Bitter Angels

by C. L. Anderson

  “We declared our independence. We thought…my parents thought that Fortress would need us. They needed us to work, to send out to work, to bring work in. That was what they had always used us for, after all. We could force them to negotiate.

  “But they didn’t. They were smarter than that. They said fine, you be independent, and they left us alone.

  “At first, everyone was ecstatic. We were free. But pretty soon, things started to go wrong. You see, unlike Dazzle, Oblivion didn’t grow enough food to support itself. The farm caverns were more for oxygen production than food production. They tried to get some kind of government together, some kind of rationing…but we’d been prisoners too long. Before long, it was all strong men and staking out territory, and when you drink up the water the plants don’t grow, and when the plants don’t grow…” He waved his hand at the air around us.

  “My parents and some others saw it coming. They organized the Breakout. They ran for their lives, and they left Oblivion behind.”

  “And they came to Dazzle, and no one wanted them here, and they had to take what they needed,” I finished it for him.

  “Which made Dazzle open itself back up to Fortress, which it had shoved out much more successfully than we had. They had the advantage of starting out with a working economy and a city actually designed for people to live and communicate comfortably in.

  “And while we were forced back down into submission here, Oblivion died. Fortress didn’t have to do anything. They just had to leave it alone. No water, no plants. No plants, no air.”

  Amerand flexed his hands. “So we do what it takes to stay alive. We bow and we scrape and we sell off our children just like Baby Ds do, but we do not give each other over to the Blood Family or their Clerks. No matter what. We are the last of Oblivion’s children. We do not forget how the lights went out.”

  He needed to believe it. The alternative was too painful.

  Oh, Amerand, I am so sorry.

  “They’re using me,” he said. “I don’t know what for, but I can’t just run away into the shadows, or even into asylum. How do I ever come back if I run away now?”

  I’m the last person in the universe who can answer that question, Amerand.

  “It’s up to you,” I said.

  He nodded, and he straightened, his military bearing coming back into play despite his worn civilian clothes. “I’m going to come back and take up my station with you tomorrow. I am going to wait and watch to see who notices and what they do.”

  I nodded. “Good plan.” In fact, if he was going to stay, it was the only one. “Now, listen to me very carefully, Amerand. I want us to be clear. Did you mean what you said before? That you want to help us?”

  He nodded slowly; his gaze did not flicker.

  “I need a way into the Security’s network,” I said. “I need a way into whatever archives there are about movement permits, and I need records from the ’scopes.” And if they’re using you to work over the system in some way, I need your identity to check it out.

  Amerand shook his head. “We only have records going six months back, and I don’t have access to all of those. The Clerks have the whole picture if anyone does.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Even a slice will help.”

  He pursed his lips, hesitating. Then he said, “Can you take down a code?”

  I activated the screen on the back of my glove. “Go.”

  Amerand gave out several long strings of letters and numbers. I tapped them in, encrypted them, and stored them.

  There’s one more thing I need from you, Amerand.

  Slowly, I pulled off my glove. I stepped up to him and laid my naked right hand against his temple. It was an intimate gesture, suitable for lovers. His eyes were wide and deep and painfully young. His skin was warm under my palm, and I could feel the scrape of his sprouting whiskers. Slowly, I felt an unwelcome but real tide of yearning rise in me.

  “Look out for yourself,” I said. “If it gets out of control, come to us. We will help you, I swear it.”

  Hope shone in Amerand’s eyes, coming out of a sorrow so deep I couldn’t see the bottom of it. “Thank you,” he whispered, and he turned away and took off running, lightly, swiftly down the tunnel into the dark. Carrying my spot camera right beneath his hairline.

  I stood and watched until I couldn’t tell him from the other shadows.

  TWENTY-SIX

  TORIAN

  Torian sat behind a curving table in his clean, efficiently appointed, private-passenger cabin. He stared angrily at the active pane in front of him. Through it, he glowered at a man in a Clerk’s coat, his ruddy complexion gone pale with fear and guilt.

  Good. Torian’s skin burned red with the effort of his concentration.

  The man had almost ruined more things than even Torian could easily name. This did nothing for his temper.

  “How was this permitted to happen, Master Kane?” demanded Torian. You know what you did. You know the damage you nearly caused. You feel it. Perspiration rolled heavily down Torian’s face and the side of his neck still burned despite the recent adjustment to his modifications.

  The Master Clerk, Hagen Kane, bowed and trembled. For a moment, Torian thought Kane would drop to his knees. He almost hoped it would happen. It would show how well the emotive aspects of the new network functioned and how fully the Master Clerk accepted them as his own.

  “I don’t know, Sentinel,” Kane whispered. “Hamahd had been received into the network. The commands were introduced. There should not have been a disconnect.”

  He should have brought Kane to Dazzle. He should have brought him close enough to synch up the network fully. He never should have let Kane out of his range.

  “You permitted Hamahd to return to duty before he was fully accepting,” Torian said flatly.

  “No, Sentinel!” cried the Clerk, aghast. “He gave all the proper responses.”

  “Then he lied to you.”

  A visible shudder of revulsion ran through the Clerk. “That is not possible.”

  “It is one or the other, Master.” Torian’s eyes narrowed. Which will you decide is worse?

  Kane’s face fell into abject misery. “I don’t know, Sentinel.” Tears shimmered in his eyes.

  Torian regarded the Master Clerk. Except for Torian himself, Kane had been the final overseer of all the Clerks in the system. Before he had accepted the network, he had been a cold, calculating man and Torian had respected his steady professionalism. That was why he had wanted Kane as the linchpin of the network. But now Torian watched the uncontrolled fear and guilt possess the dedicated and previously rational man, even without the full synchronization.

  It can be fine-tuned, Torian reminded himself firmly. We will have time to get the balance right after the move.

  But at this time, a heavy hand was advisable. Torian leaned closer to the screen.

  “I have offered you survival, Master Clerk,” Torian said softly, with a note of regret in his voice. “Neither Moontwo nor Moonfour will last long once we withdraw, but your people will not even last long enough to see the lights go out.”

  “I know, Sentinel.” Kane hunched his shoulders miserably. “But we are having to move so quickly…”

  “If you cannot safely receive all your people into the network, then you will have to become selective.”

  Slowly, Kane lifted his horrified gaze. Slowly, he shook his head. “Do not ask that of me.”

  “I am not asking anything I am not prepared to do myself,” Torian told him grimly. “Do you know how many of my blood, my blood, Master Clerk, not just colleagues, I am sacrificing?”

  The Master Clerk bowed, his hands clutched tightly at his breast. “I hear, I hear.”

  “Yes, you do. I know.” Torian let his voice soften, though he felt anything but sympathetic. Bloom would be so proud of me.

  Kane did not straighten. A tear dropped down onto the shining floor. “I will do as I must,” said the Clerk.

  “Good.” Tor
ian nodded. “Take heart, then.”

  “Yes, Sentinel.” The Clerk did not raise his eyes. “Thank you.”

  Torian touched the active pane and let it go dark. He was certain Kane would do as he promised, but this had only advanced the timetable. Any delay meant that the Clerks who remained outside the network might come to realize there were now haves and have-nots, or, more accurately, survivors and victims.

  Torian sat where he was, and for a long moment he simply let himself be exhausted. This has to be finished soon. He could not keep on much longer. Even he had his limits. He’d come dangerously close to a mistake when he trusted Kane to assemble the second tier of the network. Fortunately, it was Amerand Jireu’s Clerk who had failed to integrate. Amerand was now so firmly attached to the machinations of the Solarans that he would be thoroughly blinkered, both by the Solarans’ worldview and his own desire for revenge.

  Was it a coincidence that it was Hamahd who had failed to accept? Or was he affected by too much proximity to a rebellious individual like Amerand? That was something he would need to examine. A network built upon the human mind was sensitive to emotional and environmental influence. Details such as this were important, at least until the whole net was connected and stabilized.

  Torian rubbed his eyes. It was almost time for launch and he needed to complete his interview with Emiliya Varus before then. That idea only weighed him down further.

  Perhaps we don’t need her. Perhaps it’s only an additional risk.

  No. Torian scrubbed his whole face, trying to recover his rational detachment. Now was not the time to reevaluate the plan. He was too tired and his head ached too badly. It was too close to the end. If he started changing his mind, he would never stop.

  He pictured the infant, Indun, in Mai’s arms. He saw her red newborn face and her rosy little hands. I’ve built you a whole world, Indun, for you and your siblings. I will not fail to deliver. Not this time.

  But he longed to sit still, if only for a moment. He never thought he would come to regret the distributed system that he had helped develop for Erasmus, but the extended hours of travel from moon to moon were more wearying than any other aspect of the long plan.

  Torian shoved his self-pity firmly aside and leaned back in his chair. He pressed his fingertips together to trigger the proper level of concentration.

  Bring me Emiliya Varus. Torian shaped the words clearly inside his mind.

  A sensation of presence came over him, of some other entity just out of sight. “As required,” it said, and was gone.

  By the time Emiliya arrived at his cabin, Torian had eaten a small meal of tea and samosas. He washed his face with real water and checked the latest genetic scans of the new children. The news was all good, and he felt distinctly refreshed.

  Emiliya did not look half so well. The strains of the past few days were telling on her. Her hair trailed loose around her shoulders and, unpardonably in a doctor, her ragged fingernails were dirty. She bowed low and correctly before him, and Torian allowed himself a moment of empathy. I also know what it’s like to feel at the end of your resources.

  Torian gestured toward one of the cabin’s comfortable chairs. Emiliya accepted with the air of someone who had no choice.

  “How can I help you, Grand Sentinel?” she asked.

  “I am going to make you an offer, Emiliya.”

  She looked down at her dirty fingertips. “Another one?”

  “I did not make you any offer last time,” he reminded her, trying to do it gently. “You were the one who came to me.”

  She twisted her hands together.

  “It was not something I’d forget,” he continued. “You came because your family meant more to you than your own freedom. That is a great thing indeed. It impressed me very much. As did your actions throughout the whole of your assignment.” He had paid close attention during her last interrogation. It was true she did not inform them of Amerand Jireu’s betrayal. However, taken in the balance with all her other actions, that was a minor blot and easily correctable with the proper level of networking.

  She looked up at him. “I should say thank you, Sentinel, but I am falling short on courtesy.”

  He nodded briefly. “I understand. It has been a difficult time, but you have been strong and you have persevered.”

  She licked her chapped lips. Courage, coming from his compliments, or from her own feeling of having reached the end, made her speak. “Where is my mother?”

  “Gone to the black sky, and your siblings with her,” he said. “Their fate is in their own hands now.”

  Emiliya swallowed. Wary hope flickered across her features. “And you have an offer for me?”

  “A share of what the Family is so jealously guarding from the Pax Solaris.”

  Emiliya’s face went absolutely still for a long moment. Torian recognized the behavior. It was the natural consequence of living an observed life. She did not want him to see what she was thinking.

  “Are you going to tell me what it is?” asked Emiliya at last.

  “Immortality.”

  Emiliya looked away, the first quick movement she’d made since she entered the cabin. “The Solarans already have immortality. They’ve had it for centuries.”

  Torian dismissed this with a wave. “I am not talking about their chained, restricted immortality that has to be so painfully renewed every twenty years and relicensed every hundred. I am talking about genuine immortality. One treatment, one set of genetic switches inserted, another few reset, and it is done. It is yours, and your children’s as well.”

  “That is not possible.”

  “It has already been done.” Her eyes widened. “Mai. Shora. Tamarra. Effes. They have already gone through the process.”

  He watched her turn the names over in her mind, and assign the titles to them. Saeo Mai, Grand Matron Tamarra, Master Treasurer Effes. The highest-ranked women of the Blood Family. All of whom…

  “They all gave birth recently.”

  “Yes.” Torian did not fight the smile spreading across his face. “And their children have all the necessary genetic markers, inherited from both mother and father. Those genes are dormant at the moment, of course, but they will begin to switch over with adolescence.” He leaned forward. “Think on it, Emiliya: Death and time are gone from us.”

  “Forgive me, Grand Sentinel, but why should I care that the Blood Family are to become immortal?”

  “Because you are one of us.”

  Emiliya blinked. “What?”

  He sighed and attempted to remain charitable. She was having to absorb a lot of new information, and in some ways, what came next would be the most shocking. “Who is your father?”

  “Nikko Donnelly,” she answered promptly.

  “Nikko Plaice Erasmus Donnelly,” Torian corrected her. “He was a supervisor on Oblivion, once upon a time, but lost his discretion to a very young, very beautiful woman who was there finishing her own mother’s sentence for murder-for-profit.

  “We do not like bastards, Emiliya. Too many of them salted around is dangerous to the cohesion of the Blood Family. Your father was duly exiled for his crime. He has begun his atonement, however, and may in time be permitted to return to the family ranks—although, I should warn you, he will never rise very high.

  “Through Nikko Plaice Erasmus Donnelly, you are Blooded, and your mother knew it, although it now seems she never told you.”

  Emiliya stared at him for a long time, her expression surprisingly transparent. He could see her thoughts darting back and forth. Years of memories were rearranging inside her, fragments that made no sense before dropped into place as understanding crystallized.

  “Is that why I was allowed into the Medical?” she asked.

  “In part. It was my decision. I wanted to be able to keep an eye on you, to see which loyalties had come out most strongly in your character.”

  “You wanted to see if I would make a good dupe,” she snapped, and instantly pressed her white-knuckl
ed hand against her mouth.

  “And if that was all you had proved to be, that would have been how I used you,” Torian replied calmly. “But you have turned out to be much more than that. You carried out your mission in the face of physical and emotional conflict. You held tight to family loyalty over loyalty to friends and lovers. This is strength the Family will need in the days to come.”

  Emiliya pushed back a strand of hair that had drifted over her forehead. She looked directly at him, a hard stare that she clearly hoped would go right through him. Torian did not blink but let her look her fill.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why me?”

  This was the one question Torian had been certain she would ask. “I love my family, Emiliya. I love what is to come for them, but we must see to our next founding very, very carefully.” We have made too many mistakes over the years, and I let them happen. I let Jasper and Felice begin this ridiculous system of slavery and peonage. I should have argued harder. So much waste. I should have made them see… “We must provide in all ways possible for our future and this includes providing for our own balance, most especially in terms of genetics.” I wish I could apologize to your father. I truly did not realize that our by-blows would become such a valuable resource.

  “I turned on my colleagues,” Emiliya murmured, her hands twisting back and forth as if she wished she could pull off her own fingers. “What if I turn on you? I could go to the saints, tell them you’re going to make the Family immortal.”

  Torian spread his hands. “And what are they going to do? Kill us? Sterilize or destroy the children who have done nothing but be born? Even if they have the strength left after we are finished with them, undoing us is against their own laws.”

  “Even if they have the strength left?” she repeated.

  “Solaris is only a minor consideration at this point, and that is thanks to you.”

  Stillness again. Torian shifted in his chair. She must understand the implications by now. It was time for her to make her decision.