by Stephen Hunt
‘Is it always like this?’ I asked Simenon.
‘Spore-blossom Season’s come very early this year,’ said the lad. ‘It normally starts a month after the auctions have finished.’
‘I mean, the people?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Simenon. ‘Master Roxley?’ he inquired by way of an afterthought.
‘Yes, Master Simenon.’
‘Now we’ve been badly set upon in the forest and the mines, have our woes cleared your mind as to who it might be behind Lord Blez’s assassination?’
‘Definitely the Derechor twins,’ I said, without a twinge of irony or humour crossing my face.
‘Truly?’
‘Lead suspects, lad. In fact, I suspect it was the terrible guilt they felt at their dark deed of murder that led them both to commit suicide. Blowing themselves up inside their own mines! A damnable selfish way to go. They could have climbed Mount Hebateen and leaped off the top to spare their workers so much grief. But that’s nobles for you. Selfish to the bitter end.’
Simenon seemed to accept my tall tale at face value. He had a filter-mask on, too, to protect him from accidentally inhaling a nasty psychosis-activating spore. I’m not sure this gullible lad actually needed it. All the way to our lodgings we seemed to be confronted by wide-eyed adherents of this new religion of insanity. Men and women screaming derangements at us in a vain attempt to convert us to the Lord of Misrule.
‘That’s the stuff! That’s the stuff!’
‘I’m healed. Did you heal me?’
‘Drop your face linen and start spinning!’
‘Split my beard, you know you want to, handsome.’
Watch officers wearing masks chased a bare-chested man through the streets while a giggling seventy-year-old woman attempted to empty a night pan’s soup over them from a second storey window. What japes.
‘What an advert for your species,’ said Moz, as our tavern hove into sight.
I stepped aside as a woman came stumbling past, trying to collect the stars in the heaven with her fluttering hands. No wonder we raised so many of our creations to be gods, to be better than us. All our organic children were insane.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Death. From above.
Every morning, after waking, I gazed in the mirror while shaving and wondered who the old man looking back was. Where the rake and rascal fixed in my mind as Sweet William had vanished? Once, on a long voyage, I submitted my biometric profile to a vast database of famous artists, singers, politicians, scienceers, actors and other assorted figures from history. The game returned the person you most resembled, physically. I received a name of a man I’ve never heard of before. An actor from the Carbon Age visuals called Martin Landau. I even called up one of the ancient entertainment series he’d appeared in. Some hokum about an Earth with a Moon dislodged by nuclear explosives and set wondering across the stars, somehow managing to reach a different solar system just in time for the start of each new episode. Yet without even a foldship drive to explain away this miracle of transportation? Perhaps that was my answer for Hexator’s woes? I could set up an enterprise shipping nuclear waste; wait until I had enough radium to set the moon free, then blast it out of the Empty and point it towards a fresh orbit around a civilized Humanitum system. Make Hexator someone else’s problem. Oh, if only.
My morning reveries were shattered when my suit flashed me a warning that the dragonfly-like insect hovering outside our windowsill was no local. As a matter of fact, it was one of mine. I wondered what had gone wrong for my ship dancing around Hexator to swap her fake meteorite dead-drop for a realtime face-to-face?
Mozart cottoned onto the tiny stealth drone’s presence. He slid open the window and the insect swept inside our lodgings, along with a random scattering of spores blown on the hot wind. The forests’ organic spumes continued unabated outside, as did the laughter and shouts of the Mardi Gras being conducted gratis on the streets. Hard times for our landlady. Mistress Miggs’ tavern sat empty while happy, horny, and high-spirits rained down freely from the heavens. Blessings from the ecosystem rather than the gods. Well, at least the poor lass has our custom.
The bug dropped onto my bed, its delicate gossamer wings reorienting to project a female hologram face hanging disembodied above my sheets.
‘Exy,’ I said, concerned, ‘whatever is the matter?’
My darling Expected Ambush accelerated straight to the point. ‘What’s the matter? Oh, Sweet William, let’s start with the fact our ride home is yellower than a class G Star! She’s exiting Hexator orbit and pulling out to that hydrogen and helium ice ball seven planets back.’
Not like a foldship to take fright so easily? I prayed we weren’t losing our ride home. ‘Does the You Can’t Prove It Was Us plan on returning, sweet ship girl?’
‘I suspect that will depend on whether the Melding man-o’war that just folded into our system edge plays house guest or not.’
Ah, the actual explanation of matters.
Mozart groaned. ‘And where’s the wurms’ big bleeding war-boat heading?’
‘Definitely not a system pass,’ said the Expected Ambush. ‘She’s burning directly for Hexator orbit.’
Which rather begged the question, what did the wurms know that Sweet William did not?
‘I told you we should have hitched a ride with one of my Fleet contacts,’ complained the ship. ‘We could have had the Do I look Like A Peacekeeper? or the Don’t Make Me Speak Louder! in orbit now instead of that livy-livered merchanteer squid.’
I grunted. I suspected if we had hitched a lift with either vessel, it wouldn’t be a single wurm man-of-war hurtling our way now, but a task force-sized battlegroup burning hard for Hexator. We had already fought that argument and I won it. Sweet William makes it a rule never to refight battles he’s already banked.
‘You could re-dock on the You Can’t Prove It Was Us and make like a barnacle…’ I suggested to Exy.
‘Or I could dive in the sun to burn that much stupid off my hull. No! I’m morphing for full stealth and silent running,’ hissed my ship, as insulted as I’d ever heard her. She calmed down and her avatar winked at me, slyly. ‘I’m keeping one of my peepers open still, just a little open, watching out for you.’
I couldn’t help but worry for my stalker angel. ‘Just be careful, Exy. That incoming wurm warship isn’t going to be nearly as easy to hoodwink as Hexator’s toy traffic control system.’
My ship’s avatar whispered back, theatrically. ‘Don’t look at me, I’m not even here. So, how is it down in the dirt?’
‘The good news is I can wander Hexator’s streets and I don’t have to gland myself happy anymore. The bad news is I’ve nearly been eaten by a slug the size of a train and had the best part of a mountain dropped on me in an attempt to bury me alive.’
‘Oh, the mine, yes I’ve heard all about the mine. Was that your dead wife trying to kill you again?’ laughed Exy with a tinge of jealousy. ‘She got the goldmine while you got the shaft.’
‘Very amusing. Let’s be careful up there.’
‘Mozart, how about you bring on your A-Game and keep Sweet William alive for us?’
‘Us? You’re having a laugh aren’t you, ship girl,’ said the robot, ‘I thought it was his job to keep me alive and functional.’
‘No more comms,’ I ordered my ship. ‘Don’t break silence again unless matters go sideways.’
Exy’s hologram faded away and the bug fluttered off to disassemble all evidence of its existence. I suspected there would be a small pile of rusty residue under the bed for Simenon to clear away when he returned with our breakfast from the tavern’s kitchen.
‘What more can go sideways, doc?’ asked Mozart. ‘Someone decides to drop two mountains onto us?’
‘Don’t tempt fate.’
But my robot friend already had.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Such stuff as dreams.
Humanity has so many gods. But on nights as hot and harsh as this one, it was
hell I needed, not heaven.
Again.
‘Erase that bloody tape,’ demanded Mozart, his shadow falling over my sweat-soaked bed inside the Sparrow’s Rest.
‘Leave me the hell alone, Moz.’
I had my penance out in the Empty. Adam would never have joined the Medical Core without my encouragement. My son would never have been in at the Contact War’s start without his dolt of a father steering him towards a hospital ship.
‘What good are you going to be to anyone tomorrow?’ growled Mozart.
I raised what passed for a near-empty bottle of wine on Hexator; a toast to what passed as my good god damned robot. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t want to hear you yelling bloody murder in your dreams tonight. I doubt the hound or Tiny Tim will enjoy hearing that, either.’
‘You won’t hear a peep.’ I tapped my augment. ‘I’ll patch a REM behaviour disorder override.’
‘If the heathens come down in force, they’ll land like bastards here whether you want them to or not. Erase that tape, doc. Nothing ever changes. How much bloody death do you need to see?’
Just a little bit more.
I set the recording going again. A dark hole in my soul demanded filling. I had run out of everything but hate to pour into it. And of that, I had a wide, wide ocean.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Lord’s library.
Dozens of street sellers were out and about. Wearing masks, so they could better relieve the intoxicated crowds of their coins and tokens. Not that gulling them took much effort, presently. Merchants cried the names of hollow gods and false spirits; amulets, indulgences, and blessings a-plenty for sale. I couldn’t blame Hexator’s local inhabitants for being so easily tricked, even when they weren’t as high as a kite. When Inuno abandoned Hexator, its conduit to all the other gods vanished as well. How many centuries could you expect people to worship at altars without receiving an answer? Little wonder citizens conjured up imaginary spirits to placate all-too-real alien storms. Hexatorians drifted half-crazed past street shrines, shrines abandoned or re-purposed for hollow vessels. How could you be annoyed at these people for their heathen stupidity? When the Hexatorians stopped believing in the gods of Arius, they didn’t start believing in nothing, they started believing in anything. Like a dog licking at a wound and causing its injury to fester. You knew the injury was never going to get better. But then, you also knew that left to its own devices that dog was never going to invent antibiotics.
Captain Jenelle Cairo appeared, right on time. She indicated the road where Lord Seltin’s citadel lay sprawled across the city. ‘Shall we?’
‘What, again?’ I croaked.
‘You know what your most endearing feature is, doctor?’
‘Please tell, good captain …’
‘You’re only passing through.’
Well, that told me. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. ‘A man could be offended.’
‘Try not to be,’ she told me. ‘And try not to offend Lord Seltin, today, while you’re about it.’
To be honest, I would be happy to arrive at Falt Seltin’s well-protected palace and discover him alive enough to be questioned; no dagger plunged into his chest; not finding him hanging from the rafters. Given the way things were trending presently, that would be a bonus.
Simenon appeared from a baker’s shop bearing a couple of meat rolls that had taken my fancy in the window. Well, I say meat. Crushed locust-lizard fillings in the center and local flour ground from dried toadstools the size of a house. At least they were never going to run short of ingredients, more’s the pity. I offered Jenelle first bite of my snack, but she gave me a withering look suggesting it was of less interest than a second taste of Sweet William. Just as well. On balance, I think this was a snack best saved for Alice Blez’s refined palette.
‘Have you noticed, Simenon, that the winds of Hexator only blow hot, never hot and cold,’ I mused.
Simenon wiped a fall of spores away from his cheek. ‘I hadn’t thought about it, Master Roxley.’
No, I don’t suppose the boy had.
‘Where’s your overgrown ruster?’ growled the captain.
‘I sent him off to my ship to collect a few things,’ I said. I patted the little leather satchel I carried with me. In truth, I think Moz was still pissed at me for having to gland a serious hangover cure this morning. ‘You appear a little tired, captain, if I may say.’
Jenelle gave me a weary look and indicated the cavorting crowd snaking through the capital’s streets. ‘The joy never stops for the Watch during Spore-blossom Season. And you don’t exactly look like an oil portrait yourself.’
Lord Seltin’s citadel appeared to be a colonial-era structure, heavy sloping composite walls that would require an orbital strike by the Expected Ambush to put a dent in them. I suspected this building would still be squatting here when humanity had become an extinction memory in Hexator’s fossil record. Inside, its corridors, halls and grand rooms were retrofitted with gas torches and a few candle-lit chandeliers that kept the household staff unnecessarily busy. A company of admirably sober and grim house guards marched us to his lordship, taking position around the receiving chamber’s walls; all the better to remind us of his power and position. Perhaps they’re unhappy about being deprived of the festival’s frolics?
Falt Seltin didn’t seem overly concerned with his dignity or the madness outside. He stood alone in the middle of a vault which had once served as a genomic DNA and cDNA library. Its glass walls contained hundreds of thousands of data crystals resting in fingernail-sized recesses. Six floors deep, the chamber lay buried like a well at the palace’s centre. At least he’s still alive.
Lord Seltin cut an owlish figure, but without the gods’ ability to help him handle the 800 billion basepair diploid human genomes compressed on each tiny data crystal, he might as well be an octopus sitting in the wreckage of a submarine on the seabed; tentacles on the control yoke, pretending to pilot it.
‘So, this used to be the First Founder’s palace?’ I guessed as the lord and I shook hands.
‘My family bought the Wang estate a century after the last of his house died,’ confirmed Lord Seltin.
And, it seemed, the Seltins had also inherited Daylen Wang’s interests in guiding human evolution to some distant pinnacle of near
godhood. An almost comedic hubris, but one that still prospered on a handful of the Humanitum’s worlds. Doomed to failure, of course. The race of man had already given birth to our children as gods. How could a beggared humanity hope to rival its progeny with, literally, as the old joke went, brains the size of a planet? Or these days, intelligences distributed across multiple star systems. Just trying to share a few of the gods’ insights was enough to drive our best scienceers insane. An ant could never become an elephant by pining for a trunk, no matter how hard it wished and worked.
Denied the vault’s digital contents, Lord Seltin pursued his folly by more pedestrian means. He stood surrounded by wooden boards pinned with hundreds of paper crests, hand-inked heraldic shields of the great and minor houses of Hexator, pieces of string linking the pins in a web of insanity. Tables surrounded the boards, piled with ledgers, family trees, and files of medical records. How many decades has he spent on this lunacy? How many centuries has his family pursued this madness?
‘We could have done it,’ said Falt, his finger drifting along one of the linked strings as I glanced around the vault.
‘Produced a Kallihuman?’ I suggested. Simenon and Jenelle stood behind me. The captain’s silent judgment rested like a hot dagger pointed at my spine.
‘Yes. If things hadn’t fallen apart on Hexator so quickly and completely,’ said Lord Seltin. ‘Daylen Wang selected the original colonists’ bloodlines to maximize his breeding program’s chances.’
And how had that idiocy ended? Too many Alphas beating each back into the Beta. War and conflict and resource competition spinning towards complete societal collapse. ‘Perfect humanity doesn’t exist, my lord. Maybe it shouldn’t, even if such a thing were possible.’
‘If only we had bred as true as planned, Hexator would now be guided by rulers beyond wisdom. Your gods’ abandonment of Hexator wouldn’t have mattered a jot. Nothing could have stopped us. Tell me, doctor, is my work regarded as a heresy inside the Humanitum?’
