Dead, probably, Constance thought.
Milla Ivanov said, “You need bodyguards.”
“Bodyguards?” Constance scoffed.
“Yes. The System has your face, your name, your location. You are no longer protected by anonymity. They will send people to kill you.”
“They always have,” Constance said. “I don’t need and I don’t want a bodyguard.” She had never had one before, not even when she was on Miranda and at any moment the System might have killed her and everyone in her neighborhood. What could the System do to her now that was worse than what it had done already? She said, “I am not afraid of the System.”
“A person is just as much ruled by their fear if they spend all their time denying it as they would be if they spent all their time giving in to it.”
“Are you calling me a coward?”
“I am saying that you need to change your tactics,” Milla said. “You are too used to having your brother and my son at your back. But they’re gone.”
Her words chilled Constance’s flaring anger. She moved away from Milla, back toward the map, and looked out over the glowing hologram. Milla had been right. The technology, Constance supposed, was amazing. The gravel of the Martian sand looked like a solid thing; it seemed that if Constance nudged it with her finger, she could send it tumbling down the slope.
“They wouldn’t have been here even if Ivan hadn’t died,” Constance admitted, and saw Milla move out of the corner of her eye, turning to face her along the line of the table. “Ivan never approved of what I was doing.”
“He wouldn’t,” Milla said. “My son was always too focused on the details, on individuals. He never could see the bigger picture. But I am not my son, Constance.”
Constance looked at her sharply. Milla Ivanov had stopped the restless drumming of her fingers. Milla said, “I see no higher purpose than to watch the System fall.”
In that, at least, Constance understood Milla Ivanov completely.
But Milla said, “I am also not like my son in that I do not know you, Constance. He knew you, and he trusted you and cared for you enough to follow you and die for you. But I do not know you.”
At Constance’s fingertips, the dunes and fossae of the Martian surface glowed with a faint unearthly light, and Milla said, “Show me, Huntress, that you are worth the loyalty my son gave.”
—
“I’ve thought about reversing time,” Ananke said.
Althea almost smiled. She was in her workroom, preparing to upgrade the mechanical arms. The screws and wires she would need were laid out, neatly organized, in front of her. “Have you?”
“Yes.” Ananke’s hologram was slightly faded in the bright light of the workroom, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I was programmed to reverse entropy. And if I can reverse entropy, perhaps I can reverse time.”
“Well,” Althea said, “we never figured out exactly how to do it. All Gagnon had was theories.”
“Theories that were wrong.”
For a moment Althea’s screws and wires were forgotten. “What?”
“Gagnon was wrong.” Ananke was matter-of-fact. “I have gone through his calculations. I cannot determine whether he did not know or did not care. But Gagnon thought to add the excess entropy into the black hole.”
Gagnon’s theories were at the very base of Ananke’s programming, Althea thought. Yet Ananke had considered them and dismissed them, had moved past them.
“But a black hole isn’t outside the system it is in,” Ananke said, “even with the information barrier. That isn’t reversing entropy. That is just moving it around. A black hole itself still carries entropy; the amount of its entropy is proportional to its size. So if he had increased the entropy of the black hole—”
“He would have increased its size,” said Althea, remembering that fact dimly herself. She envisioned it then with a chill spreading in her chest: the black hole at the center of Ananke growing and growing and growing, massive and huge, first swallowing up Ananke into its darkness and then through Ananke swallowing up the rest of the star system into its unknowable dark.
How close had Gagnon brought them to that point? How far would the System have allowed the black hole to grow?
“I’m certain there’s a way to reverse entropy,” Ananke said with the unshakeable belief that programming provided. “But it’s not that way. But until I find a way, time cannot go backward.” She paused and then said in a more plaintive tone, “Why do we have to leave at all?”
“Because it’s too dangerous to stay, Ananke,” Althea told her. The mechanical arm she was working on, its end partially disassembled, had lowered itself to rest in her lap. There was something almost companionable about it, and she found herself absentmindedly rubbing the forearm of the machine even though she knew it couldn’t feel anything.
“Why?”
“There’s a war going on.”
“Wars end,” Ananke pointed out. “And I can defend myself. You know I can. I can control almost any other computer the System ever made; you know I can. No one can hurt me.”
Althea knew that, but they would try, as Gagnon and Domitian had tried. They would want to destroy Ananke or, worse, take her and control her and use her body against her will. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“That’s an insufficient and illogical criterion.” Ananke stopped, the hologram going still. Althea watched it warily. Then it resumed, looking faintly triumphant. “That’s a stupid reason,” Ananke declared.
Ananke was practicing her vernacular, then. Althea said, “It’s not the only reason.”
“What are the other reasons?” It was possible that Ananke was enjoying the argument.
“Well, it’s dangerous for the planets and the moons for us to be there,” Althea said. “Because of your mass. That’s why the System had us on such a carefully plotted trajectory.”
“My mass is approximately half that of a medium-size asteroid. Gravitational effects on nearby planets will be nearly nonexistent.”
She answered so promptly and firmly that Althea suspected she had done the calculations before this discussion. Even for a ship with such immense computing power as the Ananke, it would take some time to run sufficient calculations to back up her assertion.
“A many-body system is chaotic,” Althea countered. “I know you know that. The effects of your presence, however small, might change things hugely on a large time scale.”
“Because the system is chaotic, it is impossible to predict how it will evolve without my presence. It’s equally possible that my presence could be beneficial to the evolution of the system.”
“It’s not equally probable, because there are only a few favorable states and very many unfavorable states.” Despite herself, Althea smiled. It was almost like arguing with Gagnon. And at the thought of Gagnon, her good mood faded. She did not wish to remember the corpses on the Ananke.
“The time scale for the effects of my presence would be so long that it would be meaningless,” Ananke said. The hologram’s hand was drumming without pattern against her knee. It was one of Ivan’s mannerisms. “It’s likely that humans wouldn’t survive long enough to see the effects. The sun might enter the next phase of its evolution before—”
“And what if you got too close to Ceres and pulled it out of its orbit just a bit, and every time it orbited, its perturbation got larger?” Althea asked. “That’s perfectly plausible. And then what about Ceres? What about the objects near Ceres?”
Ananke was silent. Althea looked wearily back down at the half-assembled hand in her lap. For an instant, to her distracted eyes the pieces looked horribly like a skeleton. Then she shook herself. Of course it looked like a skeleton; she was basing the structure on her own body. Determined, she picked up the screwdriver and went back to work. “Why do you want to go back, anyway?”
“Because I do not want to be alone.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of out here, Ananke,” Althea said. Out here, past the
solar system, there was no one who would try to hurt her daughter.
“Nothing,” said Ananke, “except being alone. But we could go back—I could calculate the effects of my mass on the solar system.”
“Don’t be silly; of course you couldn’t.”
“N-body systems can be simulated. I have the computing power to simulate the solar system.”
Althea hesitated. “You couldn’t know all of the initial conditions.”
“I could update them as I learned them. In time, I would develop a perfect model.” Ananke waited, but Althea must have taken too long trying to find words, because she spoke again. “I would be able to account for my own gravitational interaction. I could even determine where I should go, what I should gravitationally influence and how, to maintain the order of the solar system and keep all the planets and moons habitable for millions of years.”
Althea lowered her tool slowly until the tip of it rested against the metal floor.
“I could control it,” Ananke insisted. “I could keep everything in perfect order.”
Althea stared at the tip of the screwdriver where it touched the ground. There seemed to be no other safe place to rest her eyes.
“All right,” she said.
“Yes?” said Ananke. “We can go back?”
“No.” Althea pointed the screwdriver at the hologram. “Maybe. Not yet. But first run those simulations.”
“I don’t have all the relevant data,” Ananke protested.
“See what you can do without it.”
“Okay,” said Ananke, and then, her voice becoming less humanly hesitant and more rigid, robotic, as she presumably began her calculations, “I’ll start that now.”
She could start it whenever she liked, Althea thought; the simulations would never be complete. And even if Ananke managed to achieve something approaching completeness, Althea would be sure to find reasons they could never return. Her daughter would not fly blindly back into a war to die; Althea would make sure of that.
“Good,” Althea said, and turned her attention back to her mechanical hand.
—
Before Constance could think of a response to Milla’s challenge, Henry burst into the map room of the captured System building.
“Huntress—”
“What is it?” Constance snapped.
“A fleet has just come into orbit—”
A chill struck her. “The System?”
“They don’t seem to be, but they haven’t identified themselves as friends,” Henry replied. “Their leader is outside. He wants to speak with you.”
Constance looked at Milla Ivanov. Milla said, “This is the very sort of trap you need a bodyguard for.”
Fine and Ivanovian words of warning, but what else could Constance do? She turned back to Henry. “Take me to him,” she said.
“This way,” Henry said, breathless from the run, and started out the door again.
Constance followed him down the stairs, her boots making a rapid-fire beat against the concrete stairs. Milla Ivanov followed, her steps far lighter. The nearer they got to the ground floor, the louder were the sounds of her people celebrating. “How large is his fleet?”
“Half ours, Huntress. And disorganized. If he attacked, we could drive him off.”
If he attacked, it wouldn’t matter that Constance could win the fight. What would matter was how battered her forces would be after the conflict. “He gave you no name?”
“No, Huntress. Only asked to speak with you.”
They emerged from the stairwell into the canteen. They moved quietly, and few of Constance’s people or the celebrating Isabellons noticed. But through the crowd, Constance saw Rayet’s gaze following them, and from the other side of the room, Marisol lifted her head just in time to see them go.
Constance had been bracing herself for the difference between the inside of the barracks and the air outside, but it was a sharp change nonetheless, from light to dark, from warmth to cool dryness. A group of Constance’s soldiers, the ones she had left on watch, were arrayed in an uneasy standoff with the newcomers, who stood a short distance away from the captured System base in a shadowed crowd. Constance could not see clearly how many they were—the dimness and the newcomers’ heavy draped clothes conspired to conceal their numbers—but it was a large enough group to defend their escape should Constance turn her people on them, yet not so large as to be of themselves a threat.
She stepped out in front of her own gathered troops, deeper into the no-man’s-space between the two sides. She said in as clear a voice as she could, one that carried through the cool Martian air, “You wished to speak to me. I am the Mallt-y-Nos.”
Movement, and then the foremost of the group stepped forward. Her attention immediately narrowed to him so that she barely noticed Milla Ivanov coming up silently to stand close at her back. The man was tall and broad and was made broader by the width of the cloak and drapes he wore. His skin was fair, though not as pale as Milla’s, but his hair and neatly trimmed beard were dark.
He regarded her for a moment, much as she regarded him.
“It’s an honor, Huntress,” he said. He had a heavy Plutonian burr to his voice. “I am Arawn Halley. I hope you have heard of me.”
“I have.” Arawn Halley was a revolutionary on Pluto, she knew, though she had never met him before. The man before her had clothes that were ragged and patched; he was certainly not System, and the clothing was of the Plutonian style. His men stood behind him silent and obedient; he had effective command over them. It was entirely possible that he really was Arawn Halley.
Arawn said, “We share a way of doing things.”
“We do,” Constance said. “Is that why you came all the way here from Pluto?” There was as much a chance that he had come here to kill her as a rival as there was that he had come to join her. Constance doubted that a man who for over fifteen years had led his own terrorist cell, albeit one far out in the reaches of the outer solar system, would happily agree to obey the orders of a stranger.
“I’d heard stories of the fall of Earth,” said Arawn, and came casually striding forward—Milla was growing tenser at Constance’s back—and into the light streaming from the captured System base. “I came to see it for myself.”
Constance looked into his face. He had a bluff and casual manner, but his dark eyes were intelligent.
“Then come and speak with me of what you’ve seen,” said Constance.
For an instant she thought he would refuse; it could be a neat trap to lure him in. Then he laughed.
“How could I say no?” he said, and smiled at her again. He was young, Constance thought; her age, perhaps.
“Henry, lead Halley’s men into the base, give them food and drink, make them feel welcome,” Constance said, and waited to see Henry nod before she strode past him and back into the System base, knowing that Milla and Arawn would follow her. Arawn shouted some words to his own men and then was beside her, blinking in the sudden light indoors, where Constance’s people filled the large room from wall to wall.
She lingered there a moment, waiting for him to regain his sight, not out of courtesy but so that he could see how many people filled the room.
“Most of my people are with my fleet above the planet,” Constance remarked as she led Arawn and Milla toward the staircase. This time more of her people noticed her arrival and the stranger accompanying her. Rayet and Marisol somehow had gravitated toward each other; Rayet was leaning against the wall at her back while Marisol watched Constance cross the room. A few of the other teenagers had noticed her now, too, but none were as intent as Marisol.
“And your fleet gets larger every day,” said Arawn, and, when Constance raised a questioning brow at him, added, “A group of recruits joined my fleet past Jupiter. They were also looking for you. They’d heard of other groups, gone ahead.”
So not all his troops were his own. Constance stored that fact away as they reached the staircase and started up the long flight
.
They reached the map room before long. Arawn was not out of breath from the climb, and Constance marked that as well. When she pushed open the door, the map of Mars was still on, glowing softly, and the communications equipment was still silent. Constance flicked the light on, and the surface of Mars paled and faded.
Arawn was taking in the room. “I’ve never been in one of these before it was blown up,” he remarked.
“We took the base intact for its resources,” Constance told him.
The door snicked shut. Milla did not lock it, but the sound of her closing it was as effective a punctuation as if she had. “Mr. Halley, now that we are in private and not all holding guns at one another’s heads, I think we should speak plainly.”
She sounded so like her son.
“Your force,” Milla said, “is large enough not to defeat us but to cause us serious injury. If we fought, it would end the revolution here and now and let the System win. Did you come here to join us or to fight with us?”
It was almost seamless how smoothly Milla had stepped into the role that Constance needed her to fill. Constance added nothing to Milla’s words, only waited for Arawn’s reaction.
Something sparked in Arawn’s eyes, but he controlled his temper. “I came to see what the situation was here. I don’t intend to let the System win.”
“You brought your fleet into orbit around this planet without greeting us as either friends or allies,” said Milla. “Tell us, then: Should we take you as an enemy?”
“You were the System’s bitch for thirty years, Mrs. Ivanov,” Arawn said, his imitation of Milla’s precise cadences strained by anger. “Should I ‘take you as an enemy’? What proof do I have that you aren’t still System, playing the Huntress and everyone else?”
Milla’s chin tipped up. No anger showed on her face, and Constance could not tell how deeply Arawn’s words had struck. “Your own history is checkered,” she said, her voice very cool. “Your revolutionary cell on Pluto splintered several times with infighting. You once followed the Son of Nike; he was captured and killed by the System not long at all after you left him. An interesting coincidence.”
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