The Third Claw of God

by Adam-Troy Castro

  Jason said, “I should go.”

  Mendez, who had suited up, the flexfabric of his Bettelhine-manufactured space suit forming a seal over everything but his unhelmeted head, winced at the very suggestion. “And just how would I justify allowing that, sir?”

  Philip said, “I’d like to hear that explanation myself.”

  Jason seemed to come up with about three or four potential answers, rejecting them all as insufficient, before coming up with a lame, unpersuasive, “I rebel at the thought of requiring other people to risk their lives for me.”

  “Welcome to modern civilization,” said Dejah. “Let alone life as a Bettelhine. People have been risking their lives for yours since the day you were born.”

  “Nevertheless.” Jason leaned in close and addressed Mendez eye to eye. “Arturo, you may think you owe us your allegiance, but you don’t. We forged that debt. Do you understand? It’s all us. You don’t have to do this.”

  “It’s my duty, sir.” Mendez took the helmet from his hands, and pressing it to the contact ring at his shoulders. The flexfabric around the seal bubbled, flowed, and solidified in place over the neck joint, rendering the seam as invisible as the face behind the silver mask. I saw his chest expand as he took an experimental deep breath. Then he took the cylinder from Jelaine’s hands, and stood, moving toward the air lock.

  Oscin, who was standing behind me, lowered his lips toward my ear. “This is wrong.”

  “I know,” I whispered back. “But I don’t know why.”

  “Neither do I.”

  It felt more than wrong. It felt dark, corrupt, and dangerous. But the reason eluded me. Even as Mendez entered the air lock and the doors slid shut behind him, I searched the faces of the others, hoping for the epiphany that now seemed just beyond reach. Most didn’t seem to notice any underlying currents beneath the obvious drama of the moment. Jason and Jelaine wore stricken expressions, their strong resemblance now even more overt as they watched the Chief Steward’s departure with identical grimaces of guilt and displeasure. Dina Pearlman seemed darkly amused, Dejah as puzzled as I was. Vernon Wethers and Monday Brown were as unreadable as they usually were. Loyal Jeck just stood by, a stolid, charisma-challenged lump. Colette Wilson moved closer to Philip, resting her hand on his upper arm and taking a subtle calm from the gentle contact. The elder Bettelhine didn’t acknowledge it. He just watched the air lock cycle, and took an involuntary deep breath of his own as the other door opened to space and Arturo began to climb the access ladder to the carriage roof.

  I felt the warm touch of the Porrinyards on my back, massaging my shoulders. Did I really look that pale?

  Arturo was already on the roof and placing the cylinder in plain sight. The magnetic seal held it in place. In a few seconds he’d be back inside and the Stanley would be free to investigate, if so inclined.

  I’d be over this uncharacteristic fear, if that’s what this was.

  I knew it wasn’t.

  The plan would work. Mendez would survive his brave climb in the face of all those brandished weapons. The Stanley clinging to the cable above us would descend and retrieve the message. The forces charged with protecting the Bettelhines and their guests, whether personal or honored, would break through the wall of silence that had so far cut off the explanation for how this thing that had happened to us.

  My sudden trembling had come from a deeper place, the place that connected to my conscience and my humanity.

  It was not fear. It was horror.

  I suddenly knew why Brown and Wethers had no family beyond the Bettelhines, and why Mendez had given up his dreams.

  I made eye contact with the strange siblings, Jason and Jelaine: Two people I had imagined I was beginning to understand, but the little I’d been so proud of myself for figuring out was nothing compared to this. If they had anything to do with the truth underlying this moment, they were everything I despised about their rapacious, world-destroying family, cloaked in smiles and good intentions. And if they were innocent…then they were guilty of being willfully blind.

  This was evil, all right. But not a fresh evil. It had been going on for a while.

  And I knew exactly what it was.

  The voice of the AIsource, silent for hours now, chuckled inside my head. Excellent thinking, Counselor.

  I almost cried out, but managed to keep my answer subvocal. Fuck! I thought we were cut off from you!

  Don’t be foolish. The parties responsible for this crisis may have managed to interfere with local connections to the hytex network and with the Bettelhines’ other communication systems, but no technology currently possessed by human beings can sever the link we share with you. No, we were simply taking a step back and allowing you to begin working out these problems for yourself.

  Either help or get out of my head!

  You may leave our employ at any time, Andrea. You will have the opportunity to do so, before this business is done. The biggest question after today is whether you’ll want to.

  Somebody handed me a cup of water. Paakth-Doy. I don’t know where she went to get it; the parlor was levels above us. It was cold and it tasted like sweet honey, cutting through the acidic taste in my mouth.

  How can the fate of billions depend on this? It can’t be the people of Xana. There are only a few million down there. And besides, you said an alien race.

  Humanity would suffer greatly in the aftermath. But you are correct. We do not mean the people of Xana.

  Then who?

  Telling you would be against the rules of engagement.

  “Counselor?” It was Philip, once again the voice of confident authority now that I’d obliged him with this moment of weakness. “He’s back inside. You can stop worrying now.”

  “I wasn’t…worried about…him.”

  Concerned, frightened expressions bobbed around me, Dejah, Jason, and Jelaine, the most stricken among them. I avoided meeting their concerned eyes. Let them wonder. I wasn’t ready to use what I knew, let alone pursue the many things I didn’t.

  Are the Bettelhines going to start this genocide you’ve been talking about? Is that what you’re telling me?

  The answer is subtler than that, Andrea, and is tied to you living long enough to make your choice. Be patient. It is still coming.

  The air lock hummed as atmosphere returned. The holo monitor displayed a businesslike Arturo Mendez waiting for the process to run its course.

  Mrs. Pearlman mentioned the ability to control the behavior of entire enemy populations. Does that have something to do with this? Does it have something to do with what happened in Bocai?

  An indulgent tone entered the AIsource’s voice. The tragedy on Bocai was the last thing any Bettelhine would have wanted.

  The holo image cycled, revealing a multilegged vehicle proceeding down the cable at full speed. It was the Stanley from Layabout, descending to retrieve Arturo’s message.

  When it wrapped a probing tentacle around the cylinder, the cargo bay echoed with the gasps of passengers who only now realized that they’d been holding their breath.

  It picked the cylinder up.

  Hesitated, as if receiving further orders.

  Then tightened, crushing the cylinder into wreckage.

  Heedless of the cries of “No!” and “You Bastard!” that erupted from our throats, it then retreated up the line, rejecting our attempts at communication.

  By the time the Stanley was just a bright light in the firmament above us, some of those cries had become wails. Philip Bettelhine, who had shown the most faith in the orderly nature of his family’s ability to deal with any crisis, was among the loudest, yelling, “Come on! Dammit! What’s wrong with you people?” Paakth-Doy was almost as frantic, falling into Colette Wilson’s arms and receiving an oddly detached, perfunctory hug as the bartender wept tears that creepily failed to disturb the perpetual smile on her face. Dina Pearlman was just pissed off, screaming, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Her husband just punched the bulkhead multiple times, a portrai
t of loss untouched by compassion on the part of anybody else. Dejah Shapiro seemed lost in concentration. Monday Brown just looked comically dazed. Vernon Wethers and Loyal Jeck said nothing.

  Mendez emerged from the air lock, his helmet in his hands, expecting pats on the back for his swift and efficient action, only to find a tableau of runaway anger and despair. “What’s wrong?”

  Dina’s voice, which had transformed from syrup to acid in the short time I’d known her, now completed its transformation to venom. “The fucks are leaving us to die.”

  He said, “What?”

  I’d had enough of this. I turned to Skye. “Come on.”

  She nodded, grabbed the Khaajiir’s staff, and began to follow me out the door, Oscin staying behind to keep an eye on the others.

  Philip saw us departing. “Counselor?”

  I whirled on him, unable to keep the fresh disgust out of my voice. “I am going back to work, sir. In the meantime it is my suggestion that the rest of you remain down here and near this air lock, for the time being. We may all need access at a moment’s notice, and the parlor isn’t exactly the most comfortable place aboard anymore, not with the Khaajiir so busy flavoring the air up there. In the event this winds up being an extended siege, we can all take shifts sleeping in the crew quarters, taking expeditions to our respective staterooms if there are any personal items anybody really needs. Don’t worry, though. I believe it won’t be long before you hear from me again.”

  Philip was left blinking. “B-but…who do you want to speak to next?”

  I gave him a look of raw contempt. “First the corpse,” I said. “Then the bartender. I’ll let you know when to send her up.”

  We turned and left, the voices behind us rising even before we reached the stairs.

  15

  FIRST THE CORPSE, THEN THE BARTENDER

  T he Porrinyards had learned early in our relationship that there were times when they could comfort or reason or shame me out a black mood, and other times when I was just plain unapproachable and best left alone. The difference between the two was a subtle one and they were, as a pair, just about the only person I’d ever known with a gift for discerning one from the other.

  It was hardest to ride the worst of my rages when we were working and I needed them to function as assistants and not in their other roles as friends and lovers. They were stuck with me, then, and weathering the storm was an exercise in remaining silent and speaking only when it was necessary to volunteer information or provide brief answers to direct questions. I knew this was goddamned unfair to them, but it seemed to be too central a part of my personality to fix—one reason why a major attribute of their shared function as my only real friends has always been that damnable adjective “only.”

  Skye, who was better at riding the storms, if only because she was slighter and smaller (and Oscin’s great wall of a chest provided too tempting a target when I needed something to pound with rage), remained silent as she accompanied me back to the parlor and stood aside as I glared at the cadaver of the being from the world that most wanted me dead.

  The corpse had settled farther into the cushions, but its general attitude and position remained the same as the one I’d noted and examined just a few short hours before. But for the stench and the sheer aura of death he might have been any other aged academic, fallen asleep in a favorite easy chair.

  I walked around the body a few times, then went to Skye and took the staff, returning to regard the crime scene from every angle. I murmured to myself. I nodded. Then I returned the staff to Skye, went to the bar, poured myself another of Colette’s intoxicating blue drinks, and marched back into our suite, sitting on the edge of the bed while Skye stood in the doorway, silently waiting for me.

  “This is evil,” I said.

  “Murder always is,” she replied.

  I spat venom. “Juje, but that’s just fucking banal. You have two heads between you, you should do better than that. This—what’s pissing me off—isn’t about the murder. The murder’s just today. I’m pissed about what passes for business as usual among these gargoyles. Tell me you don’t see it. Tell me you don’t have any idea why I want fissionables to bombard this world from orbit.”

  Skye remained calm. “If it’s not because of the wars they foment and the weapons they sell and all the people dead or living as refugees because of their family business, I’m afraid I don’t know. But those reasons will do. What’s yours?”

  I’m afraid I came close to railing at her for being blind and stupid. But as before, her measured tone and unwavering gaze brought me up short. I bit back all the awfulness at the tip of my tongue. “You’ll see when we get Colette up here. It’s…everything I hate.”

  “Not including the murder,” she reminded me.

  “Yes. That’s another problem.”

  “And the problem we happen to be faced with, right now. As I told you before, I have some of the information Jason wanted us to look up in the Khaajiir’s files. Would you like to see it now, or would you prefer to wait until after you’re done with Colette?”

  She—no, they; I still had to keep reminding myself, Oscin was part of this even if he wasn’t physically present—they were handling me. I hated being handled, hated that I was so easy to manipulate, hated that they were so goddamned good at it, hated that they had every right because their skill at handling me was one of the things I most needed them for. “When we’re done with Colette, I’ll be too mad for anything but chewing on Bettelhine ass.”

  “Then we have our priorities settled, don’t we?”

  There was the other source of irritation, raising its ugly head again. Whenever they talk to me like that I feel the invisible hand of the AIsource manipulating them to manipulate me. Again, it was the AIsource that linked them, the AIsource that brought us together, the AIsource that gave us our marching orders. I said, “I know we’ve already had this conversation once tonight, and I apologize for bringing it up again. Are you withholding anything from me? I’m not talking personal stuff. Are our employers using you to control what I know and when I know it?”

  She sighed, shifted the staff’s weight in her hands, and said, “You know, Andrea: there’s going to be an upper limit to the number of times you can ask that question without inflicting permanent damage on our relationship.”

  “I still need an answer.”

  “It’s true. I’m an AIsource agent. It’s part of the deal made by the single-minds Oscin and Skye once were, when they asked for their souls to be linked. It’s part of the deal made by any pair the AIsource enhances in that manner. I’m also loyal to you. It’s part of the deal I made when I became your friend and lover. I have never been asked to pit one loyalty against the other. If I ever withhold anything from you it’s either because, by my considered judgment, it’s none of your business or nothing you need to know. I’ve told you this. You need to accept that it’s no poor reflection on my feelings for you.”

  Just a few short hours ago, when she’d last made a speech like that, I’d backed off in shame. This time I held my ground. “None of that affects the essential question, love…especially since you’ve admitted that what you withheld from me earlier was a key realization about Jason and Jelaine.”

  “You didn’t need it then!”

  “No, I did not. And, true, I’ve since figured it out for myself. But we’re approaching the endgame now. So I need to know. Have you found it necessary to withhold anything else since then? Anything you’ve observed about the guests? Anything you’ve found in the Khaajiir’s database?”

  She hesitated. Just a moment. But she hesitated.

  Then she said, “Yes.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve absorbed entire volumes of information, Andrea. I’ve only boiled it down to the highlights because it eliminated anything that would distract you from the problems at hand.”

  “Why would it distract me? Because it’s irrelevant or because it would disturb the AIsource agenda?”

>   It was rare for the Porrinyards to retreat from anything, but they retreated now; Skye just looked away, and refused to meet my eyes. “Because it would upset you.”

  There was nothing I could say to that.

  She went on. “Trust me, Andrea. Keeping you on track is not the same thing as betraying you. The way I feel, the way I’ve always felt, if it ever comes down to a choice, I’ll tell the AIsource to go to hell.”

  I studied her for a long time. There was nothing especially earnest in her expression. But there were times, like now, when the presence of one Porrinyard did not just indicate, but also evoke, the presence of the other, when their faces seemed superimposed like a pair of images linked in deliberate montage. “You really would.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Have you ever noticed that conversations convey more emotional information when they don’t include any words?

  After a while, I said, “I think we better get back to work.”

  “As you wish.” Showing palpable relief, she crossed the room to hand over the Khaajiir’s staff, retaining her hold even as I claimed my own grip below hers.

  It wasn’t necessary, but we both said, “Decch-taanil blaach nil Al-Vaafir.”

  “T his,” she said, from a million miles away, “is everything I found out about the failed Bettelhine project, Mjolnir.”

  Technical stats and progress reports, hundreds of pages long, flipped through my mind, too fast to read. I caught a diagram in which two lines emanating from a satellite in orbit enveloped an entire planetary hemisphere in an area shaded to show effective range. I saw other tables labeled with titles like atmospheric diffusion and ideal surface densities, before the raw data became too much and the volumes of information backed off in favor of Skye’s thumbnail summary.

  It turned out to be a typically disgusting sample of Bettelhine hubris, with a minor but potentially interesting connection to the K’cenhowten Claws of God: a misbegotten attempt by a previous Bettelhine administration to amplify the technology involved into an orbital cannon capable of taking out entire regions. The focus requirements had proved harder to overcome than any moral objections the Bettelhines of the era might have had to producing weaponry capable of making every man, woman, and child in range suffer the same fate as the religious heretics the K’cenhowten had once sentenced to death by torture. The project had been abandoned not because it was morally and physically revolting—I almost retched at the thought of billions suddenly pausing in their tracks as everything inside them gushed from their orifices—but because the Bettelhines had lost a fortune trying to get it to work.