The Wrong Stars
Page 33
“Are you going to give us a neural bud?” Callie said. “Let us know what you know?”
“Never. There could be no greater heresy than to share my memories with an apostate.”
“Can she be compelled to produce a bud, Lantern?”
“No. Or, I don’t know how. The Axiom could, but I can’t.”
“Elder Mizori, will you tell us what you know about the Axiom?”
“No. And torture would be useless. I control my pain receptors. I erased the local archives when I feared pirates might penetrate our defenses and board. I will never tell you anything, and there is no information for you here. You may as well leave.”
Callie nodded. “Refusal to cooperate noted. You are accused of high crimes against the Trans-Neptunian Authority, namely, fifty thousand counts of premeditated murder. You have the right to an advocate.”
“Your laws do not apply to me, human. Your nation is dust, made so by my will.”
“The accused has waived the right to an advocate, and confessed, freely and without duress. I find you guilty, and sentence you to death.”
“Fifty thousand is just the start. When the Axiom rise again–”
Callie pointed her finger at the elder, and Shall fired a single shot.
Callie turned to Lantern. “I’m done here. What do you want to do now?”
“I want to destroy the Axiom.”
“Me too, but that’s a big job. So what’s the first step?”
“I send a message,” Lantern said.
* * *
Lantern sent the transmission from the secure communications center on the station, which was apparently called Veritat; Elena thought that was a little too on the nose, but Lantern said it was a translation anyway.
“Urgent message to our sister cells,” Lantern wrote. “This is Elder Mizori. The forbidden technology we detected was successfully destroyed, and all informational contamination has been sanitized. All humans with knowledge of the Axiom have been eliminated. The mission was indubitably costly and left us understaffed. Veritat was damaged, and made vulnerable to attack by local independent criminal forces. Most of our personnel were lost in the ensuing comprehensive battle. We have made arrangements to take in thirteen local orphans, still in their incubators. They will be raised within the sect, and will replenish our losses. No reinforcements are necessary. I was, however, forced to erase our entire informational archive as a precautionary measure when I feared we would be boarded. Sect sixteen, please send a replacement infosphere, keyed to my biometrics. Message ends.”
“Do you think they’ll believe it?” Elena said.
“I included all three of today’s secret keywords – sanitized, and indubitably, and comprehensive – which are recorded nowhere else, and known only to members of the truth-tellers. They will know the message is authentic. It may take months for the infosphere to arrive, though, as great precautions will be taken with its transport from system sixteen. We will have to keep Mizori in cold storage until then, so we can use her biometrics to unlock the data.” Lantern twirled in the air, like a falling flower. “Once that’s done… I will have a sense of the Axiom projects that are close to completion. I will raise the young we rescued from the Axiom station as truth-tellers, yes, but they will know the real truth. My people mature quickly, and in five or six years, they will be ready to join my cause, if they choose. We will dedicate ourselves to defeating the Axiom and recovering the truth of our lost history and culture.”
She extended two tentacles, touching both women on their shoulders “I cannot thank you enough, Doctor Oh, and Captain Machedo, for helping me. I wish you both well. If, in the course of your travels, you discover information that might help my mission, I hope you will let me know.”
“We might be able to do more than that,” Callie said. “Elder Mizori blew up Meditreme Station, and she paid for that crime, but she was under orders, in a way, wasn’t she? We haven’t reached the top of the chain of culpability just yet.”
“You still want justice, don’t you?” Elena said.
“The Axiom destroyed Meditreme Station, ultimately. It was their policy, their orders, and they’re the guilty party. They destroyed countless other cities, too, countless other planets, countless other civilizations, countless other peoples. I’m sorry, Elena. I’d love to relax and see the galaxy with you, but the galaxy is in danger, and I can help.”
“Are you planning to get in the Golden Spider and head straight out to punch space monsters?”
“Not quite. We’ll take a few months. We’ll get settled on Glauketas, and try to cure Sebastien, and settle your crew elsewhere, if they like. But after that, once Lantern gets the information she’s waiting for…” Callie gazed at the screens, showing empty starfields, a depth of near-infinite space, hiding wonders and monsters and gold and spiders.
Elena said, “After that, we’re going to find the Axiom, and we’re going to kick the shit out of them.”
“I’m pretty sure I love you,” Callie said.
Acknowledgments
I wrote a space opera! Lots of people helped. My agent Ginger Clark strongly encouraged me to branch out into this new-to-me genre, and I appreciate her confidence in me. I’m grateful to Marc Gascoigne and the other revolutionaries at Angry Robot for giving the crew of the White Raven a home, especially my editor Phil Jourdan, publicity manager Penny Reeve, and sales and marketing manager Mike Underwood.
Thanks to my wife Heather Shaw and our son River for their support during all the hours I spent muttering to myself hunched over a laptop instead of being good company. Thanks to Ais, Amanda, Emily, Katrina, Sarah, and Zoe for enduring my endless babbling and enthusiasm and thinking aloud and brainstorming and idea-bouncing and complaining while I was developing the idea and writing this book.
Thanks finally to all the great writers I’ve read who inspired me to try my hand at something other than fantasy for once, most especially Iain M Banks, Lois McMaster Bujold, CJ Cherryh, James SA Corey, Samuel R Delany, M John Harrison, Alastair Reynolds, Joanna Russ, Cordwainer Smith, and James Tiptree, Jr. If you peer closely you can probably see bits of all of them in this book, and I am indebted to my betters for their inspiration.
About the Author
Tim Pratt is a Hugo Award-winning SF and fantasy author, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Stoker, Mythopoeic, and Nebula Awards, among others. He is the author of over twenty novels, most recently The Deep Woods and Heirs of Grace, and scores of short stories. His work has been reprinted in The Best American Short Stories, The Year's Best Fantasy, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and other nice places. Since 2001 he has worked for Locus, the magazine of the science fiction and fantasy field, where he currently serves as senior editor. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and son.
* * *
timpratt.org • twitter.com/timpratt
ANGRY ROBOT
An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd
* * *
20 Fletcher Gate,
Nottingham,
NG1 2FZ
UK
* * *
angryrobotbooks.com
twitter.com/angryrobotbooks
Stars in her eyes
* * *
An Angry Robot original 2017
* * *
Copyright © Tim Pratt 2017
* * *
Tim Pratt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
* * *
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
* * *
UK ISBN 978 0 85766 708 3
US ISBN 978 0 85766 709 0
EBook ISBN 978 0 85766 710 6
* * *
Set by Epub Services.
* * *
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishe
rs.
* * *
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
* * *
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
* * *
Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.
ISBN: 978-0-85766-710-6
Created with Vellum