The others around the room scrambled to their feet to join Tarsis on the lift. Their symptoms were far less noticeable, but Talon had no difficulty recognizing them. They were all around the same stage as he. All dying and all damned to spend the rest of their cursed lives aboard the Amerigo because of the Blue Death.
“No need to gawk,” Tarsis said to Talon. “There are many accommodations here that serve to prolong life.”
Talon didn’t even realized he’d been staring. The suit Tarsis wore was like nothing he had ever seen throughout the Ceresian colonies. He tried to stop looking, but as he approached the lift his eyes were drawn back to get a closer look at Tarsis’ face. It wasn’t wrinkled, but his eyes were drawn back into darkened sockets. His skin was sallow and he appeared exhausted despite the content demeanor he was trying to project.
“How long have you had it?” Talon asked.
Tarsis rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. “Oh, probably more than three years by now,” he responded. “You’d be happy to look as good as I do after so long! Outside of this ship it’d be impossible. First we get Nano-Suits, and when they’re not enough we get these.” He bent his arm, the mechanical suit whining as he did, and looked at his hand where five tiny slivers of jointed steel ran over each of his fingers. “Still moving though. We all must move. Otherwise we might as well be dead.”
The lift stopped and Tarsis moved out. Each of his steps was noisy and accentuated. It wasn’t very different from the Mechs Julius operated on Kalliope, though small enough not to make the ground rumble.
They had emerged into a corridor so wide that it made the Ascendant’s seem narrow, though the interior was far less pristine. It had an old world look to it. Everything was exposed—all of the circuitry, pipes and lighting systems. They proceeded along a grated floor with more visible systems beneath it. Everything made a noise. The soft purr of running liquid was audible and parts in every direction either beeped or whistled like aged pistons.
Tarsis led them through the complex network of corridors filling what Talon imagined was more than a mile-long hunk of metal. There were areas of translucency sure, but the views the view into space were so expansive that Talon felt like he was going to be sucked out. He could get glimpses through them of the Ark’s golden solar-sail as it wrapped out from the front of the Ark. He’d never before known how stunning the shimmering surface looked against a backdrop of stars, or how tremendous it was.
Dozens of other Keepers serving aboard the Amerigo passed by as they followed Tarsis. Most of them wore black Nano-suits with highlights of glowing blue, like a mark so that they could never forget their disease. Some wore the same mechanical suit as their guide.
After what seemed like forever they made their way down a wide staircase leading into what appeared at first to be a great hall. The interior of the long space was empty except for a single man standing in the center facing away from them. Talon couldn’t tell what the man was looking at until they were all the way down.
So this is how they plan to keep me alive. The rumors are true! Talon marveled. ‘A hall of living graves to extend your doom.’ He’d overheard a merchant saying that.
Lining both walls were hundreds of transparent chambers with frozen human beings occupying nearly half of them. They were stripped down to their underwear, with tubes stuck into their arms, legs and chest. He could tell by the varying brightness of their bluish veins that each of them shared Talon’s affliction.
“Thank you, Tarsis. I can take them from here,” the man standing at attention in the room’s center said with his smooth, basso voice. He then turned around with the supreme refinement of a military man. His appearance matched his deportment. A clean beard hugged his powerful jaw and his hair was neatly combed. He wore an elegant black and gold tunic, with a cape that fell over only his left arm. It was obviously the garb of a captain, but more notable to Talon was that he definitely did not have the Blue Death.
“My pleasure, Captain Varns,” Tarsis said. His suit whined as he raised his hand to a salute. “Shall I resume my duties?”
Captain Varns sent Tarsis off with a nod and folded his arms neatly behind his back. “We are the Keepers of the Circuit,” he stated categorically. He didn’t order them to, but Talon and the others naturally formed a line in front of him. He had a commanding presence. “I don’t know why you are here, or why fate took a shit on your lives. What I do know is that you are here, standing before me. I am Elrigo Varns, the captain of this Ark. This position has been passed down through my family since the fall of the Earth.” He began moving down the line one person at a time, sizing them up. When he came to Talon he stopped to get a closer look at the scrapes on his face and the tattered rags the Tribune had dressed him in.
Varns resumed his speech but didn’t stop scanning Talon. “I would say it is a pleasure to make all of your acquaintances, but it is no real pleasure at all. If you are the damned then I am your shepherd.” His scrutinizing gaze lingered on Talon for a few moments longer before he grunted and moved on. “I don’t know what any of you have heard about our order, but let me put it simply: We serve the continued perseverance of humanity. We are aligned to no faction but that of our species. My duty and yours is to keep this vessel running along the Circuit and provide for all of her peoples no matter what their creed. That is it. We will serve here, and we will die here.”
Die here, Talon thought. For some reason he found it ironic. He meant to hold back his snicker but it came through softly. Captain Varns stormed over to him and glared into his eyes. His cheeks went red.
“It is funny isn’t it?” he growled. “There is always one who doubts the importance of our role!”
“I don’t doubt it,” Talon countered. All of the awe from seeing the Amerigo was beginning to wear off of him as he remembered in detail the situation which had brought him aboard it. “But favoring the Tribune seems to counter your…what did you call it? Simple outline.”
“Another Ceresian who thinks he knows something.” The label rolled off Varns’ tongue with salt. “Tell me. Do you monitor our shipments or just believe what yours always judicious Clans tell you? The Tribune may control Earth, but we keep you and your ilk alive despite how they may feel about you!” He wheeled around, snobbishly tossing his cape over his arm before he snickered. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Resist all you want, but you are a Keeper of the Circuit now and until the end.” When he turned around again he shot a venomous grin in Talon’s direction. “So, are you finished?”
Talon stammered a bit before deciding not to say anything. The captain was right. He had no idea if anything that Zaimur Morastus or any others had said about them being low on Gravitum was true. People had suffered low gravity in the deeper regions of Ceresian asteroid colonies for centuries before the Tribune was even a thought. But for whatever reason, even as he remained quiet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the Keepers were slowly losing their impartiality. And Captain Varns’ attitude was doing nothing to dispel that assertion.
“Good,” Captain Varns said. He approached the human-filled chambers on the wall. “These are your lives.” He patted the glass above one of the dormant Keepers. The person within didn’t respond, though Talon thought he could see the sealed eyelids flutter a bit.
Talon and the other new recruits slowly huddled around the captain at the chamber before he continued: “You will receive Nano-suits that will amplify your muscles enough to help you move until the disease progresses too far. They have been worn by countless Keepers before you, and will be worn by countless ones after you’re all dead. When that is not sufficient you will be provided with one of the outfits you saw my friend Tarsis wearing. When that no longer helps you, you will die. It is a sad truth, but it is a certain one. There is no cure for the Blue Death. We can, however, prolong your lives.” There was no grief in his voice. It was evident that he had given the speech so many times in his life that he had grown numb to the actual meaning behind his words.
&nbs
p; “What is it?” one of the people behind Talon asked.
“These are Cryo-Chambers,” Varns replied. “The Ancients once dreamed they could help on long trips to other stars. A fool’s errand. Today they work tirelessly to slow the progress of the Blue Death. Using these chambers can give you a year, sometimes more, of extra time. It isn’t much, but unfortunately I am not the Keeper of life and death.
“You will each spend weeks at a time inside your own, on rotation, servicing this vessel until you are of no further use to the Circuit. You will perform your duties admirably, and you will learn every nook and cranny the Amerigo has to offer. This I promise you. For now, your superiors will instruct you of your shifts. For those first going under ice, we will be passing over Titan in a few days, so expect to see more new faces when you awaken.”
Talon ignored the rest of what Varn’s said after that. Instead, he stood staring at the inactive man lying within the chamber in front of him as if he were an overgrown fetus. He appeared peaceful, but the sight of it sent a shiver up Talon’s spine. That was where he was supposed to die. In a frozen casket slowly ushering him toward the end.
No, he decided as his fingers ran over the cold glass. I will get out of here. Even if I have to kill them all to do so…I will see Elisha again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT—SAGE VOLUS
Truth Behind Her Eyes
Sage rubbed her dry eyes in order to try and keep herself awake. Then she shuffled through the HOLO-Screen projected from the console of the small ship Tribune Benjar Vakari had provided to her. The readings showed that she wasn’t far from Titan, which was good considering there wasn’t enough fuel in it to get anywhere else. She switched off auto-pilot and took control.
Not long after, Saturn was creeping ever closer.
She’d seen it once, nearly a decade before, but she had forgotten how beautiful a sight it was. The planet’s tilted discs wrapped it like crescent blades of ice and dust. Their soft pallet of blues, oranges and browns flawlessly complemented the toiling atmosphere of the gas-giant. Dancing around all of that was an archipelago of smaller bodies, one of which was the pale orange orb of Titan—her destination. Nearby was the smaller moon known as Enceladus, where Tribune Nora Gressler’s citadel was located. Those were the two main colonies hovering around Saturn, and floating closest to Titan was a Conduit Station. She could see the stream of smaller transport routes trickling between it and the two moons.
Once she was close enough to Titan she keyed a few commands and sent a transmission to Cassius Vale’s compound. “Cassius. It…it’s Sage,” she said. She did her best to sound composed. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I must see you. I promise I’m coming alone.”
There was no initial response. After some time her ship plunged through the thick atmosphere of the moon. It rattled and shook so violently that the restraints were pulled tightly against her armor. When it emerged into the icy world below, Cassius finally answered.
“Sage!” he exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise. I will open the hangar for you immediately. You know where to go.”
She didn’t expect him to be so compliant, especially if he was guilty, but there was no reason to argue over it. Pulling on the ship’s yoke, she flattened her flight-path and headed toward the location of Edeoria. The ship shot over the ridge of a crater and she banked around, slipping smoothly into a hangar built into the wall of the crag.
The White Hand was already parked inside and she set her own ship down beside it. Once it was powered down she switched off the airlock and the translucency spanning over her head popped open. She unlatched her restraints and hopped over the side where she saw Cassius already approaching, a candid smile on his face.
“Sage, my dear,” Cassius said as he spread his arms wide to embrace her. “I wasn’t expecting your visit.”
“I wish it were under better circumstances,” Sage said gravely, returning a timid hug.
“Last I saw you, you were bedridden on New Terrene. I’m glad to see your injuries have all healed.” He held his arm around her back and led her toward the exit.
What does he mean ‘saw me?’ Sage pondered. She imagined that word must have spread to him from the acting Tribunal Council about what had occurred on Mars. “It’s been too many years, Cassius.”
“Years?” His brow wrinkled as he glared at her with a confused expression. “It was only a few months ago that I helped you with that bomb. You saved many lives that day.”
There he goes again, she thought, worried that Benjar was right about him losing his mind. “Helped me?” she asked. Then she tried her best to think back to the explosion on Mars. It still remained only a haze of distorted figures and shouting voices.
Cassius frowned and placed an affectionate hand on her shoulder. “You don’t remember do you?” he said. “We must have less time than I thought.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I will tell you everything soon enough.”
“I didn’t come here to exchange secrets,” she snapped. She shook his hand off of her. “The Tribune is accusing you of crimes I know you wouldn’t commit. You must—”
“No secrets,” he promised. “Come with me. I must show you something.” His face was stern, overflowing with conviction. He led her down one of the branching corridors, and she couldn’t help but follow.
It didn’t take long for Sage to realize that the whole compound had been stripped bare. When she’d visited him almost a decade earlier it was filled with hand-crafted artifacts and beautifications collected by generations of the Vale family. Presently, the deeper they delved the more stark and lifeless it became. It didn’t appear that anybody was living with him. There wasn’t even a single servant to aid him. He was in complete and utter solitude.
“I don’t remember it being so empty in here,” Sage said matter-of-factly as they strolled side by side. She was hoping he would give her at least a suitable reason.
“I found many of my parent’s assets to be superfluous,” Cassius replied, his robust voice echoed throughout the vacant halls. “It all reminded me too much of him. I enjoy the quiet.”
“But so alone…” Sage mouthed, realizing she understood exactly what he was talking about.
“To be an Executor is to be alone. It is the vow we take. ‘I am the silent hand of the Tribune.’ Bullshit!” he barked, causing Sage to jump. “They never tell you how empty it makes you.”
“But you rose beyond it,” she argued, the tone of her voice growing more urgent without her realizing. The more Cassius spoke the more Benjar’s fears seemed to be justified. “You became a Tribune. You achieved more than most men do in an entire lifetime.”
Cassius burst into laughter and leaned toward her, malice in his eyes. “I was merely a figurehead placed there in honor of the war that we won…That I won. That’s it. And after leaving all of it behind I have only a single regret, Sage, only one.”
Sage looked at him curiously, her head half-tilted to the side. “What is that?”
“You.” They stopped and he turned, his fervent gaze boring through her. “That I let them do this to you. What happened to the beautiful, affectionate, young girl my son fell in love with? I look at you now. I look into your eyes and see the same coldness which seized me. I could have stopped it, but I fear it may be too late.”
“It was my choice,” Sage said defensively. She averted her gaze and continued to walk. They were entering the only hall in the entire compound with anything but lights in it. There were rows of holographic busts lining the walls—detailed effigies of all the Vales which had preceded Cassius.
“Maybe it was, but I rebuilt you after that terrible day. I could have showed you the path to freedom! If only I wasn’t so focused on the spineless Tribunes trying to depose me!” His face flushed with anger and he was forced to take a deep breath in order to calm down. “Do you even remember his face? Or is just a blur along with everything else that came before they took you in and made you numb?”
“Ca…Ca,” she whimpered. The corners of her eyes began to well. “Caleb.” The name managed to escape her trembling lips as she stumbled forward, barely catching her balance on the pedestal projecting his face.
“It seems like an age ago doesn’t it?” Cassius said. “Every life you take for them will make him more and more the stranger—your mind occupied by the specters of the men you kill until he is gone. That blithe smile he always wore will be lost like ashes to the winds of Earth.” Cassius placed his hand on her shoulder as tenderly as he could manage. “And then you will be no more than a mindless machine to them. A tool, as I was.”
Caleb…Just repeating his name in her mind overwhelmed her so much that she dropped to her knees. She wasn’t hysterical, but streams of silent tears ran down from her cavernous eyes. “Why are you showing me this…?” Her words came out so frailly that Cassius had to kneel just to hear her. “I haven’t forgotten him…”
He placed his quaking hands over her moist cheeks. “Not yet. Not entirely. But I don’t want for you what I have become. When I look at it; when I look at his face it fills me with enough rage to raze the Circuit to cinders.” His voice was cracking. “It makes me want to go and kill something so that somebody else will understand…so that anybody else could know what I lost!”
Sage had always known Cassius as a serious man, but it was only then as he bellowed that she saw him for what he was. It gave her goosebumps. The hatred in his dark eyes emanated like a black hole ready to devour her and everything around her. She didn’t want to admit it, but it terrified her.
The Circuit, Book 1 Page 23
