He set off at a brisk pace, aiming for a shadow which the offset platform of the level above threw across the outer reach of his own level. The diversion meant his trip would take longer, but he was in no particular hurry to reach his destination.
“I have something I need to tell you,” he rehearsed. “It’s about Ren… no, too disrespectful. It’s about your son.”
The task was not one he looked forward to. He had issued death notices before, but they had been almost exclusively for people he had witnessed dying with his own eyes. Throam’s actual fate was still uncertain. Although there was admittedly a good chance the counterpart had indeed perished on Meccrace Prime, Caden could not help but feel MAGA had been a little too hasty with the label ‘KIA’.
That’s your guilt talking.
Shut up, he thought. Ren did his job; kept me alive.
If you say so. But if you hadn’t left him there…
The Emptiness loped along behind him, but he did not need to turn and look to know it was wearing that ugly, sharp-toothed grin.
He ignored it.
No, the others had not been so difficult. He had always arrived, delivered his grave news, administered some basic comfort, and left the families with the standard holopack about dealing with grief. Left to take up his next task.
This time it could not be so.
It felt very different now. It was as if he were on his way to confess, and once he had done so he could only feel worse.
This time it would hurt.
He passed from a radial corridor into one of the wide avenues encircling the core of the tower, and stopped.
Caden took a moment to watch the people as they bustled through and across the avenue, many of them carrying luggage, dragging children, or attempting valiantly to do both. He paused for a moment longer, watching as parts of the throng passed from the shadows into patches of light, and listened to their muted hubbub.
It’s too quiet, he thought.
That’s the fear. Fear of the Deep.
Without thinking about it, he nodded in silent agreement with the Emptiness.
He read the latest headlines from the public network services, displayed on the printwalls across from him.
INVASION! said one. MECCRACE HAS FALLEN said another. A third read WHOLE WORLDS SILENT. On and on they went, shifting in and out each time the printwalls updated.
MYSTERY SHIPS CRUSH FLEET.
GIANTS OF THE DEEP!
FLEET COMMAND DENIES DANGER.
MORE WORLDS SUFFER THE FALLING.
COLONIES IN CHAOS.
“How did they find out?” Caden asked under his breath.
He watched a woman with a baby in her arms as she strode through the centre of the avenue. A man followed her; empty-handed, red-faced and panting.
“Arisia, please wait,” the man called after her.
She kept going. “Either come with us, or just go home. I’m leaving now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s been no word of a threat to Earth.”
She stopped. “Ridiculous? You’ve been watching the same news feeds as me.”
“But… we don’t even know what’s happening yet.”
“We know enough to get out of here.”
“And go where? Earth is the most heavily defended world in the Empire.”
“Don’t you see what’s happening? Don’t you understand what’s going on?” She hoisted the baby on one arm, thrust the other out to one side, and pointed at a printwall. “‘Invasion’, that’s what’s happening. Earth isn’t safe.”
“Where is?”
“I’m going home,” she said. “I’m taking Matías to my mother’s.”
“But there’s not even a defence fleet posted to Raschathil,” he said. “Honey, this is insane…”
Caden did not hear her reply; they had moved too far down the avenue. However it was Arisia chose to argue the point, her words were lost finally in the unnaturally hushed murmur of the crowds.
Worlds, he thought to himself. This must be happening everywhere.
• • •
He knocked on the door, took a step back instinctively. Part of him hoped that they were not at home, but he pushed that part back down where it belonged. Down into the Emptiness.
The door opened slowly. Tired eyes peered out, and the door opened wider.
“We were expecting you,” said Lamis. “Fleet contacted us already.”
I wish they wouldn’t do that, he thought.
“Won’t you come in?”
Caden nodded and stepped over the threshold, into the cool air of the apartment. The blinds were closed almost completely. His eyes adjusted to the gloom gradually, and he could see that the space was pleasant enough. It was furnished simply with what looked like antiques; a jumbled assortment of pieces which had only their advanced age in common.
“You’ve moved,” said Caden.
“Yes.” Lamis ushered him into the room and shut the door behind her. “We more or less had to.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps that story would be best saved for later?”
“Of course… I’m sorry. I should tell you what I came to say.”
Someone had once advised Caden not to pontificate or make small talk when delivering a death notice, but to get it said as soon and as simply as possible without resorting to euphemisms. In this particular case he found some small relief in the fact that Lamis and Peshal had already been told the horrible news, but still… it was such a difficult thing to tell anyone.
“Ren…” he started, but his throat closed up.
“We know.”
“It was on Meccrace Prime,” he managed. He swallowed drily. “I’m sorry. We were on the surface when the planet was hit from orbit. We were separated, and… honestly, I don’t even know what happened to him. We couldn’t go back.”
Lamis let him talk, appeared to wait until she was sure he had finished. Caden judged from her calm expression that her tears had already been shed.
“If anyone could survive on Meccrace, it’s our Ren.”
“He’s not dead.”
The second voice startled Caden, and he realised that the throws and pillows on one of the couches in the room disguised the form of Peshal Throam.
“He’s not dead,” she said again. “I know.”
“We’ve been through this,” said Lamis. “We both saw the footage from Meccrace Prime.”
Her voice was quiet, resigned, and gentle. Caden looked back to her. She held eye contact with him for a long, lingering moment.
“He’s not dead,” Peshal insisted, and rolled over to face the rear of the couch.
Lamis touched Caden’s hand and beckoned him into the next room. He followed her through a galley kitchen with its sweet, spicy odour, out onto a small balcony which overlooked endless water. Salt replaced sweet.
“She’s not taking it very well,” he said.
“No.”
Lamis leaned against the outer wall of the apartment, gazed at no specific part of the South Pacific Ocean. She was quiet for a long moment before turning her gaze back to Caden.
“The footage that hit the network,” she said. “From Meccrace. It was… horrible. Those things hitting the planet. Why is this happening?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Caden. “The Empire is under attack; it’s just that nobody wants to admit it.”
“Well, the cat is very much out of the bag now.”
“Indeed.”
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
Caden hesitated, weighing the options. He did not want to give her false hope, particularly since Peshal was already burdening Lamis with her unwarranted, unwavering insistence that their son might yet return to them. But then…
“Like you said: if anyone could have survived on Meccrace, it’s him.”
“You are going to go back there, aren’t you?”
“They won’t let me.”
Lamis looked surprised. “I thought
Shards could basically do as they please?”
“Well, in most things yes. But it’s not really that simple. Meccrace is not the sort of place I could reach without being ferried by Fleet. And once there, I’d very much need support from MAGA. They won’t explicitly tell me that I can’t go there, but they can easily arrange matters so that I don’t.”
For the first time since he had arrived, Caden saw real agony creep into Lamis’ face.
“He’s not dead until I see the body,” she said.
She grabbed his wrist and squeezed. Caden placed his hand on top of hers, and squeezed back.
“We will retake that system,” he said. “And I will find out what happened to Ren.”
She managed a smile, and went quiet again.
They looked out over the water, and Caden found himself trying to work out exactly where the horizon was. In the far distance, water and sky melted into each other in a marriage of haze.
“We basically had to,” she said.
“Had to…?”
“Move. From Level 230.”
“Oh. It’s a shame. Ren used to tell me how much he loved it down there.”
“It was his fault, in a way,” she said. “There was… an incident when he was a boy. Another boy was injured. Not badly, but the boy’s father was unimpressed with my reaction when I told him what he could do with the solution he proposed.”
Caden smiled faintly. Ren had told him many stories of his mother’s bombastic approach to adversity.
“We thought that was all done with after a while. We were snubbed by some of the family’s acquaintances, but that never bothered us — they weren’t people we really associated with anyway.
“But later on the boy’s brother became involved with a girl Ren was interested in, and things went sour. They had more than one altercation before Ren left Peru for the War College. After that his father elbowed us out of our neighbourhood, bit by bit.”
“How did he manage that? Why even do it?”
“Resentment, I think,” she sighed. “I offended him deeply, and Ren gave him the excuses he needed to paint us as a bad influence on Level 230.”
“I’m surprised,” said Caden. “I wouldn’t have thought you of all people would let someone chase you out of your own home.”
“At first we didn’t. But as time wore on our defiance created yet more resentment, and the verbal attacks and social shunning began to wear on us. You see, this boy’s father had an entire church behind him, and the congregation seemed all too happy to have a common enemy to rally against.”
“Ah,” Caden said.
“And of course Ren was gone — off training on Kelvestyr — so there was little reason for us to stay where we were.”
“So you upped and left.”
“Yes.”
“It still seems like a shame.”
“Peshal used to tell Ren to ‘be the reed that bends in the wind’. I once told him to be the damned wind instead, and I think that might be why he started acting the way he did.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that; Ren has always made his own decisions. From what I hear, he had a better upbringing than most people could ever hope for.”
She smiled. “Maybe so. But the point is, when we moved here I realised I was bending in the wind myself. It makes me wonder about a lot of things, a lot of decisions I’ve made.”
Caden touched her arm. “Listen, it’s a difficult time. You’re bound to think this way about things. About everything.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I know. But even if Ren is alive, I still wonder if we will ever see him again. I can’t get those images from Meccrace out of my head… those things dropping to the surface. They’re calling it The Falling. They’re saying it’s happening across the empire. What if the same thing happens here?”
“You let me worry about that.”
• • •
Far below the private aeroshuttle, the Amazon wandered to and fro. Caden watched the great river and the surrounding lush canopy rush by beneath him. No matter how many times his eyes focused on a particular feature and followed it back until it was lost from sight, the view was renewed constantly. After a while it all began to look the same.
Old Brazil was so big.
The shuttle sped on, on for the Tower City of Morocco.
A short stopover there, and then it was just a quick hop to Imperial City. At long last, his audience with Her Most Radiant Majesty was now within reach.
He looked around the passenger cabin. Only two others aboard — high level types — and both of them bound for Morocco. He would be on his own for the last leg of the journey.
His link chirruped, and he activated his holo.
“Occre,” he said. “Thanks for calling me back. It’s good to see you.”
“Likewise. Have you seen the feeds?”
“I have,” said Caden. “It’s everywhere.”
“It’s getting difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not,” said Brant. “Aside from the images of Meccrace, there’re all sorts of claims floating about now. People spreading stories of their own. Of course, it’s all a huge cover-up and the home council is in on it all.”
Brant’s image slid across the holo, scaled itself down, and Caden watched as a stream of text scrolled up the right side of the pane. Brant was apparently sending him the highlights.
“Well… part of it really is a cover-up. We already know that Fleet were well aware of the blackouts, and look at what they did to Aldava.”
“But the council isn’t in on all of it.”
“At least, we don’t think they are. Do you know where the footage came from?” Caden asked.
“No idea. Eyes and Ears is working on it, but tracing that databurst is like looking for a needle in a galactic haystack. It’s hardly a priority right now.”
“Guess not. What’s the word on Meccrace Prime?”
“Still under surveillance, last I heard. Fleet has deployed some new kind of stealth probes to the system — they seem to be working well, although it might just be that the enemy are ignoring them.”
“Any movement out there?”
“The bulk of their ships withdrew, leaving a few to patrol the system. I say ‘a few’, but they are of course pretty much unassailable. Every once in a while a civvie ship makes it out through the blockade, although those are becoming less frequent by the day.”
“I take it you’re keeping tabs on who comes off those ships?”
“I am, yes,” said Brant. “And no: he’s not walked off any of them.”
“Thank you for checking.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“I take it our Aldavan friend is safely squirrelled away?”
“He is,” said Brant. He took the hint, and did not mention Joarn Kages by name. “Safe and sound, somewhere nobody would ever look.”
“Good. Make sure nobody does.”
“You know, you already have the list. Do we really need to keep him safe?”
It was a question Caden had already considered himself, and as much as he disliked Joarn Kages the information broker was beginning to look as though he might come in very useful.
“Something tells me we would regret letting him go,” he said. “Firstly he’d be just as useful to the enemy as he has been to us, perhaps more so. Secondly, I think he might be a way to get information that others foolishly want to keep from us. If we turn him loose now, we’ll never see him again.”
“Always one step ahead,” said Brant.
“Oh, at least one step.”
“I’ve quietly put everyone from his list on the no-fly register, by the way.”
“Good thinking. Anything we can do to slow the Rasas down could buy us precious time.”
“I hear you’ve been summoned to speak with the Invigilators?”
“Strangely enough, after Meccrace everyone has become very interested in what I know,” Caden said. “I’ll be headed straight back to the Herses system after I leave Ear
th.”
“We’ve been ordered back to our posts on Laeara,” Brant said. He leaned closer to the holo. “I think we’re in trouble.”
“Nonsense. You tell anyone who demands an explanation that you were working for me, and say nothing else about it. If they give you any trouble just send them my way.”
“Thank you. And thanks for the trip out. It was… interesting.”
“I seem to recall you had some reservations about my idea of field work.”
“Well, it was just about as dangerous as I had expected. But yeah, it was also kind of fun. Exhilarating. In my job you don’t tend to have to worry about things like imminent death. It can get a bit boring.”
“Next you’ll be telling me you’ve developed a taste for action.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. One destroyed planet was enough for me.”
“Does that mean you won’t be interested if I find any other little jobs for you to do?”
Brant’s mouth twisted one way then the other, ricocheting between enthusiasm and apprehension. Caden suppressed a smile.
“Depends what it is,” the monitor said at last.
“I’m just winding you up,” said Caden. “I don’t have any other missions for you. Yet.”
“Good. Where are you now?”
“Over Brazil.” He glanced out of the viewport. “No, scratch that: over the Atlantic. Must be north of the equator by now. Next stop Morocco, then Imperial City.”
“You’re going to the palace?”
“Yep. On my way to see Her Majesty.”
“Rather you than me.”
“She’s not so bad Brant.”
“You would say that — you’re one of her chosen few.”
“I do have a mind of my own, you know,” Caden said. “That’s part of the reason Shards get appointed.”
“It’s the other part that concerns people.”
“It’s not really anyone else’s concern at all.”
“Except probably all the people who have been ruined, exiled, or assassinated by Shards.”
“Well, I suppose so… anyway what is this? Why do you have a problem with Shards all of a sudden?”
“I don’t, not really,” said Brant. “I’m just not convinced that a Shard can claim to have a balanced view of the Empress.”
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 61
