Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  "And in the dark and the cold, when screams echoed in the alleys and I heard footsteps all around, I turned up Neave Crescent Creek until the music drowned out the world. Pirgo Park was always my favourite, did I tell you that? I will wait for you where the pear trees grow. I listened to that and I thought of you, Constant."

  His hand trembled around the knife's handle.

  "You, in a different time and a different place. Us, where the pear trees grow. Us, where the grass is tall and as blue as the oceans. Us, on Scathach Station. I dreamed that you might love me there."

  "But that was just a dream, wasn't it?" The tanned man had crept up behind him. "Look at yourself. Look at what you have done. You are beyond saving, soldier, and if you let her in, you'll destroy her."

  "My poor Constant." The woman's hand caressed his visor, long red nails clattering across the cracks. "Let me take your helmet. Let me take your armour. Let me have you the way I've always wanted you; the man, laid bare."

  "I'm your only chance. With me, you will be whole. More than whole." The man's voice shifted to a feminine pitch as his hand slid up Cassimer's shoulder.

  "And I will kiss you just like Joy," said the woman.

  Twenty years of fear, twenty years of cold-sweat anticipation - and all he felt, standing face to face with this demon, was disgust.

  "Abomination," he said and plunged his knife into the woman's temple. She made no sound, but the tanned man and all the rest of Elkhart's legion screamed in unison. Cassimer turned, grabbed the man by the neck, and threw him over the railing. Another choral scream followed, this one longer, sharper, panicked - as though death by immolation was a fresh experience, more unpleasant to process. Good. He didn't care how ancient this demon was or how many deaths it had suffered - if it feared pain, he would give it pain.

  He didn't kill the next one. Simply yanked its arms out of their sockets and stomped on its spine. Turned it into a shape that human bodies had never been meant to make, but then, it wasn't really human anymore. The next vessel tried to get away when he reached for it, but it moved sluggishly, feeling the injuries of the other.

  "Open the airlock." Bone splintered as he squeezed the thing's wrist. It was a kind of cruelty he wouldn't have visited even on Scarsdale, but Scarsdale had - for all his monstrousness - been human. This thing wasn't, no matter how it begged and pleaded, no matter how human its tears looked. It was a demon, and for demons there was but one mercy.

  He broke its neck and moved on to the next. Before his knife grazed its skin, the Andromache's force field went dark and the airlock opened.

  ◆◆◆

  The Ever Onward, among last of her kind, had represented the pinnacle of scientific achievement. Every angle cut with precision, every function constructed with perfection in mind. Her builders had approached their task with purity, making from base materials a ship of reason and clarity, humanity's white beacon blazing a path across the void.

  The Andromache was a different creature. Her interior walls curved and glowed with inner golden light. The floor was bamboo and stylized grass shoots were silhouetted on the walls, swaying underneath the Primaterre sun. Boarding the Andromache was like entering a living organism, the low hum of engines a distant heartbeat. She was a marvel of a different kind, and as the Ever Onward had launched at the end of one era, Cassimer wondered if the Andromache had been intended to begin another. For what purpose she'd been built, this secret ship, this unsanctioned breach of purity, he had no idea. But she was good, he felt that, good and pure and true, and that she had fallen prey to demons was revolting.

  "Where is Joy?" He tightened his grip around the demon he held and fought the urge to execute it on the spot when it smiled. "Take me to her."

  It said nothing. Trying to buy time, no doubt. Trying to find some way of stopping him. Good luck with that. He snapped its neck and moved into the ship, his field of awareness straining to see ahead. The suit was on the verge of failure and the Andromache guarded herself closely. The ship's systems were out of bounds, hidden behind barriers he couldn't hope to breach, but here and there, he spotted accessible nodes of light. A tablet, left on a desk, had a camera through which he saw half a dozen demons. Frightened, huddling, weeping as they clutched at their necks. An old Hierochloe rifle, swinging from someone's hip. Its targeting sensors provided little useful data, but he stored it anyway.

  And then his awareness brushed against something familiar. The Ereshkigal suit reacted, reaching out to communicate with what its sensors read as a battalion of friendlies. A vast armoury, where thousands of suits waited quietly for their users to wake. Physically remote - more than half the ship's length between his position and the armoury - but its arsenal responded to his touch as though he was running his fingers across their grips.

  He dropped the field of awareness and shut down the connection before his HUD was flooded with linking requests. The contents of the armoury had run authority checks and found him more than qualified. Somewhere on the Andromache, an army's worth of weaponry glowed bright for him.

  The corridor ended in a sealed door. The demon had let him onboard but intended to keep him trapped. No matter. Metal screeched as the Ereshkigal suit's massive fist tore a hole through the door. Forcing it open was hardly a strain.

  On the other side, three demons tried to flee. He shot one in the leg and grabbed the nearest by the neck.

  "Where is she?"

  The demon shook its head, and he crushed its trachea.

  The next demon, wheezing for air through an uninjured throat, bled profusely from the stump that had been its leg. Cassimer knelt, clamping his hand around the wound to stop the bleeding. "Tell me where she is."

  "If you hurt me again, we will kill her."

  "If you kill her, nothing will stop me from killing every single one of you."

  Its face twitched, and he could no longer stand to look at it. Mercy for the corrupted vessel, and then he continued through the golden boughs of the Andromache. More demons crossed his path and he asked them all the same question, gave them all the same mercy. And then the Andromache changed, her interior shifting and narrowing, until suddenly the Ereshkigal suit could no longer squeeze through.

  He breathed against the thick visor and watched the condensation fog and clear. It took only a second to decide - he had to, for Joy - but longer still to find the courage. Then he commanded the Ereshkigal suit to release its seals, and he stepped out from its protective shell.

  Only him now. Only flesh and bone and instinct. So weak when he needed more than ever to be strong.

  He commanded the suit to purge its systems and make itself unusable. Then he took what equipment he could from it and packed his duffel bag. When he made to sling the bag over his shoulder, he found that he could no longer move his left arm. There was no pain - not yet - but underneath the skin-tight material of his jumpsuit, his collarbone protruded at an odd angle. His shoulder was matted with anaesthesia-darkened blood, but his emergency aid packs had been enough to stop the haemorrhaging.

  He shrugged the bag over his good shoulder and continued. Slower now, quieter - had to make use of his senses. No eyes in the shadows, perhaps, but plenty in the ceiling, and as he walked, he could hear the security cameras turn to follow him. The demon had counted on this, he realised. It had let him board the Andromache knowing that he'd have to give up his biggest advantage in order to proceed.

  Damn them all. He needed neither suit nor weapon when he had the Hecate and Joy. From the worst and the best, he drew all the strength he needed.

  The next demon he met tried to shoot him. He shot faster and he shot truer, and before the demon died, he said: "Tell me where she is."

  Elkhart had claimed to love Joy. Another revolting thought, but perhaps there was some truth to it, because another five had to die before a sixth - legs broken - croaked a reply: "I yield, soldier. I will give you what you want."

  "Good. Have the next one tell me where she is."

  The Morrigan spat wh
ite fire and the demon released its broken vessel. She'd been a woman once, and he was moved to close her eyelids.

  "Does that make you feel better?" A demon had entered the room and stood leaning against the door, arms folded across its chest. "I suppose you're telling yourself that all this killing is righteous. But conviction and one feigned moment of nobility won't make you any less of a murderer, soldier."

  "Can't murder what's already dead." Cassimer trained his gun on the demon. "Tell me where Joy is."

  "Or what? You'll kill me?" The demon laughed softly and stepped into the room proper. It had been a man once, tall and strong, and it wore its uniform jacket casually unbuttoned and its weapon holstered low around its waist, as though it fancied itself a gunslinger. It smiled wide, teeth white against tanned skin and ran a hand through tousled copper hair.

  Cassimer's finger slid from the trigger.

  "She never thought we looked much alike," said the thing that had once been Finn Somerset, "but clearly she was wrong. Perhaps her time on Cato brought out in her what I always tried to shield her from; the need to be hard. Perhaps with the softness gone, she is more like me. Stronger, but her light dimmer."

  "No," said Cassimer and knew that he should take the shot. Speaking to him through this vessel was a trick, and it was a mistake to allow the demon to steal the time it so desperately desired. But Finn Somerset had sunrise hair and a smile as sincere as Joy's, and he couldn't extinguish that. He couldn't take her brother from Joy, even if another had already taken him. "She's as bright as the stars."

  Finn made a derisive grimace. "As if you would know. One kiss doesn't make her any less a stranger to you. A hundred years is no distance at all compared to the gulf between what you are and what I know my sister to be. It'd be better for you to leave her here. Go on, Constant. Why don't you take that gun of yours and turn it on yourself? Do what you should have done on the Hecate."

  "I..." Razor-wire wrapped around his heart. The Hecate. The Hecate. The name beat like a drum, loud and insistent, but its rhythm had already been inside of him, pulsating in the ash. If he let it out, its sound would rise to drown out all else.

  "Joy fought very hard to keep your secrets, but that name floated on her surface like an oil spill, thick and dark. Inside of myself, I found memories of a movie about a ship called the Hecate. And a boy named Constant Cassimer." Finn smiled again, and though his voice was Elkhart's unctuous jeer, his smile was still sincere. "Poor little boy. Poor little man."

  "I don't need a demon's pity." Nor anyone else's. His skin crawled with heat and the walls were so close that he could barely breathe. This time, he had no pharmaceuticals to take the edge off, no distractions other than the increasing throbbing in his shoulder, and -

  - and it was better that way, the sharp-edged panic lancing open wounds that had been left to fester.

  "But you do need something, soldier. What is it you desire? A woman's love?" The demon laughed. "Don't think that I mock you. I have seen empires rise and fall for love. I have seen worlds torn asunder for love. I have seen sacrifice and massacre alike, all in the name of love. It's a force as powerful as it is ancient, but it makes men into fools as often as it does heroes. And you, Commander Cassimer, were already a hero. What love cannot elevate, it will debase."

  "Not one step closer," Cassimer warned.

  "But I haven't moved an inch, soldier."

  His HUD agreed with the demon, but that only made them both liars. He could swear the Finn-thing had swaggered forward. Or maybe the room had shrunk. The walls did pulsate, golden light speeding up to match the pace of his racing heart, and in the hum of engines, he heard the soft tones of laughter.

  No. No. He rolled his injured shoulder, let fragile bone snap and fresh blood pour. Had to focus on the real and undeniable. Had to keep his mind in check. Had to... had to stay pure.

  "She loves you on Cato, where the grey wastes make even one such as you seem sane. She loves you when the thunder rolls and when the drifters howl, because you are strong and she is not. But when she is safe and the galaxy is hers; when she walks the cedar-scented halls of Scathach and her smile catches the eyes of pilots and officers, engineers and generals - do you think she will stay with one so mad and broken as you?"

  "Going to have to do better than that, demon," he replied, nodding towards his shoulder. "Pain is no reason not to do what's right."

  "Indeed? Then you should take no issue with what was done to the Hecate. All the pain inflicted on its crew - on you - was in the name of what's right. For a good cause."

  "What good cause justifies the murder of innocents?"

  "Asks a man whose hands drip with blood."

  "None of it innocent."

  "A matter of opinion." Finn shrugged. "You see part of the truth now - or else you wouldn't have come for Joy - but would you like to know more? I have memories of working at Hierochloe, memories of the harmony that became purity. It was never intended to be control, simply a nudge to guide humanity in the right direction. The moral code they chose was deliberately vague: choose creation over destruction. Value community over individuality. Strive for order over chaos. Seek not faith, but examine the real. By these ideals, it was hoped that peaceful progress might be achieved. Foolish, but perhaps understandable if you consider the time period."

  Finn's voice dropped a few octaves, and as it segued into a Kirkclair accent, Cassimer understood that he was listening to Finn, as the man had once been.

  "Joy didn't see it coming, because I did everything in my power to keep her world a safe little bubble. The anti-capitalism movement, the anti-migrant demonstrations... she never saw any of that. I'd spend a whole day at work cracking militant protestors' heads, and I'd spend the evening with her, pretending like everything was fine. As far as she was concerned, the skies were always blue - and I mean that literally. Once, I went round her apartment only to find one of her asshole neighbours spray-painting GO HOME TERRA SCUM on her windows. I kicked his fucking head in and called for one of my mates to come round to pick him up - Hal was good when it came to that sort of thing; had a big black truck and owned several acres of desert wasteland. Afterwards, I go in to see Joy and find her, nose in a book, by windows set to display a clear blue sky. I was relieved as all hell, because I'd thought for sure she would've heard the screaming."

  "You did well to protect her."

  "Sometimes I think that if I hadn't, if I'd let her see the ugliness, Cato might not have been such a shock. I..." Finn paused, frowning. "I digress. My point is, when Hierochloe dreamed of fixing the galaxy with the flip of a switch, it really did need fixing. But you know that. You know how bad the war got. You know what happened on Mars and in Kirkclair."

  Though it was the unofficial capital world of the Primaterre Protectorate, Cassimer had visited the red planet only twice. The first visit - a quick, dirty and highly classified mission in the Applegarth lowlands - had shown him the planet's scars. Moss-clad ravines had given way to bomb craters and though the forests grew thick in those cauldrons, the spiking rad-count and undergrowth-wrapped wreckage hinted at the troubled past.

  His second visit had been to attend an officer's ball in Kirkclair. He'd managed ten minutes of the mandatory introductions and small talk before fleeing to the roof. At night, the city was a sea of shimmering light, but the lights reflected in the polished surfaces of black granite cenotaphs. The peal of wind-chimes had drifted on the wind, high over the hum of traffic. There was hardly a block in Kirkclair without a contemplation grove; patches of woodland where the trees were festooned with ribbons and bells, to commemorate ground once blemished by internment camps and mass graves.

  A botanist with an honest heart and sickly lungs wouldn't have lasted long. He knew what the Workers Union had done to such women, and he knew that the Cappers had done even worse after liberating Kirkclair. A hateful war fought between loathsome factions, and it made him sick to consider the what-ifs, and sicker still to have to consider that perhaps Hierochloe - Primat
erre - had been right to do what they did. That billions had died so that the future might be saved. That on the Hecate, he had fought and cried and listened to the hollow clicking of a gun for the greater good.

  That the Primaterre had only done what he had always done: what was necessary.

  "When I started working as a security guard, we only carried nightsticks. A year later, stun guns. After a couple of guards got killed, we all got guns. First non-lethal, then lethal, then very lethal. Pretty soon, none of us went to work without body-armour and backup, doing our rounds behind turrets and electric fencing. By the time I was chief of security, we had a twenty-four-hour team of snipers on the roof. I remember standing up there with them, wind whipping dust in my face, and thinking: I can see Joy's building from here. My sister, going about her day in view of a sniper's nest. That's when I knew I had to do something." Finn flicked a strand of copper hair from his face. The gesture was languid, casual, but with calculated charm. A handsome man, Joy's brother, and well aware of it. "When my sweep team found an explosive device tucked into the wheel-well of my fiancee's car, my decision was made."

  "The Ever Onward."

  "Its destination was a world called Gainsborough. Small, serene, and remote enough that I thought we might have a chance at a better life. I saw the war coming, and I chose to take my loved ones away. Hierochloe saw it too, and they decided to save as many as they could. I don't know what happened next, but I do know that the priming wasn't enough. A man may know right from wrong, but that doesn't mean he will do what's right. Perhaps the demons were invented to give him reason to, and humanity cause to unite. Is that answer enough for you, soldier?"

  Not even close. "Why wasn't I possessed?"

  "Ah." The Finn-thing smiled a smile made for another's face. "A question you've asked yourself a thousand times. Perhaps you thought you were spared because you were special. That you were more pure than the poor corrupted crew. Perhaps you believed yourself chosen for some particular destiny. Constant Cassimer, champion of Earth, defender of humanity."