Inside, the climate was warm and dry, as controlled as a ship’s, but the light from the windows was muted and gray. It still smelled like rain. A different servant took her jacket and asked if she wanted a snack or a cup of tea delivered to the briefing room. She said yes out of habit. Her attention was already divided between the past—sitting with the children or alien child-corpse puppet things—and the future—her report and analysis of the most recent mass blackout event. There was literally no room in her awareness for the present.
The briefing room was beautiful. Walls of polished rosewood with a subtle gold inlay, and lights set behind frosted glass that left the place shadowless. Trejo and Cortázar and Ilich were already there, seated around a malachite-topped table. Trejo looked as bad as she felt, and Ilich maybe even a little worse. Cortázar was the only one of them who was bearing up well under the stress. She was pretty certain that was because he didn’t care whether any of the rest of them lived or died.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I’m sure you understand.”
“We’ve all been busy,” Trejo said, and either it was a subtle dig or it wasn’t. She couldn’t tell which. “Regardless, we’re all here now. And we have to make a statement about this… latest event. What can the high consul say about it? What do we know? Colonel Ilich? Would you like to begin?”
Ilich cleared his throat. “Well, we experienced another event that appears to have simultaneously affected everyone in the system. And by simultaneous, again, I mean that it appears to have been a single, nonlocal event that happened… everywhere. We have reports that it also occurred in at least two other systems.”
Cortázar raised his hand like a kid in grade school, and Trejo nodded at him.
“What happened in the ring space?” Cortázar asked. “Was it the same as in the systems?”
“We don’t know,” Ilich said. “We didn’t have any of our ships in the ring space at the time. There’s some indication that ships in the ring space may have been… um… eaten, if that’s the term. The same way the Typhoon and Medina were. But I don’t have confirmation. The event doesn’t seem correlated with anything we did, but we only have an active naval presence in about one hundred and twenty systems right now. If something happened outside of those, we might not know.”
“Seriously?” Trejo said.
“I can’t overstate how devastating it’s been to lose Medina Station, sir. Controlling that choke point was the leash we had on the empire. Without it…”
Trejo leaned back in his chair, scowling. He opened his hands to Elvi and Cortázar, giving the floor to them. Cortázar didn’t seem to care, but Elvi found herself sitting forward to speak as if she owed the admiral something.
“If I can try to put this all in a wider context?”
“Please do,” Trejo said.
“It’s about the nature of consciousness.”
“That may be a wider context than I was looking for, Major.”
“Bear with me,” Elvi said. “Unless we’re reaching for religious explanations, which I’m not the person to comment on, consciousness is a property of matter. That’s trivial. We’re made out of matter, we’re conscious. Minds are a thing that brains do. And there’s an energetic component. We know that neurons firing is a sign that a particular kind of conscious experience is happening. So, for instance, if I’m looking at your brain while you imagine something, I can guess reliably whether you’re imagining a song or a picture by seeing if your visual or auditory cortex is lighting up.”
“All right,” Trejo said.
“There’s no reason to believe that a brain is the only structure capable of having that combination of structure and energy. And in fact, there’s a fair amount of evidence that the gate builders had a conscious structure—a brain-like thing—where the material component wasn’t at all the same kind of thing we use. Anecdotally, we’ve found at least one brain-like structure that was a diamond the size of Jupiter.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Trejo said.
“Like we don’t have a steel chamber in fusion reactors. We have magnetic bottles. Magnetic fields that perform the same basic function as matter. The older civilization appears to have developed its consciousness in a form that relied more on energetic fields and maybe structures in unobservable matter than the stuff we made a brain from. There’s also some implication that quantum effects have something to do with our being aware. If that’s true for us, it was probably true for them.
“My thesis—the one I was working on before I came here—explored the idea that our brains are kind of a field combat version of consciousness. Not too complex. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but takes a lot of punishment and keeps functioning. Our brain may actually have a kick-starting effect, so when the quantum interactions that underlie having experiences break down, they’re easier to start up again. Does that make sense?”
Trejo said Barely at the same time Cortázar said Of course. The two men looked at each other. Elvi felt annoyed at both of them, but she went on.
“So, the scenario that James Holden brought back from the alien station in the ring space was of something systematically destroying the consciousness of the older civilization. Killing it. The previous civilization tried getting rid of systems. Inducing supernovas. That didn’t help. They eventually closed all the gates, and that didn’t fix the problem either, because whatever it was killed them all anyway.
“And that’s where we came in. We found—and I have directly observed—things that we call bullets or scars or persistent nonlocal field effects. Basically a place where whatever hates the ring gates has done something to collapse consciousness on a planet or in a system. Or in all the systems at once. What I suspect—and I don’t have any data for this—is that the enemy figured out how to snuff out all the systems at once, whether the gates were active or not. I believe that our travel through the gates is irritating to these beings. Maybe even damaging in some way. When that damage gets high enough, they react.”
“So when I killed Pallas Station in Sol …,” Trejo said.
“You also hit some weird, aphysical dark god in whatever passes for its nose,” Elvi said. “And they did what you’d expect them to do. If you get sick and a penicillin shot makes you better, then the next time you get sick, you try another shot. Only it turns out we aren’t the same kind of conscious system as the gate makers. We don’t break as easy, and we recover better. What slaughtered their civilization just lost us a few minutes of time.”
“How disappointing for the dark gods,” Trejo said.
“Right? But then they’re not done. Especially, and no offense here, when we start dropping bomb ships into wherever they are. Playing tit for tat. And the way this one felt different? Light and shapes instead of that kind of hyperawareness?”
“I did notice that, yes,” Trejo said dryly.
“I believe that the enemy, whatever it is, is experimenting with new ways to break conscious systems. Brains. I think we’re the equivalent of a penicillin-resistant infection, and the last event we experienced was an attempt at tetracycline.”
“And the trigger?” Trejo asked.
“There doesn’t need to be a trigger,” Elvi said,“if the enemy has gone past being purely reactive. Maybe we just convinced them to take us seriously.”
Trejo sank a little as the implications unfolded in his mind.
“Is this new information?” Cortázar said. “I feel we’ve covered this all before. I mean, nothing in this is really new, is it?”
Trejo and Ilich exchanged a look.
“It’s useful to me,” Trejo said, “to have Dr. Okoye’s summary. So yes. Do we have any progress on healing the high consul?”
“It would be helpful,” Cortázar said, “if I could examine Ilich’s castoff. I don’t suppose there’s been any new word on finding it?”
Trejo’s effort to hold his temper was visible. “Before we move on to that, if we could address the health of the high consul?”
“He’s stable,” Cortázar said. “Very stable. Perfectly fine.”
“Improving?”
“No.”
Ilich broke in, his voice tense. “Is there no way we can get him back?”
Elvi wasn’t going to let Cortázar bullshit this one anymore. Either he had a plan he’d been holding back for his own reasons or he didn’t. She leaned forward and put her hands on the desk, palms down, like she was revealing a hand at a poker table. “I don’t see any realistic path toward returning him to his previous state.”
Trejo nodded to her and shifted to Cortázar. “Do you disagree?”
Cortázar squirmed. “His previous state? Probably not. But moving him forward into a new state is much more plausible. Easy, even. And more than that, instructive.”
Trejo went terribly still. A soft tapping came at the door, and the servant came in with Elvi’s snack. She’d forgotten all about it. When the door was closed again and privacy restored, Trejo hadn’t moved. His eyes weren’t focused on anything in the room, and his skin was pale. It took Elvi a moment to understand what she was seeing.
All this time, Trejo had hoped. He’d believed that his leader would return, that the righteous king would rise and retake his throne. Despite everything Elvi had said, the admiral had believed Cortázar could Merlin his Arthur back from madness. She was watching Trejo realize he had just been letting someone play with the corpse. She was someplace between horrified for him and relieved that he’d finally heard what she’d been saying all along.
“All right,” Trejo said. And then again, more slowly, “All right. The high consul is going to have to make a statement all the same. We’ll draft something.”
“We can say that the event was a test,” Ilich said. “The high consul’s elite team has made a breakthrough. A new weapon against the enemy.”
“Or we could tell them the truth,” Elvi said.
Trejo stood, his hands clasped behind his back. The anger and irrationality in his expression were grief. Grief made people crazy. When he spoke, his voice buzzed with barely controlled rage. Not at Cortázar either. At her.
“I don’t think you understand exactly how precarious our situation is here, Dr. Okoye. I have a two-front war with no fronts. This is not a moment to undermine and degrade the confidence of our troops or embolden separatist terror. You have just outlined war on a cosmic scale. I can’t prosecute a battle against your dark gods while guerrillas degrade our forces. We have to unify humanity for this. We have to strike with one will. We can’t afford to fuck around knocking each other’s comm relays down anymore. That is going to get us all killed. Do you hear what I am saying?”
“I do,” Elvi said, and she was surprised by the steel in her own voice. Trejo heard it too. “I’m hearing you say you can’t handle this. You want the fight with the underground over with? Easy to do. Surrender.”
“Your jokes aren’t funny,” he said.
“They aren’t when they’re not jokes.”
Chapter Forty: Teresa
Every night she went to sleep, Teresa thought that maybe the next day would be the one that brought her father back. Like with the story of Pandora’s box, all the other fears and nightmares were made bearable by that one hope. Every morning that she woke, there was that sense of possibility that stayed bright as long as she could keep herself from checking in. And then Kelly, her father’s personal valet, would tell her that nothing had changed because of course it hadn’t. She’d feel let down again, and still, idiotically, stupidly, like a cartoon character with an empty grin, the thought would come up. Maybe tomorrow. Always maybe tomorrow.
His rooms weren’t grand. They never had been. A bed frame of natural wood and a thin mattress that he would rest on, even after he’d outgrown sleep. A desk with metal, locking drawers and a screen built into its surface. The only decorations in the place were a picture of her as a child, one of her mother from when she’d been alive, and a simple glass vase big enough for a single flower that Kelly replaced every day. Winston Duarte, high consul and architect of the Laconian Empire, had taken pride in having a simple man’s quarters. The greatness of Laconia wasn’t in its gaudiness, but in its works. The vastness of the empire’s ambition would have made any man seem small. Even him. That was how she thought of it, anyway. What she’d believed.
Now he sat at his desk, his head shifting as if he were trying to follow the flight of insects that only he could see. His hands rose sometimes and then drifted back down like he’d started to reach for something and then forgotten what he meant to do. Kelly had brought her a wicker chair to put beside him. Teresa sat on it, her hands clasped on her knees, watching him for any sign of improvement. Any hope that today might be the tomorrow she kept herself alive for.
“Daddy?” she said, and he seemed to react to the sound. He turned a degree toward her, and even though his eyes didn’t meet hers, something like a smile touched his lips. Kelly kept her father’s hair well combed, but it seemed thinner than she remembered it. Grayer. Greasier. The ancient acne scars on her father’s cheeks made him seem rougher, more worn than he actually was. There was an amazement in his expression, like he was constantly discovering wonders that commanded his attention more than she did.
“Daddy,” she said again, “he’s going to kill me. Dr. Cortázar? He’s going to kill me.”
He turned toward her more, his brow taking on a gentle furrow. Maybe he’d heard her, maybe it was coincidence. He reached out his hands to pat at the air around her head the way he did sometimes, only this time she took his fingers in hers, pulling his hands down, pulling his face toward hers. “Are you there? Do you understand what I’m telling you? He wants to kill me. He wants to pin me down and cut me up like those frogs. And no one’s helping. No one even cares.”
She was weeping now, and she hated that she was.
“Come back,” she whispered. “Daddy, come back to me.”
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but only made wet clicking noises. Like meat being moved by a butcher. He frowned for a moment, then looked away toward the window.
“Daddy,” she said again. And then, “Daddy!”
He flinched at the sound.
The door opened behind her, and she heard Kelly’s gentle cough. She dropped her father’s hands and wiped her tears away. Not that she could hide the fact that she’d been crying. The best she could do was show that she’d stopped.
“Is there anything I can get you, miss?” Kelly asked. He wore his usual red porter’s uniform. She’d known him forever, since she was a child gamboling down the halls with the puppy who would grow into her Muskrat. He’d brought her tea and served her meals. She’d cared about him the way she cared about doors and pieces of art. As a thing. A function. An object. Now they were in the room together, and she saw him as a person. An older man, as devoted to her father as anyone could be. As complicit in hiding what he’d become as she was.
“Does he change?” she asked. “Does he ever change?”
Kelly lifted his brows, looking for what to say. His sigh was soft and apologetic. “It’s hard to say, miss. There are times he seems to know where he is. Who I am. But that may be wishful thinking on my part.”
Her father had drifted back to following his invisible bugs through the air. His forehead smoothed. If he’d heard her at all, understood her at all, he’d been distracted from it. She shifted her weight, and the wicker chair creaked under her.
“I’ll come back,” she said. “If he changes. If he gets better…”
“I will see that they tell you immediately,” Kelly said.
She rose, feeling disconnected from the motion. Like she was watching a Teresa-shaped balloon with its string cut. Kelly stepped over to take the chair away as she walked to the door.
“He would be glad to know you came,” Kelly said. “I can’t say if he knows we’re here. But if he did know, he’d be glad. I believe that.”
He meant the words as comfort, but Teresa couldn’t bring herself
to care. She walked out without thanking him or cursing him or doing anything but putting one foot in front of the other until she was out of the private rooms.
The public parts of the State Building where the mechanisms of government went on were as busy and efficient as ever. Like a beehive or a termite hill that was unaware that its queen was dead. No one stopped her or made eye contact. She passed through on the way to her own rooms like a ghost. All she wanted was to lock her doors and crawl into bed and pray for a dreamless sleep that would carry her to tomorrow. Or later. Or at least not now.
But when she get there, her door was open. Colonel Ilich was sitting on her couch. He didn’t look up as she came in.
“Where’s Muskrat?” Teresa asked.
“She’s in the bedroom. You missed your tutorial this morning,” he said, his voice pleasant and nonjudgmental and false as a mask.
Teresa folded her arms. “I was with my father.”
“I respect that, but your father would want you to perform your duties. All your duties. That includes your education.” Ilich stood, pulling himself to his full height like it might lend him more authority. “And your breakfast.”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
“That isn’t the issue. We are in—”
“Dangerous times,” Teresa said. “A precarious situation. We have to keep up appearances. I know. Everyone keeps telling me.”
“Then stop acting like a spoiled little shit and do your part,” Ilich said.
It was fascinating to see his expression when the words were out. She was so used to him being in control, professional, approachable, friendly. The shock widening on his face, and the purse-lipped chagrin. And then the pleasure. Pride, even. It didn’t take more than a few seconds, but it told its own little story.
“You,” he said before she found the words to throw back at him, “are the high consul’s daughter. You are the face of your family. That makes you the stability of the empire.”
“The empire’s fucking wheels are coming off,” Teresa shouted. “Everything’s falling apart. What do you want me to do about it?”
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