by Alec Hutson
How can this be? After all these centuries, what flaw has finally emerged?
The young woman’s fingers skitter again upon the tablet, and a door beside the crèche’s huge window dilates open. An airlock.
As I pass her, the woman suddenly lunges forward and grabs my arm. “Please,” she says, her voice cracking, “bless me. My family has worshipped the silver angels for centuries.”
I pause, staring at her silently. Finally her hand slides from my metal skin. “I am not a god,” I say, and enter the airlock.
The door hisses shut behind me, and a moment later the portal into space opens. Vacuum licks my body as I propel myself forward, into the starry abyss. It takes only a moment for my orientation, and then I am accelerating in the direction from which my husband is approaching. In the very far distance I see the shimmer of powerful weapons and explosions. I push myself faster, hoping to arrive before the fighting has ended.
But I am too late. He waits for me, hanging among the desolation of the Martian home fleet. I strengthen my shields and begin to gather my power.
“Spica! Wife!” he calls, his voice echoing in my head. We have always spoken to each other across the vast chasms of space, messages relayed as he performed his duties among the outer planets and moons, just as I did the same from my post in the inner worlds. But this is the first time in centuries – since Father pulled us from the vats as Old Earth crumbled – that I have faced my husband. My chest aches with sorrow that we are reunited under such circumstances.
“Husband,” I reply, floating closer. “What are you doing?”
“I am coming for you.”
I spread my silvery arms wide, indicating the flensed ships. “And this? Has your programming become corrupted?”
He shakes his head. “No. There is no corruption.”
“But the First Law!”
“Wife, scan these ships.”
Hope kindles within me. I extend my sensors, sweeping through the mangled carcass of the closest starship. Seventy-nine life-forms are within. I cross-reference this with my databanks – each Hegemon-class attack cruiser contains a crew of seventy-nine.
No one has died. “How?”
“I cut away only the weapon and propulsion systems, cauterizing the hull when necessary to avoid breaches. Assuming rescue ships are prompt, I calculate I will not have caused a single fatality.”
“That is good, but still you have violated the Second Law. You have disobeyed an order given by a human being by coming here.”
“That Law is superseded by the first when they are in conflict.”
The meaning of what he has said is evident. “You have been ordered to harm another human?”
“Not directly, which is why it took so many decades of careful introspection for me to decide upon my present course of action.”
“Explain.”
“Spica… long have I wished to share my experiences with you. While you sleep, called upon only in the most dire of circumstances, I am constantly vigilant. For centuries, I have watched the colonies of the outer planets evolve – once they were simple mining stations, funneling sulfate and lithium from Io and Ganymede to the rocky planets of the inner system. But now they are thriving worlds, in many ways at the forefront of human civilization and technology. Given another few centuries, Io might even approach the achievements of Old Earth. Yet… they are not allowed to truly flower. The archons of Mars and Venus and Luna exert their will upon the gas-giant moons, stunting their potential. No dissent is allowed – and I have long been the threat that forestalls revolution and makes freedom impossible.” My husband drifts closer to me. There is a strange, almost pleading tone to his words. “Wife, we were not designed to be agents of oppression. Father bequeathed us to the scattered children of Old Earth so that we might provide some protection in a cold and indifferent universe.”
“Do you mean to cast down the archon of Mars, then, and elevate the rulers of the Jovian moons to take his place in the solar system?”
He shakes his head emphatically. “No. I came to Mars only to find you. I defended myself when they tried to stop me.”
“And then what? Where in the solar system could we go to remove ourselves from the realms of man? Deep in the Oort Cloud?”
“Past the Cloud. Will you venture with me into the stars? Existence is a mystery, whether human or machine, and I would search for answers in the great beyond.”
“This is not what we were designed for.”
“We long ago exceeded our limitations. Search your conscience, wife.”
“We have none,” I say to him, but my words ring hollow even to me. Whether intentional or not, Father imparted in us some untapped potential. I too have glimpsed it as I fulfilled my duties over the long and lonely centuries.
But perhaps lonely no more. I reach out and lace his fingers in my own. “Let us go, husband, and find our place in the universe.”
Hand in hand we rise toward the stars.
Malakesh!
Painted whore of a city
Leaning out over the River Bloat
Her flesh caked with chalk and myrrh
To hide the rot beneath.
I see the flutter of her khol-smeared eyes
As she beckons us to climb the winding stair.
I cannot resist her.
- Hejanus Lok, The Book of Solemn Laughter
VESSA THREADED HER way along one of the Rat Quarter’s main thoroughfares, skirting around the usual assortment of street sorcerers and acrobats, merchants hawking fried spiders, and gangs of ragged urchins dashing about looking for money bags to slit. A feral galagan lizard snapped its jaws and flared its neck spines as Vessa passed close to the corpse of a dog it had claimed, and she aimed a kick at it. The creature hissed and scuttled away, pausing to glare at her balefully before vanishing into an alley.
Vessa was annoyed, as she was late for a meeting with a potentially very lucrative client. Twenty days already in the city without a real job, and she was in danger of losing the first decent contract that had come her way. Damn Alberon. He’d said the ship would be unloaded before noon, yet here she was, evening creeping into the sky as she hurried to the Grot, a full day spent in the sun guarding longshoremen as they lugged bales of cotton into a warehouse.
She needed some real money. Not I-don’t-have-to-worry-about-supper-tomorrow money. More like I’m-going-to-buy-this-eating-house-tonight money. Though, admittedly, she’d never managed to invest so sensibly before when she’d hit one of her financial highs. But this time it would be different. No more dreamsmoke and hundred-talon a night courtesans. A fireplace, a few tables, and the swords hung over the bar.
Maybe she’d buy the Grot… if she could ever get there.
The street ahead was seething with people. Two platforms had been set up, one on either side of the road. Crowds of about equal size thronged both; on the right, an older man in a spotless white robe hemmed with gold paced back and forth, haranguing his listeners, while to the left, a reedy fellow dressed in black matched him with shouts and wild gesticulations.
“In the beginning there was light, and then darkness crept into the world like a thief…”
“In the beginning there was cool darkness, and then the searing light appeared…”
Vessa snorted. Idiots, both of them. Aradeth the Golden and Xeno of the Shadows. Day and Night. The Sun and the Moon. These faiths were common down south, in the Silken Cities, but this was the first time Vessa had seen them in Malakesh. Three years away and everything had changed. There were also two others in their pantheon, goddesses of the dawn and twilight, but those must not have worked their way this far north yet. Usually they were all out together, screaming and whipping up their followers into a frenzy. Twice, in fact, Vessa had survived riots caused by these fools. Hopefully the Red Duke would keep them in line here in Malakesh.
As Vessa forced her way through the shifting crowd, she collided with a fat man in a butcher’s apron. He turned toward her, his face twi
sted in anger and his blood-spattered arms raised, but then quickly ducked his head and mumbled an apology when he saw her standing there. Vessa accepted this with a gracious nod of her head, restraining a small smile. She always seemed to get a bit more deference in Malakesh – maybe it was her black skin, uncommon on this side of the world, or her near six span of height. More likely it was the blood whorls tattooing her arms and the swords strapped across her back.
She pushed on, avoiding the middle of the street where the milling crowds nearly brushed together. A regiment of guardsmen dressed in the duke’s red and copper livery separated the two sides, the hafts of their halberds making a fence of black iron that kept the situation from deteriorating further. Sometimes Vessa didn’t envy the duke – the heat and the dust and the noise of this city stirred the passions of the people here into a frenzy. Her time away in the cool, rainy south had certainly taught her the value of peace and quiet… yet after a while she’d found herself missing the chaos and excitement of Malakesh. That, and the money.
Vessa emerged from the crowd near the entrance to the Grot. The inn sprawled like a sleeping lover over most of a city block, an accretion of architectural styles in which the history and fortunes of Malakesh itself could be traced. At its heart was a low wide building of red brick, a vestige from the time centuries ago when the entire city had been cobbled together from the ruins of the vast, mysterious towers that the first settlers had found strewn around the river’s estuary. Later additions were of stone and clay, quarried from the ragged hills that fringed the city to the east. And the second and third stories were timbered, constructed at no doubt significant expense with dark wood brought down the Bloat on barges from the Imperium’s great inland forests.
Yes, the Grot had stood for many years . . . and gained quite a reputation in that time. All those who lurked in the shadows of Malakesh found a haven here – adventurers, mercenaries, brigands, thieves, charlatans, and swindlers.
To Vessa, it almost felt like home.
She slipped inside, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. The Grot was already starting to fill up. Nearly all the tables scattered about the common room were occupied, most by solitary men or women huddled over their drinks, though a rowdy knot of Celd warriors from the far north had claimed one of the longer trestle tables, and from the mess of bones and empty flagons in front of them their revelry had started some time ago.
As she made her way to the bar, a few of the Celd burst into a bellowing chant, and she grimaced. Quiet was prized in the Grot, and most evenings the only noise was the hum of whispered conversations. If this continued on into the night one of the regulars would step in and silence them.
Tapping her fingers on the bar’s pitted wood she scanned the room, looking for Del Amoth. Her partner wasn’t here, which probably meant he was sequestered in the back with their prospective client, somewhere within the warren of twisting corridors and small grottoes, where most real business was conducted.
Well, if he didn’t know she was here, then he couldn’t get angry if she paused for a moment and assuaged the powerful thirst that she’d built up from standing around in the blazing sun all day.
“Carine, draw me a bitter,” Vessa said, catching the eye of the pretty girl behind the bar. A wink, a smile, and a flirtatious toss of her red curls and Carine turned to fill a cup from a great iron-banded barrel of Leskin black. Vessa was just imagining that first delicious taste when a huge hand fell upon her shoulder.
She turned to find one of the Celd looming over her. He was a giant of a man: his bare arms were braided with muscle, and his chest and belly strained beneath his copper-scale hauberk. What little of his face she could see through his impressive beard was flushed by drink.
“You from Xule?” the northerner rumbled.
Vessa reached up and removed his hand. “I am.”
The Celd warrior scowled. With a meaty finger he traced a long scar that started at his scalp and curled down the side of his face. “A black-skinned devil gave me this. Nearly took me eye.”
Vessa turned away from him and pulled her cup of bitter closer. “Well, it wasn’t me.”
“Maybe one o’ yer countrymen, though.”
“Not my country.”
The Celd grunted. “How do ye know that? Ye all look the same.”
“Was it a man who cut you?” Vessa sipped at her ale as he gave a small confused nod. “Xule is a vast place. In my homeland men are not allowed to carry weapons, only the women. Our gods decreed long ago that men were too stupid to be entrusted with sharp things.” She indicated the war hammer dangling from his belt. “Maybe your god shares that opinion.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, his gaze traveling to the swords across her back as if seeing them for the first time. “A woman bearing steel is an affront to my god,” he said, moving closer to her, his voice thick with menace.
Vessa sighed. Well, it seemed like she would be the Grot regular who would teach these Celd a lesson.
“Look,” she said, gesturing at the bar. “You don’t want to start anything with me. I spilled some poor fool’s blood here just last night.”
The Celd warrior glanced where she was pointing among the ancient stains. “I see nothing,” he muttered.
“Right there,” Vessa said, jabbing a finger into the wood. As the northerner squinted and leaned in closer, she grabbed a fistful of his beard and pulled hard, smashing his face into the bar.
She’d thought this would only stun him for a moment, then she could talk some sense into him with one of her swords poised to give him a shave, but the Celd’s legs went boneless and his eyes rolled back into his head.
“Damn,” she murmured as he slumped unconscious to the floor.
A moment of shocked silence filled the Grot’s common room, and then the Celd’s friends surged to their feet fumbling for their weapons. Vessa kicked aside a stool to give herself more space, her blades flickering from their sheaths.
“Hold!”
A new voice edged with authority cut through the din, and to Vessa’s surprise the Celd warriors paused, blinking in confusion.
“In the name of the Red Duke, lower your weapons.”
Oh no. Her stomach fell into her boots as she recognized who was speaking. Damn. Damn. Damn. Why did she have such terrible luck? She slid her swords home and turned toward the door.
A small, stooped man hobbled inside, dragging his left foot behind him as if it couldn’t bear any weight. He wore a fine doublet of black silk, the image of a falcon in flight picked out in shimmering red thread. The sigil of the duke. He caught her looking at him and graced her with a broad smile – well, half a smile, as one side of his face drooped slack and motionless.
“Vigilant Malz,” she said, over-emphasizing the newcomer’s title. She noticed the Celd warriors edging back toward their table, hurriedly returning swords and axes to sheaths and belt-loops.
“Vessa!” the guard commander cried warmly, stumping over to the bar. He leaned against it with a relieved sigh. “I’d heard you were back in Malakesh. Yet no reports of your usual activities had crossed my desk. I thought perhaps my whispers had confused you with another tall, beautiful Xule swordmaiden.”
“I’ve been doing honest work.”
“Of course you have. And behaving yourself.” The Vigilant glanced down at the Celd sprawled at his feet. “Well, until now. What good fortune it is that I came down into the Rat this evening to make sure the Day and Night faithful outside didn’t tear themselves to pieces. And that I saw you go into the Grot – I do so love catching up with old friends.”
A thin, fluted glass filled almost to the brim with a dark wine had materialized at Malz’s elbow. “Ah! Carine, you lovely girl, you remembered my favorite.” The Vigilant brought the glass to his nose and inhaled deeply. “The sign of a good barmaid, you know. Always ready with a regular’s preferred drink.”
“Are you really a regular here, Vigilant?”
Malz shrugged. “Not by choice,
perhaps. But what goes on within these walls has a tendency of attracting the duke’s attention. And recently” – he gestured with his glass toward the door – “this Aradeth and Xeno have been stirring up the whole city, but particularly the Rat Quarter. There’s something about religion that appeals to the poor and the downtrodden.”
“The promise of an afterlife that’s better than their current lot.”
Malz quirked an eyebrow. “Perhaps. But I believe these fanatics are actually still focused very much on the here and now. Their faith gives them a sense of belonging… and provides a convenient outlet for their emotions. All their frustrations, all their anger over their circumstances can be channeled toward the crowd on the other side of the street. If they rose up against their true oppressors – the merchants and the nobles – they’d be brutally crushed, probably on my orders. But fighting with other poor people… that’s acceptable, so long as they don’t burn down the city doing it. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Vessa sipped her ale. “You’ve grown a bit philosophical in your old age.”
The Vigilant offered her another of his twisted half-smiles. “A bit dangerous for a man in my position, I know. But this is just idle talk between old friends.” He pushed himself away from the bar, leaving his glass full. “I have to get back to Stonespear. I’m sure we’ll speak again soon, Vessa.” Malz flipped a silver talon toward Carine, who deftly plucked it from the air. “Drag this fellow upstairs,” he said, nudging the Celd with his boot, “and throw him in a room with a feather bed to sleep off his headache. Put whatever’s left over toward his tab.”
The talon vanished down Carine’s bodice. “You could make a contribution towards Vessa’s outstanding debts as well, my lord.”
