Bitter Angels

by C. L. Anderson

  Seeing Siri effectively paired off, I followed the ambassador to his private office.

  Ambassador Bern’s private office was rigidly traditional. Faux-wood paneling and shelves filled with books made the room look like an antique office from Earth’s European empires. The chairs were solid, deep, comfortable, and probably locally made—such weighty furnishings would have cost a fortune to import.

  Ambassador Bern motioned me to a chair as he moved behind his desk and selected a book from the shelf. It fell open at once in his hands and I seriously doubted it was anything so archaic as the paper volume it appeared to be.

  “We’ve been running a most interesting race with the Erasmus Clerks.” He moved his finger down the page as if checking some reference. Which he probably was, most likely an up-to-the-heartbeat reference on security conditions. “Sometimes they are ahead, but at the moment”—he snapped the book shut and replaced it—“we have the upper hand. This room is as secure as I can make it.”

  He came back around the desk. I had a whole list of questions, mostly about how we would get into the real halls of power once we were forced to move operations to Fortress, but I never got to ask them.

  Slowly, with joints that creaked with unaccustomed effort, Ambassador Bern lowered himself onto his knees.

  “I am here to tell you,” he said hoarsely, “I am the one responsible for the death of Bianca Fayette.”

  I stared at him. He was not doing this.

  It happens, sometimes, that a Guardian kills someone. No matter how hard we try, we make mistakes, or we misjudge. Sometimes, we lose control. When it happens, we must find the family of the victim, and we must kneel, and say just what Philippe Bern had said. Then we must wait, and we must take whatever comes, whether words, blows, forgiveness. If a family member wants to beat one of us to death, it will not be stopped because it’s the only way to end the chain of killing before it begins. Any death, any death can be the fuse that explodes the war. All deaths must be claimed, and we must take the punishment for them so the innocent will not have to.

  But none of us has to accept responsibility that is not ours.

  “How?” I croaked. I had to stop and try again. “How could that be possible?”

  He lifted his face, and I saw the genuine anguish there. “Because I knew what she was doing, and I did not stop her.”

  “Please, stand up. Tell me what happened.”

  He stood as slowly as he had knelt. I saw his hands shake.

  “What happened?” He wiped his palms on the sides of his long coat. “What happened was I was tired and she was revolted.” He looked at me, his gaze direct for the first time since I had entered this room. “You have absolutely no idea how bad it is here.”

  “I’m starting to get the picture.”

  “If you can say it so calmly, then you haven’t,” Bern said, half-pitying, half-disgusted.

  “It’s vile,” I agreed, trying to keep the tremor out of my own voice. “Slavery is always vile. But how does it make you responsible for Bianca’s death?”

  “She came to me…she came to me and told me she was going to take the Erasmus System apart.”

  There are moments when reality shifts so abruptly that you cannot understand it, let alone accept it.

  “That’s impossible,” I said, certain it was true. “She had no orders. If this was a takedown mission, they would have told us before we ever came in.” Takedown is the last phase. Takedown is the thing we do only when there are no other options. It’s incredibly hazardous, because if it isn’t done just right, it can raise new threats that are ten times more dangerous than the old.

  Ambassador Bern’s face had gone slack, weighed down with pure regret. “It wasn’t a mission, at least, it wasn’t an official mission. It was her mission.”

  Words and strength ran away from me like water down a drain. This was not possible. This was not happening.

  We all join up because we want to help, we want to save lives, save humanity, to share the peace and prosperity we’ve known all our lives. Then we find out that’s not our job. Our job is not to spread peace but to watch it. We must apply its principles in such a way that it creates a shield around our worlds. We do not, we cannot go out and save the worlds that will not agree with us.

  Especially if we might get caught doing it.

  Bianca had lived this reality for five centuries. She had taught it to me. She had given me the strength to hold on even during the Redeemer crisis, until the orders and the backup came.

  “Bianca had tried to tell the Guardians that Erasmus was a highly active hot spot, that a takedown needed to be initiated, but they wouldn’t listen. They said she didn’t have enough proof.”

  I knew this much. Misao had told me in that last meeting. Had he suspected…no. He couldn’t possibly have. Not even Misao could have suspected this.

  “She came to me for help,” Bern was saying. “I thought she was just going to ask me to help with the spying, get the data for her, help build a case…” He turned away, looking at the books on his shelves. He shrank into himself, hunching around his own center.

  “But she said she was cutting herself loose. She said she’d volunteered for the Tour so she could decide if she wanted to continue with the Guardians after her next Turnover.” Every hundred years, licensed immortals must turn their lives over. They must divest their assets, and either quit their jobs or start over from the bottom. It’s how we keep wealth and power from becoming concentrated in a few hands. Immortals among the Guardians go on the Grand Tour of the diaspora worlds before their Turnovers, to educate their replacements and see if they still love their work enough to continue, even from the bottom of the ladder.

  A hundred years ago, Bianca had taken her Grand Tour with me. This time she’d done it with Siri and Vijay.

  Siri and Vijay.

  Siri.

  Does Siri know about this? Is this what she’s been hiding? Why she wanted Jerimiah to be brought with us?

  “She said she couldn’t leave this place standing. She said if Command wasn’t going to do anything about it, she’d take it apart on her own.”

  “Why?” I demanded. “This place is falling apart anyway. Even if they’re a threat right now, they’re not going to stay that way for much longer. They’re spending themselves into free fall. They’ve already taken some massive internal hits, and they’re probably going to take another soon. If the reports are right, Dazzle is not happy with the kind of shots Fortress is calling, and now that Oblivion’s gone, they are getting restless. All we’ve got to do is contain them for a few decades and they’ll go down like a house of cards.” I spread my hands toward him. “I could see that from back home. Why couldn’t Bianca see it here?”

  Bern shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you turn her in?”

  Bern turned his face away. He looked old. He looked overdue. I felt a wave of sympathy for him, but it wasn’t strong enough to damp down the confusion or the anger.

  “I’d like to say she seduced me,” he said to the desktop. “I’d like to say she used me, but it wouldn’t be true.”

  I forced my brain to move. I made my mind’s eye open and made it see what was in front of me. This had happened. It had been done. By Bianca Fayette. I had to accept that. I looked again at Bern, a fit man, a smart man in his fortieth decade, and I thought about Bianca.

  “Were you lovers?” I asked. Bianca liked men, and she enjoyed love, both the act and the emotion. She liked the joy and the passion of it, but I had never known her to abandon herself to that love. Even in the throes of a new affair, part of her remained detached.

  He nodded. “Yes, we were lovers.”

  “But that’s not why she thought she could tell you what she was planning.”

  “I told you, you do not understand this place. They have gotten the commodification of human beings down to the sharpest science. The entire system runs on it. They…”

  My patience snapped. “T
hat’s not the point!” I jerked to my feet, nearly overbalanced by emotion. “Listen to you! What did she, did you, think you were doing? The Guardians are stretched and starved, and you thought taking apart this fucked-up central authority on your own was going to help somebody? When do anarchy and deprivation make things better?”

  “It seemed better than leaving it be.” Calm had returned to Bern, the kind of dreadful calm that comes when there’s nowhere to go and nothing to lose.

  I wiped my mouth. The buttons on my tunic sleeve dragged hard across my lips. “I’m going to have to turn you in, you know that. I can’t let this go.”

  He shook his head, just a little. “I had hoped…you and Bianca were so close, but…well, you’ve been gone for so long…”

  I cut him off at once. “Don’t you dare try to make this about my loyalty, Bern. I am a Guardian, and you…,” and Bianca, “broke the first rule, the oldest rule.” I have seldom been so fully in my own self as I was speaking those words. I was solid and present, body and soul, and everything rushed and turned around me; it roared inside me. “You pull together your resignation. Make whatever excuse you want to your staff, but you do it.”

  For a moment, Bern actually looked angry. “I am all the backup you have in this system. You’ll be on your own if I have to step down.” Oh, he was good. Diplomat to the core. Give them a carrot, show them the stick. Oh, yes.

  “You think I don’t know that?” I shot back. If you’d kept your mouth shut, I wouldn’t have to do this, be this, think this…

  If you’d kept your mouth shut, I wouldn’t have to be doubting Bianca’s sanity.

  But I knew there was something else. He’d done it because he believed I’d go along with what they had planned between them.

  I felt Bianca’s ghost behind me, willing me to action. My guts clenched and for a moment I thought I was going to be sick. Was this why Bianca wanted me back? Because she thought I’d go forward with her unauthorized takedown?

  Was this why Jerimiah couldn’t remember what had been done here? Had Bianca sabotaged her own Companion?

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. Her ghost was reaching out of the black hole in my head. I desperately wanted to take her hand, but instead I clenched my fist.

  “You are done here,” I told Bern. “As of now.”

  I didn’t have the authority to do this, but it would have been pointless to argue it. As soon as I told Misao, the Diplomatic Corps would be notified, and he would be out anyway.

  He bowed. I remained straight backed.

  “Go,” I said hoarsely. “And send Field Coordinator Baijahn in here immediately.”

  “Yes, Field Commander.”

  He turned on his heel and exited his office.

  Behind me, the door thudded closed. I doubled over, pressing my hand against my mouth as I choked down my bile.

  Gradually, I was able to straighten up. The solidity I’d felt moments before deserted me. Despite my weighted uniform and my heavy boots, I felt like I was going to float away. I sat down again and stared straight in front of me. I couldn’t shift my gaze, couldn’t move my hands. I could barely blink.

  I had thought I had done with mourning for my friend. I thought I knew the worst. I hadn’t come anywhere close.

  Why didn’t you tell me?

  But Bianca didn’t answer. She wasn’t a Companion, after all, no matter how badly I’d wanted her to be. She was a memory, an echo of a person, and, as it turned out, a distorted one.

  I’d come back to save my world and avenge my friend. I thought she’d fallen in the line of duty.

  Now…now, what was I supposed to think?

  At the very corner of my vision, I saw the door open. Siri stepped into the office and closed the door gently behind her.

  “What’s going on?”

  I made myself stand. I folded my hands behind my back so she wouldn’t see how they clenched. With all the strength I had left, I lifted my head and met her gaze.

  “Siri. I am going to say something to you now, and, if you even think about lying to me, I will be sending you right back to Earth.”

  She turned her head, first one way, then the other, looking at me out of the corners of her vision, trying hard to come to her own conclusions. “Permission to speak freely?”

  I nodded once. “Yes.”

  “With respect, Field Commander, I’m getting a little sick of your accusations that I’m a lying screwup.”

  “Bianca was working a takedown of this system.”

  “Impossible!” Siri shot back immediately. “We had no orders!”

  “She wasn’t waiting for orders.”

  I watched the blood drain from Siri’s face. I watched her lips move silently, and I watched the naked fear strip all other expression from her face. “No,” she whispered. “Not even…she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t.”

  “That’s what I said.” My knees buckled and I dropped back into the chair. Siri’s shock was too raw to be faked. She hadn’t known.

  Siri wasn’t in on it. Siri hadn’t betrayed us.

  Thank you, I murmured in the back of my mind, to Siri and God and all the ghosts following me.

  Siri paced around my chair until she stood facing me again. “You’re serious.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Bern tell you this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Resigning.”

  I have to say this for Siri, she was able to take all of this in stride much better than I had. Maybe it was because she’d been active and I hadn’t. Maybe there were things in the back of her mind that suddenly made sense. I don’t know. What I do know is that she’d been hit hard by this new truth, as I had, but she was already up and on her feet.

  “Bern could have been a huge help to us, you know,” she pointed out. “He knows what goes on here, and he would have had to do what we wanted.”

  “And he is either telling the truth about Bianca, or he’s lying.” I rubbed my gloved palms on the chair arms, thinking of the way Bern had rubbed his palms on his coat. What was he trying to clean off? “If he’s telling the truth, he’s broken so much of the Common Cause Covenant that he’s going to be lucky to get off with only one natural lifetime’s worth of imprisonment. If we’d worked with him, it would have been us next.”

  Siri nodded thoughtfully in agreement. “And if he’s lying?”

  “Then he’s either insane or corrupted.”

  “Shouldn’t we find out who corrupted him?”

  I met her gaze, feeling my own steel hardening inside once more. “We will if and when they make a move on his replacement.”

  She nodded again. “So, what do we do now?”

  “You find Miran and get as accurate a picture as is available about how the power is structured here, physically and in terms of data flow. I’ll get an encrypted report back to Misao. Then we go on with our mission.”

  “Will do.” Siri turned toward the door.

  I stood again. I wanted to be on her level when I said this. “Is there anything, and I mean anything, else you should be telling me right now?”

  Siri stopped, her hand on the doorknob. I saw her shoulders shake, but she met my gaze without hesitation.

  “I swear, Terese. On God’s word and Bianca’s soul, I swear, I have told you everything I know.”

  “Thank you.” I reached out, and she laid both her hands in mine. We stood like that, hands clasped, the old gesture of trust, of respect, and of friendship. “And I’m sorry,” I said.

  Siri smiled, a lopsided cynical expression. “It’s okay. It’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  She let go and left me there, shutting the door carefully, and I moved to Bern’s desk, trying to find words in my mind to officially betray the trust Bianca had placed in me.

  TWELVE

  EMILIYA

  Emiliya Varus stood in the center of a small room in Fortress’s central administrative palace. Its low, transparent ceiling allowed a
view of the ice and the ocean. It was impossible not to feel their chill seeping down her spine. The room’s chairs were grouped for comfortable conversation, but she had not been invited to sit.

  The Grand Sentinel Torian Erasmus also stood.

  Emiliya watched with a mixture of fear and hunger as he read the bioscan data spilling across the active pane he’d opened on the curving wall. Without looking up, he made a small gesture with his hand, and the servants lining the walls all bowed and filed out. Emiliya’s throat tightened. The last to leave were the footmen, who closed the doors behind themselves.

  Torian closed the pane and turned around.

  “I want to thank you for coming forward, Dr. Varus.” The Grand Sentinel gestured once more, this time indicating the nearest chair. It took Emiliya a moment to realize this was the delayed invitation to sit down. She did so, too quickly and too stiffly. “Your information is invaluable to us.”

  “Thank you, Sentinel.”

  Torian regarded her a moment longer, then moved to the sideboard. He selected a corked jug and poured out a measure of milky liquid into a rose-crystal cup. He handed this to Emiliya, who accepted it and held it in both hands.

  Torian looked pointedly at the cup, then at her face.

  Emiliya blushed, and drank. The beverage was some kind of eggnog. It was sweet and rich and the part of her that was starving wanted to gulp it down. She forced herself to sip, aware every instant that the Sentinel watched her.

  “Somehow, Doctor, I think you did not do this out of loyalty to Erasmus.”

  “No.” Emiliya had come to him intending to be smooth, to be strong. For once in her life, she had the upper hand. But she had no experience with power and didn’t know how to hold on to it, and she knew she had already failed.

  “No,” Torian repeated with a sigh. “I am disappointed, but not surprised. However, as we have made our wealth from using you, I don’t see why I should scold you for using us.”

  She made no answer. In the face of such shocking honesty, there was none to make.