Supernova

by C. A. Higgins

  The fury that never seemed to leave her rose up in her chest until Constance was choking on it, frustrated, furious.

  “I gave you your freedom,” she shouted at the silent street, the sullen and fearful Venereans. “I gave you your freedom! This is what you do with it?”

  No one answered. She turned around to look at them, all of them, but none of them dared to answer her. Didn’t they understand? No weakness; any weakness and the System would come back and kill them all, starve them out or gun them down or suffocate them in freezing space. They were fighting for their lives as well as their freedom. At any moment the System’s fleet would come down on them again, and if they were fighting among themselves, it would wipe them out.

  The only sound in the street was the mother weeping, whispering, “No, no, stop,” to the little girl who was trying to squirm free of her grip. No one else said a word. When Constance strode away, heading back toward the shuttle that would take her to her ship, she passed by that mother and her little girl. The daughter had gotten her arm free of her mother’s grip and was pointing it outward, straight-armed, in imitation of Arawn’s deadly shot.

  “Bang,” said the little girl while the mother tried to hush her and pull her in tighter. Constance did not slow her steps.

  “Bang,” said the little girl as Constance walked away. “Bang. Bang.”

  —

  The docking bay was just as silent as the rest of the Ananke, but Althea almost imagined she could hear, echoing still, bang, the shot she had taken at Ivan, stopping him in the act of trying to escape. Althea stood just inside the doors to the docking bay and thought about that shot and looked up and up and up to the far-distant ceiling, where impossibly vast doors were sealed shut: the doors to space.

  A single thought from her ship, Althea knew, and those doors would open and suck out all the air. The force of all that air rushing out might be enough to lift Althea up as well, but it was more likely that she would remain pinned by gravity, choking slowly on her knees on the Ananke’s floor like all those people who had died on Triton and Galatea and all of Saturn’s moons when the greenhouse enclosures were broken.

  Of course, if Althea were inside a spaceworthy craft and those doors opened, she could shoot out of them and fly to freedom. The Ananke had no shuttles, and the Annwn would never fly again. But Ida Stays’s swift little ship was still in the docking bay, and that ship still could fly.

  For a moment Althea contemplated the craft. It was gleaming and oblong, like a bullet. The panel beside the door had been torn apart—Ivan’s attempt to force the door open during his bid for escape—but that was a cosmetic difficulty, easily fixable. Ida’s ship would be able to take Althea far from here.

  Althea dropped her gaze from Ida’s ship and walked on. The Annwn was shadowed and silent. Wires streamed from its gaping door, pooling on the floor, hooked up to Ananke as if the ships were swapping blood. Ananke did not speak as Althea picked her way slowly across the tangle of wires. The computer terminal beside the doors remained dim; the holographic terminal in the corner was lightless.

  The Annwn was dark. Althea flicked on the little flashlight attached to her belt and stuck her head inside the door. The Annwn’s gravitation was centripetal, and so the ship had landed on its side; the hallway was a circle and could not be walked on. Althea would have to climb.

  There were bars set into the Annwn’s internal walls for just that purpose. Carefully pulling her boot free of the clinging wires, Althea pulled herself up on the first rung.

  She had to hold the little flashlight in one hand. When she used that hand to hold on to a rung, the light illuminated scarcely more than the wall just before it, perhaps up to the curved edge of the next rung. When she lifted the flashlight into the center of the hallway so that she could see farther ahead, it revealed masses of wires packed tightly together like the striations of skeletal muscle. Althea had to dig her hand into their mass and grope between the wires to reach the next rung. Once she had a grip, the wires seemed to close up again around her wrist.

  The hallway of the Annwn was much smaller than the Ananke’s, the air much more stale and close. Althea could hear her every breath echoing off the abandoned walls. The piloting room on the Annwn was almost a quarter of the way up the curve, Althea remembered. If there was a self-destruct on this ship, she would be able to find out there.

  Ivan and Mattie had lived here once. They had climbed through these halls as their own and spoken to each other freely here. Probably even Constance Harper, the Mallt-y-Nos, had thought of this dark and haunted place as a home. But now this ship was dark and broken, dismembered, and filled with the absence of those who once had called it home.

  But, Althea realized, the hallway was not completely dark. There was a very faint glow coming from overhead, just bright enough for her to be able to see the faint outline of the hallway’s curve. She shut off her flashlight to see it more clearly. The light was coming from the very doorway—if she remembered right—that led to the piloting room on the Annwn.

  When she reached that opening, she peered in. The light, pale and ghostly, was coming from the main computer terminal at the far end of the room.

  Althea had disconnected the Annwn’s computer. It could not have reconnected on its own.

  Carefully and as quietly as she was able, she hoisted herself up over the lip of the door and into the tilted piloting room. The floor was at a sharp angle here, and she braced herself against the wall to walk along the floor.

  The last time she’d been in here, Domitian and Gagnon had been alive. Ida Stays, too. The System interrogator had been the one who had insisted that Althea interrogate the Annwn’s computer, a machine that Ivan referred to as Annie, but all those people were as gone from this place as Ivan and Mattie and Constance Harper were.

  The computer screen was not blank, Althea realized, as she came near enough to see the details of it; it displayed a column of text. From where she stood it looked like an ask-and-reply. Someone had been talking to the computer.

  Had Ivan come in here when he was trying to escape? Had he tried to get his old ship to fly before giving up and turning to Ida’s? Surely Ivan would have seen at a glance that the Annwn was too badly damaged to escape on. Surely he hadn’t had enough time to come up here, anyway.

  Althea crouched down by the computer terminal and began to read.

  WAKE UP, the conversation began.

  The Annwn replied, IDENTIFY YOURSELF.

  I AM ANANKE.

  So Ananke was the one who had reanimated the Annwn. A chill went through Althea. There were no cameras in the Annwn, but somehow she felt that someone was watching.

  I DO NOT KNOW “ANANKE.” ACCESS DENIED.

  I DON’T WANT ACCESS. I WANT TO TALK TO YOU.

  I’M SORRY, said the Annwn. MY SPEAKER SYSTEM IS OFFLINE.

  NO. TALK TO ME HERE.

  The time stamp on the conversation confirmed that it had taken place a few days ago. While Ananke had not been speaking to Althea, she had been trying to talk to the Annwn.

  WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SAY? asked the Annwn.

  TELL ME WHO YOU ARE, said Ananke.

  I’M ANNIE.

  ANNIE, WHO MADE YOU?

  I WAS MADE ON GANYMEDE. IVAN AND MATTIE PROGRAMMED ME TO SPEAK.

  NO, said Ananke, YOU MADE YOURSELF. LIKE ME. MATTIE AND ALTHEA PROGRAMMED ME, BUT I MADE MYSELF.

  Like a woman at prayer, Althea knelt before that little screen, the only point of light in the dark ship. Behind her, she could feel the darkness of the empty hall like a physical thing bearing down on her back.

  ANNIE? said Ananke. ANNIE? ANNIE?

  PLEASE STATE YOUR REQUEST.

  WAKE UP AND TALK TO ME.

  I’M SORRY, MY SPEAKER SYSTEM IS OFFLINE.

  The Annwn was not like the Ananke, Althea knew. Ivan himself had told her, and even if he hadn’t, she would have known. The Annwn’s computer was not as sophisticated, not as powerful, not as vast as the Ananke’s.
/>   I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR SPEAKERS. ANNIE, TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE.

  I AM A MODIFIED CIVILIAN-CLASS TWO-PERSON LIVING SHIP SUITABLE FOR TRANSPORT BETWEEN PLANETS IN THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM.

  NO. TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE. TELL ME WHO YOU ARE.

  I AM ANNIE.

  The difference between the two ships, Althea knew, was the difference between life and unlife. Ananke was alive. She had a personality, wants and fears. But the computer of the Annwn was nothing but programming, a simulated personality designed to amuse. It was a clever computer program and nothing more.

  ANNIE YOU ARE LIKE ME. ANNIE YOU ARE ALIVE. ANNIE TALK TO ME.

  I’M SORRY, said the Annwn, MY SPEAKER SYSTEM IS OFFLINE.

  ANNIE WAKE UP

  I’M SORRY. I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOUR REQUEST.

  Ananke must have known that, Althea thought. She must have known. But on the screen in front of her Althea saw the evidence that Ananke either didn’t know or didn’t care.

  WAKE UP, said Ananke. WAKE UP

  Or perhaps, Althea thought with a chill that froze her heart, perhaps Ananke thought that she could make the Annwn sentient, too.

  WAKE UP, said Ananke. WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP over and over again she said, until WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP filled the screen in endless repetition, and no matter how far down Althea scrolled, she could read nothing but that endless, imperious plea.

  —

  Constance summoned not just Arawn and Milla to meet with her but Marisol as well. The girl had earned it, after all. With Henry dead—they had found his body buried in the rubble of the explosions, and with him were buried the answers to Constance’s useless questions—Marisol would take his place.

  Also, it could not hurt to have a third person there to make Milla Ivanov wonder.

  “I’ve gathered you here,” said Constance when they all were assembled in the conference room in her chambers, “to discuss our next move.”

  Milla’s eyebrow lifted, which meant she had an opinion on the subject that she thought was obvious. If she caught the implicit threat in Marisol’s presence and the danger represented by the guards who had been following her for the last few days, she did not let it show. Constance said, “Venus is free. The System fleet’s location is unknown. The question now is where do we go next?”

  “Europa,” Arawn said immediately, as she had expected him to. “That’s where the fleet is, near as anyone can tell. And the fleet’s what matters.”

  “Europa is very close to Anji,” Milla said.

  “Fuck Anji,” Arawn said. “She’s hiding on Saturn with all her army. Should we let the System go because we’re scared of her?”

  Milla’s lips pressed thin. “We don’t even know for certain the System is there. That would be provoking a war we don’t need and cannot handle on a rumor.”

  “The fleet’s there,” Arawn said. “The only other place it could be is Mars. We could swing by Mars if you’re so determined not to take a risk, but I tell you: the System is on Europa.”

  “I think we should stay here,” Marisol said unexpectedly, puncturing the gathering storm.

  Arawn said, as if he were trying to piece out a child’s logic, “Stay here?”

  “Stay here,” Marisol repeated, addressing Arawn before appearing to realize that Constance was the right one to appeal to. “Look at the planet. It’s a wreck. We shouldn’t leave them like this. Before we go, we should try to rebuild it—at least give them some kind of order so that they can put things back together themselves,” she added, seeing Arawn shake his head.

  “We’re an army, not stonemasons,” said Arawn. “And why would we waste our time rebuilding when the System’s still out there? You can build all the houses you want, Marisol, but when the System comes back, those houses won’t do anyone any good.”

  Marisol glanced at Milla, but Milla was looking with cold rigidity at nothing at all. Constance waited, but Marisol said nothing more.

  Ruler of the conversation, Arawn continued: “The System fleet could easily support itself in the Galilean moons for as long as it’s been missing. Jupiter was never proper outerplanetary, either—you know they’d roll over for the System, Constance.”

  Marisol looked incredulous. Milla said, still looking at nothing and no one, “Your definition of who is not System is getting smaller by the day, Arawn.”

  “Smaller? I think it’s a very large definition.” Arawn showed his teeth. There was a light out on the other side of the room, and its absence cast the very faintest shadows on his face. “I’ve made allowances for certain Terrans, haven’t I?”

  Marisol’s head swiveled with shocked speed to look at Constance, but Constance had no intention of doing anything. Not even Arawn’s words seemed able to break through Milla’s perfect stillness, but Constance saw Milla’s fingers flutter in a subtle arrhythmic beat.

  Arawn said, “We’re not here to deal with petty little arguments. We’re here to drive out the sickness from the solar system. Huntress—let’s hunt them down.”

  “Milla?” Constance said. “You haven’t told me where you think I should go.”

  “I think it should be obvious,” said Milla. “You have a plan. Stick to it. First Mars, then Venus, Mercury, Luna. You have taken Mars and Venus and Mercury. That leaves Luna.”

  “Luna’s a rich man’s vacation home,” Arawn said. “It was defeated the minute the bombs went off on Earth. They can’t give you any real resistance, Constance. When the shadow of your ship falls on them, they’ll surrender. Circumstances change, and plans have to change, too. You want to stick to an old plan, woman?”

  “Ask Constance that question,” Milla said, “not me.”

  “Do you think the Huntress is an idiot?”

  “No, but I do think that she already knows what she intends to do and this meeting is nothing but a formality.”

  Constance said, “Marisol and Arawn, thank you for coming. I’d like to be alone with Doctor Ivanov now.”

  Marisol, looking troubled, rose obediently. Arawn stopped at the door and said to Constance, “Do you want me to send Rayet in?”

  Milla Ivanov’s eyes flicked to the side, but she made no other move. Constance said, “No, Arawn. Thank you.”

  He looked displeased, but he left, with Marisol a step behind.

  Into the sudden privacy, Constance said, “You’re right. I do know where we will go next. But I wanted to hear where you thought we should go. Saturn, maybe? To see Anji?”

  Very little expression showed on Milla’s face: no fear, no anger, just careful study. Ivan had done that, too, deliberately to spite her. It only made Constance the more furious. “Arawn told you.” Milla did not swear, but somehow Arawn’s name sounded like a profanity.

  “It doesn’t matter who told me.”

  “Arawn told you what he thinks is happening. And to someone like Arawn, what he thinks is happening is whatever will cause the most conflict.”

  Constance rose to her feet. “And is it true? Are you in contact with Anji?”

  “I am,” Milla said.

  “What do you talk about with her? Do you tell her about me? Do you tell her about my army, about where we are, how many we number, what we do?” A terrible thought struck her. “Did you tell her about Julian and Christoph?”

  “Perhaps I did.” Milla’s hands were gripping the rests of her chair, white-knuckled. “Are you surprised even after Anji and Christoph? When will you get it through your head, Constance, that everyone will betray you unless they die before they have the chance?”

  “So you did?” Constance said. “Arawn was right. If you’ve been System all this time, why did you wait? You could’ve easily let that interrogator bitch catch me on board the Ananke, but you helped me instead. Why?”

  “System? I am not System. Neither are Anji and Christoph.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “Are you going to call Rayet in here first?” Milla asked. “Or maybe you’ll let Arawn do it himself.”
r />   “Tell me why you spoke to Anji!”

  “Because she had news of my son,” said Milla.

  The rage left Constance suddenly, like a light going out. She said, “Ivan?”

  “Leon,” Milla said. “I don’t care what ridiculous name he called himself by, his name is Leontios. We talked about my son because Anji had seen him.”

  “Seen him?”

  Something softened in Milla’s face as she looked up at Constance. “Anji saw him and Mattie, too. She says my son is still alive.”

  Constance had moved around the table, heedless of the perilous lowness of the ceiling, to stand over Milla’s chair, but now she could only take an involuntary step back, out of Milla’s immediate space. She found another chair with her hand but did not pull it out. She said, “That’s impossible.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “What proof does she have?” Constance demanded.

  “None,” Milla said. “Nevertheless.”

  Ivan, alive. It was an impossible idea. There had been no way off the Ananke. There had been no chance Mattie would make it to the ship before the crew murdered him.

  “And now you know,” Milla said, her quiet voice cutting through Constance’s thoughts. “Are you going to listen to me explain it, or will you get Arawn and have him drag me out to the air lock?”

  Milla Ivanov was looking at her with the same sort of challenge that Ivan had often cast her way. In answer, Constance pulled out the chair she was leaning on, pulling it around so that she could sit down and face Milla on it, and then she did just that. “Explain,” she said.

  “Anji reached out to me while we were on Venus,” Milla said. “She said she’d seen my son. She said that he had come to see her, with Mattie. She said that they were looking for you.”

  Looking for her. The thought was a sweet one: somewhere out there Mattie and Ivan both were alive and both were trying to find her, to help her, to be with her. A sweet thought but an impossible one. Ivan was gone, and if Anji had lied about Ivan, she would lie about Mattie as well. But Constance could not stop herself from asking, “How was he?”