Black Hole Sun

by David Macinnis Gill

  “You look like a movie cowboy in that new symbiarmor,” she said. “Did your daddy buy you that?”

  “Yes, chief,” I said. “When I graduated from battle school.”

  “Battle school?” The rest of the davos laughed.

  The one named Vienne spoke up. “Another schoolboy, chief?”

  “I don’t understand what’s wrong with battle school,” I said.

  “That’s because you went to battle school.” Mimi put an arm around my shoulder and led me away from the group.

  Though I was tall for an age-six, she still towered over me, a tall, muscled age-nine with cropped black hair and a jagged scar across her forehead. “Look, kid, you can’t learn to be a Regulator in school. You have to train with a master. You have to learn to follow the Tenets. Or you’ll never be a true Regulator, just a movie cowboy.”

  “I can follow the Tenets,” I said. “Where can I get a copy?”

  Mimi laughed. “The Tenets aren’t for reading.” She tapped her head then her heart. “They’re here and here.”

  “I—”

  “Rule number one: Stop starting your sentences with I. It’s we now.”

  “I—”

  She smacked the back of my head. “Rule number two: The base of the skull is your symbiarmor’s weak point. An object is only as strong as its weakest point. The same is true of a davos. Are you going to be my weak point, cowboy?”

  With Mimi’s words echoing in my head, I shake the memory away. Ever since Mimi’s brain waves were implanted to control the nanobots in my body, memories have become more vivid. More real.

  “That actually was my memory,” Mimi says.

  “It’s getting harder to tell,” I say.

  “For me, too, cowboy.”

  A cold shiver runs down my spine. What does that mean, for her, too?

  Another lunge by Jean-Paul catches my attention. There’s blood on his ankle where the cable cut him, and the miners are getting nastier. Moving closer and closer to bait him.

  Time to end this. I signal Vienne to move behind Ockham. Just in case things don’t go well. “Jean-Paul is paying your fee, Ockham,” I say.

  Ockham grunts. “So?”

  “So maybe you don’t want him dead. At least until he pays you.”

  “I’m not worried. This kid’s got giant yarbles.”

  “Giant yarbles make bigger targets,” I say. “Maybe he ought to wear more than a loincloth.”

  Ockham laughs. Slaps me on the back. “Didn’t know you had a sense of humor, chief.”

  “He does,” Vienne says. “I don’t.” She bumps Ockham with her shoulder, a reminder that she’s there.

  “Order your miners to stand down,” I tell Áine and Maeve.

  Áine curls her lip, and I can see that she’s not happy. “What miners do is their business,” she pouts. “They don’t need a chief to tell them how to act.”

  Ouch.

  “Especially when we’re getting paid coin,” Jurm pipes in.

  “Paid?” I get in Ockham’s face. “You paid them to beat a boy?”

  “Not me.” Ockham starts laughing, but stops when no one else joins in. “My acolyte paid them himself.”

  “He did wh—” I say.

  A scream interrupts me. As I turn toward the source, Jean-Paul, the miner wielding the arc torch charges. He swings the long, angled rod of the torch high over his head. Bears down on Jean-Paul. Who stays low, his weight distributed evenly on the balls of his feet. Hands in blocking position.

  “Wait,” I yell—it’s too late to stop it. Roll into the rooter, I think, urging Jean-Paul to use the miner’s weight and momentum against him.

  But the boy doesn’t move. Instead, he stands his ground. Takes the charge. At the last heartbeat, he pitches forward to duck the welding rod. His hands useless against the miner’s pumping legs. A knee catches his chin. He flies backward.

  The miner stumbles, his legs tangled up in the boy’s, and they fall together in a mass of flailing limbs. Proof that neither one of them is a trained fighter. The miner is first to his feet. He brings the welding rod up again. Ready to rain blows on Jean-Paul’s back as the boy rises on hands and knees, trying desperately to catch his breath.

  “Halt!” I shout as I jump down the steps. “Stand down! Now!”

  The miner looks befuddled as I step into the circle. He turns to Áine, then to Ockham for direction. I take the chance to snatch the rod out of his hands.

  The boy’s mouth is bloodied. Droplets roll down his belly, staining the dirtied, white loincloth.

  I give Jean-Paul a good shake. “What were you thinking? That man could’ve killed you.”

  “I want,” Bramimonde says stubbornly as he yanks his arm away, “to be trained the way a Regulator acolyte is supposed to be trained.”

  “That? That is not how acolytes are supposed to be trained. Acolytes don’t train against grown men,” I say. “Especially ones carrying hand tools for weapons.”

  “Aw, we wasn’t going to hurt him bad,” Jurm says. “He paid us to fight, so we figured it ort to be a good one.”

  “Save it for the Draeu,” I say. “Ockham, untie the kid.” I drop the welding rod to the ground. It clatters on the stone, the sound echoing off the walls, and I’m a little surprised by the noise it makes.

  Jurm picks it up and backs into the circle. But the boy isn’t taking no for an answer. He drops into a fighting crouch. “Come back, coward!”

  “I said,” I scold Jean-Paul, “stand down. Get yourself cleaned up.”

  The boy wipes his mouth on the back of a forearm. “I’m fine. All systems copacetic.”

  “Where did you hear that phrase?”

  “From you,” the boy says, “when you saved my life.”

  “I—” Then I notice that Ockham, followed by Áine and Vienne, is joining us. “This is stupid, Ockham. Find another method for training the boy.”

  “Durango,” Ockham says, whistling. “This method’s been good oil for generations of acolytes.”

  I point to the stains on the boy’s loincloth. “You call that good oil? I call it stupid.”

  “A speck of blood? Think what the Draeu would do to him if they laid hands on an untrained fighter.”

  The tendons in my jaw start working. “We are not the Draeu.”

  “He’s got to be trained to fight them.” Still whistling.

  “Not this way,” I say, stepping into his face, staring down at him. “It’s barbaric.”

  “Barbaric? Who was your master, then?”

  “I didn’t have one.” I can hear Mimi’s voice from my memory: you’ll never be a true Regulator, just a movie cowboy. “I trained Offworld.” And because I’m full of pride, I add, “At battle school.”

  “Battle school? That means you’re a rich brat officer?” Ockham says, stepping closer. “But you’re dalit.”

  A hush falls over the miners. I try to ignore them, especially Áine, who crosses her arms and scowls at me.

  “What of it?” I say.

  “Rich brat officers don’t turn into dalit. Here I was thinking you were some cast-off pretty boy, but turns out, you’re worse. Officer dalit. Hah. ‘Oh how the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, go awry.’”

  “Don’t quote poetry at me, Ockham. I hate poetry.”

  “He stole my line,” Mimi says. “Misquoted it, too.”

  Ockham huffs tobacco in my face. His nostrils flare. I can smell the harsh stink of his breath. Here it comes, I think. But hold my ground. “Got something stuck in your craw, oldie?”

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I’m thinking,” he says, and spits a string of tobacco juice on my boots, “a man ought to have to prove himself before he’s fit to lead.”

  With a flick of my boot, I sling the spit back at him. “That sounds like a challenge to me.”

  “That’s because, pretty boy,”—he thumps my chest with the heel of his hand—“it is.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
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  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00

  Ockham’s punch glances off my symbiarmor. But I feel the force of it disperse through my body, and I almost take a step backward. Almost. The old man still has power, and he knows how to use it. But I’m younger, faster, and my armor’s a few pay grades above his. If Ockham thinks he’s facing a soft Offworlder, he’s in for a surprise.

  To answer the challenge, I pound his chest with both fists. He comes back at me, grinning through tobacco-stained teeth. He needs dental work. Lots of dental work.

  And a sprig of mint.

  “Strike fast and hard,” Mimi tells me. “You should end this as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes, Mother,” I say.

  “I formally challenge you for command of the davos,” Ockham says. Then he bows, palms pressed together.

  “Challenge accepted,” I reply.

  But the words no more than pass my lips then Vienne interrupts. “Chief,” she says. “This fight is mine.”

  “Vienne, no.” This has to be my battle, because I’m fighting the miners as much as I’m fighting Ockham. “Not this time.”

  “I’m your second,” she says stubbornly. “It is my right to take on all comers.”

  I start to argue when Mimi chimes in, “To refuse her is to dishonor her.”

  “I know that!”

  “If you dishonor her, she will never forgive you.”

  “I know that, too!”

  “But if you let her fight in your place, the miners will never respect you.”

  “Yes! Yes! I’ve got it. This is one of those gu pì bù tng messes that go with being chief. I know I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Okay?”

  “Just making sure,” Mimi says.

  If she weren’t flash-cloned to my brain, I would knock her silly.

  Taking a deep breath, realizing that all eyes are on me and Vienne, who is standing beside me frozen in the Regulator salute, I make the decision to hurt her.

  “Vienne, you are excused. I will fight Ockham.”

  She blanches. Then regains her composure and bows. Only I know the truth: My words burn like battery acid. Only seconds pass, but I can feel a chasm opening between us.

  “Yes, chief.” She stands aside. “As you wish.”

  I can’t look at her. Turning away, I strip my armor down to the skivvies. Then stand calmly before Ockham. My body is lean and hard, the muscles rippling in my stomach as I flex, calling forth my chi.

  Ockham tosses his head back. Laughs. “Nice belly, pretty boy. But you best not expect me to go easy on yo—ack!”

  A chop to the windpipe silences him mid-sentence. Ockham grabs his throat and staggers back, trying to catch his breath. Pressing the advantage, I launch a scissors kick to the side of his head. Then drop into a crouch as I leg whip his knees.

  The old warrior lands hard on his butt. Groans. As I move in to deliver a stomp to the ribs, a blow I’ve seen Vienne maim men with, Ockham rolls away. My foot stomps bare ground, and the old man kips up to his feet.

  “Too slow,” he says, laughing at his escape.

  His breath comes in wheezing gasps, but he’s able to drop into a defensive stance. I recover quickly. Throw a round kick at the side of his head. It’s a killing blow, but Ockham catches my foot easily in his thick-calloused hands. Draws my foot into his belly, then shoves hard and sends me spinning away.

  “Too slow again. You ought to let the suzy fight your battles.”

  For an instant it looks as if I’ll crash headlong into the stone floor. But I twist like a goring drill and land on my toes. The soles of my feet smack the stone. The sound echoes in my ears.

  Damn it, this needs to end now.

  Before the sound fades, I attack again. This time, with a series of rapid-fire kicks to Ockham’s chest. He blocks the first three with his forearms. But I drive a rock-hard heel into his solar plexus. Softly I land in the dust as he gags and heaves. His body bends at the waist like a steel bar melted in the center. The muscles in his face slacken, the skin on his cheeks turns red like he’s been burned. His eyes droop and close halfway, the pupils dilated.

  I slide behind Ockham. As he falls to one knee, struggling for breath, I step in to deliver the coup de grace—an overhand punch that Vienne taught me, aimed at the base of the neck. Where his brain stem is unprotected. The correct term for it is a rabbit punch, but Vienne is no rabbit. She’s a cobra, and her strikes are lethal.

  What am I doing? “No!” I yell the instant before the blow lands.

  The sound of my voice causes Ockham to twitch his head to the side. My calloused knuckles land anyway. But the turn of Ockham’s head has changed the target. Instead of the soft tissue of the neck, I hit boney skull.

  Crack!

  A bone breaks.

  I think it’s mine.

  “It’s yours,” Mimi says. “You delivered the punch at precisely the wrong angle.”

  “Thanks for that crumb of recon,” I say. “Which one?”

  “Fifth metacarpal. Hairline fracture. Treatment protocol requires ice and elevation above heart level to reduce swelling—”

  “Remind me later,” I say.

  Ockham slumps forward, eyes rolling into his head, and topples almost gently onto his side. I stand above him, take three calming breaths, and flex my hand. It burns like hot mercury. I bend down to check the old man’s pulse. He’s alive. Thank God.

  “You hurt yourself,” Vienne says.

  “Just a metacarpal,” I reply.

  “You should have killed him,” she says. “It’s your right.”

  “We need him to fight the Draeu. Besides, now that I’ve kicked his ass, he has to fall in line. It’s in the Tenets, right.”

  She nods, satisfied. “Right.”

  We step away. Allow the miners to minister to him. Spiner and Jurm check Ockham for injuries.

  “Is he still alive?” I ask.

  “He’s breathing,” Jurm says.

  “I reckon that counts as living,” I say, and then wait until Mimi tells me that his injuries are minor. “Don’t move him until we check him out. Call your medic down here.”

  The miners shrug, and no one moves. A few of them murmur about taking orders from a dalit and helping a damned Regulator.

  “Do it,” Áine says, striding toward us. “There’s no arguing when a man’s hurt. Jurm, I’ll get Maeve. You and two others, fetch a gurney from the infirmary. Now. If you don’t mind.” She pauses and then adds, “Please.”

  She catches my eye. Shakes her head. Walks up the stairs. There is frustration there. And fear. How can I blame her? Dissension in the ranks. Two Regulators injured, one possibly crippled, with a cannibalistic enemy in the wings, waiting to attack fortifications that aren’t finished. I feel like a mountain climber whose only toehold is a thin lip of crumbling rock.

  “Will Ockham die?” Jean-Paul asks Vienne, his body colored rust from the fight, the blood from his mouth drying black on his belly.

  His voice gives me a start. I almost forgot he was there.

  “No,” I hear Vienne answer. “He’s too mean to die.”

  Jean-Paul flashes that same determined look I saw back in the New Eden bazaar. “What about my training? How will I become a Regulator now?”

  “Here’s some advice,” she says, leading him away, “and it won’t cost you a penny. If you want to become a Regulator, try to learn from the man who won the fight, not the one who lost it.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00

  In the dream, I’m lying on a stainless-steel table in a white room. A blue light is burning above the gurney. My hand reaches up, trying to block it and succeeding only in barking skin from my knuckles. There is a coarse mesh basket protecting the light. This is a field hospital, and I’ve been fighting death with my fists. A respirator tube is stuffed down my throat, and two surgeons in scrubs stand over me.

  “Theoretically,” the man says, “
it will work.”

  “Theory is fine and good,” the woman says. “But what if his mind can’t accept the symbiont? It could lead to psychic breakdown, schizophrenia—”

  What could? I try to say, but something stops me.

  “Let me remind you who his father is,” the man says, and places a mask over my face. “If CEO Stringfellow wants this to work, it’s going to work.”

  “In theory.”

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  Catching on to what, I think, but then the dream ends. It always ends right there.

  I awake in a sweat. Is that the way the flash-cloning process really happened, or is it the version my mind has concocted for me? Even Mimi doesn’t know. It happened before she joined me.

  My heart thumping, I roll to my back to find my center. Breathe in. Breathe out. When I’m calm, I open my eyes. The quarters are dark.

  Although the mines where shut down years ago, I can imagine hearing the ceaseless whir and clang of the ore being run up to the tipple and then dropped into the conveyor belts that separated it for shipping. I can almost smell the acrid scent of the ore, the stink of the enzymes the Big Daddies secreted during their tunneling. I stretch, exhale noisily, and roll from the cot.

  “That was not eight hours of sleep, cowboy,” Mimi scolds me.

  “Close enough.” Though from the way my body’s buzzing, I know that it wasn’t even half that.

  I’ve lived on two, maybe three hours of sleep for weeks on end now. I’m tired. It’s not that I don’t want to sleep, to dream my own dreams for once, instead of revisiting past nightmares. But I can’t. My brain won’t let me. And there’s the matter of this job I accepted. It’s my duty to protect the miners, and I can’t do it from slumber land.

  After pulling on my symbiarmor, I pick up my boots and tiptoe across the floor. On my way out, I check the other cots. Ockham is in the infirmary, sleeping off the fight, and Jean-Paul’s at his side. Jenkins lies snoring loud enough to cause a cave-in. Fuse’s cot is empty.

  So is Vienne’s. A pang of jealousy stings me. It isn’t a good idea for them to wander off in the night. The miners on guard duty might think they’re Draeu and accidentally club them with one of those heavy wrenches.