one who’s iron will can set the policies they see fit despite great opposition? One whose honeyed tongue eases all foreign powers?

  Or is it one who does right by their people and is in turn loved?

  My father perhaps wasn’t the greatest at managing finances. He was a poor legal scholar. And he drove nearly all of his advisors mad, myself included. But he was a man whose eyes were clear, an idealist, more suited perhaps to poetry than wielding absolute authority over an entire planet. But then I fail to see what is so wrong with this. It is said that in Paradise, poets will have flames upon their heads.

  If this is true, even now they bear the embers of those fires and are more precious than gold.

  Julia of Venus

  Daughter of Dominic of Venus

  Died 140 AM

  “SOMETHING IS WRONG with the clocks.”

  Davey looked up from the book he was reading on his tablet. Grace was standing frowning at the idle display on the entertainment monitor in the common room. “What do you mean?”

  She pointed at the screen. “It jumped forward two seconds when the frameshift cut off. It does that sometimes. I’ve been watching for it.”

  “Maybe it’s just adjusting for local time. Maybe the colonies can’t stay perfectly lined up or something.”

  She shook her head. “It’s always forward. Every time. Never once back.”

  He set the tablet down and stood from the couch. Part of him doubted her, but then he knew better than to second guess Grace on something like this. She was always good at watching the little details. “Okay, if that’s the case then we’re losing time.”

  “Just a few seconds a year. Maybe a minute. No, something is wrong with the clocks, I think.”

  “So go ask Matthew about it.”

  “Ask Matthew about what?” Yvonne said, coming from the aft ladder. She had a tub full of vegetables from her garden in the hold. Davey spotted his favorite, tomatoes, which meant dinner would be good for the next few months if she had a plant producing.

  Grace explained the problem with the missing seconds. Yvonne nodded. “You’re right. We’re losing time.”

  Davey stopped short. “Wait, what?”

  Yvonne set her tub on a counter and Grace hurried over to help her unload it. “We are losing time,” Yvonne repeated. “In a sense. I explained this to you two a few months ago and you’ve already forgotten.”

  “We never asked about the clocks,” Grace said, opening the fridge to load the produce.

  “Not the tomatoes,” Yvonne warned. “Those stay out or you ruin the flavor. No, I explained some science about time.”

  Davey snapped his fingers. “Relativity. Something about time not always being the same depending on speed and gravity, right?”

  “There you go.” Yvonne smiled and handed a sack of peppers to Grace. “So why is the clock jumping forward?”

  “Because...” he trailed off trying to make the connections. “While frameshifted, we’re going fast. Like a fraction of the speed of light fast. So on a long trip, like Metis to Venus, time is going slower for us and the Sparrow’s clock adjusts forward when we reach a destination.”

  “Very good,” Yvonne said. “I said we were losing time, and in one sense we are. The rest of the universe rolls along at a normal rate while we go slightly slower. But you could also say we’re gaining time because we’re skipping forward in tiny little jumps. After years of living on a ship, a freelancer might add a couple hours to his life according to the calendar.”

  “And now my head hurts,” Grace said.

  “I doubt it makes much difference to daily life,” Davey said. “A second here or there won’t matter.”

  “For most things, no,” Yvonne agreed. “There are some technical applications that require high precision timing and positional accuracy where those tiny slivers of time matter, but for everyday life, it makes little difference.” She’d finished putting up the produce and leaned against the counter. “If Moses had ever worked out interstellar travel before he left that would be a different story.”

  “How’s that?” Grace asked.

  “Well the faster you go,” Yvonne said “or the higher the gravity for that matter, the slower time goes. The closer you get to the speed of light, the more exaggerated the effect. At two percent the speed of light, relativity is a novelty. At ninety percent it’s extreme.”

  “It’s like one-way time travel,” Davey mused, his mind spinning at the possibilities. “You can only travel to the future.”

  She nodded. “More or less. But Moses never got that far, despite all his promises that we’d colonize the stars.”

  “Pity,” he said. “I’d like to get on a ship and drive around for a while at close to the speed of light. Jump far into the future and see what it’s like a thousand years from now.”

  Yvonne smiled “And then you leave your world behind forever and never see the rest of us again.”

  “And you sucked all the fun out of that,” Grace said. “Okay, I hereby declare the clocks to be functioning as expected. I’m heading to the cockpit. Venus is one of the cooler landings to watch.”

  Davey made to follow her but was stopped by Yvonne’s hand on his shoulder. “Need something?” he asked, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re not intelligent, Davey.”

  He looked at his feet, unsure of where this was going.

  “You’re a bright young man. Quick to learn and adapt and understand. It’s not your fault you never had a fair shot at an education. You got dealt a bad hand in life, but that doesn’t make you stupid or less intelligent.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s not a big deal. I’m fine with it. Really.”

  “You don’t have to be,” Yvonne said. “You’re young and can still choose your own path.”

  Suddenly, Davey wanted to be anywhere but here. “Thanks, he mumbled,” feeling his face turn red. What else did she expect him to say? She was overselling it. He knew that. He knew his limitations. He stepped past her to follow after Grace.

  “Think about it,” Yvonne said.

  “Sure, I will,” he muttered and intended to do no such thing.

  MATTHEW PUSHED THE flight yoke forward a few degrees and dipped the Sparrow into the upper reaches of Venus’ atmosphere. The deck beneath his boots began to vibrate as atmospheric drag exerted tremendous forces on the hull. Friction would slow them down, which would save money on fuel. The flip side being they’d have to spend more to take off again.

  Of course, if this wa
s anything like their usual trips to Venus, Emperor Dominic would insist on filling their reserves himself. As much as he didn’t like handouts, Matthew knew he should be thankful. And then there was Yvonne, who practically plotted reasons to come to Venus because the handouts kept the ink black.

  Grace bounced into the cockpit and landed in the copilot’s seat. “Venus sure is beautiful,” she declared, eyeing the pale golden horizon beneath them.

  He took in the readouts and relaxed. They were right on course for the city. “The Morning and the Evening Star. For thousands of years, the people of Earth thought it was special too.”

  “What do you think the emperor wants?”

  He sighed. “Honestly, I have no idea. His message a few months back said he had a project he wanted to partner with us on. Your guess is as good as mine, but knowing Dominic it’s going to be something dramatic.”

  “So what you’re saying is, everyone else will love it and you’re going to hate it.” She gave him a glare intended to pin him in place. She picked that skill up from Abigail, and just like when that look came from her, he ignored this one too.

  A moment later Davey joined them, but he didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood and they all sat in silence watching the entry. By the time Yvonne shooed Grace out of the copilot’s seat, they were in the thick of the atmosphere and rapidly descending. When they were in range, Matthew commed ahead. “Discordia tower control, this is SPW 5840 looking for a landing pad.”

  “SPW 5840, we have you on our scopes but we’re not seeing you on the schedule. Please state your business.”

  “We have a standing invitation from Emperor Dominic that we’re making good on. You may have to check with his people.”

  “One moment please.”

  The city came into view. A massive hexagonal-shaped station suspended on air bladders, it floated at an altitude where breathable air was buoyant in Venus’ thick soup. Once there had been four such cities, but only two remained, Discordia and its sister, Concordia. The emperors of Venus had worked hard to protect the quality of life of their citizens and it showed. Few in the colonies would turn down a chance to live here.