Vontaura

by James C. Dunn

  Silence. Neither spoke.

  Anna stared into the old woman’s eyes – searching, penetrating, hunting for the truth. But that was the only truth. Her heart beat in her throat. She felt lightheaded. Adrenaline throbbed through every part of her, daring her to say the words. My little Ruben.

  ‘Tell me.’

  Callista looked back up to her. The young girl was no longer crying. Her expression was staid, emotionless, her eyes glistening.

  ‘Tell me . . . please.’

  ‘I can only say it once.’

  ‘I only need to hear it once.’

  Callista took her hand. ‘He heard it, Anna. He heard it all. The communication link we received – the one in his vault – it was open, all the way until we reached the Stellarstream. It was only one way when we were on the craft. He couldn’t tell us, but the fleet, they could hear everything that happened as we escaped. He heard your sister give birth. And then.’ She stopped.

  ‘Please,’ Anna said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘They . . . They say he went mad. He was helpless, unable to cope with hearing his own flesh and blood die while he stood there, just listening. They told us everything. He stopped, and . . . and in the end his heart gave out. He c . . . collapsed.’ Anna squeezed her hand, looking down, telling her to go on. ‘He died there and then. There was nothing anyone could have done.’

  Anna looked up. ‘Liar. It’s your fault.’

  Callista’s hand left hers. She stood up and backed against the wall. A small sound left her lips. It was sheer hurt.

  ‘You’re wrong to say that, Anna.’

  ‘Am I? You pushed him into everything that he did. Everything that I’ve done. It’s Malizar’s fault. Peter Marx’s fault. The Iástrons brought this on us. I’m glad I have no echo. I’m glad I’m not one of you.’

  ‘I did everything I could for you and your sister. Everything I could for your uncle. I’ve spent most of my life caring for you. I haven’t hurt anyone, Anna.’

  ‘You’ve hurt me,’ she said.

  Callista felt her eyes fill with tears. Her eyes locked with Anna’s. They had always been at odds, quarrelling, fighting. But this was the first time they had truly crossed words. And it hurt.

  ‘Have you seen his body?’ Anna asked. ‘Do you know for sure?’

  Callista nodded. ‘It’s on the . . . he’s on the vessel from Enustine. They transmitted the image. We can see him once we reach Europa—’

  ‘I don’t want to see him!’

  ‘You don’t have to.’ She opened the ward door and went to walk out. ‘Whatever you want. It’s over now.’

  ‘But it’s not, though, is it Callista?’ Anna lay back down, rolling over and facing away. ‘It’s not over at all.’

  SEVENTY-TWO

  A PROCESSION OF metal mammoths ceased its leap. The great gas giant Jupiter, fifth planet from Sol, welcomed the vanquished fleet. Twenty-five surviving Alignment ships dove into the interior of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, where they split themselves between two great shelves of ice, several miles beneath the surface.

  Titan had endured with five vessels of varying sizes and crews, while both Enustine and Crilshar possessed six ships each. What still existed of the other Alignment worlds and moons remained in about half a dozen other vessels. The Enusti-made Achakachula stood the most dominant of all.

  Captain Ferranti, once again assisted by Gordian, set the Stellarstream down exactly where Callista had told him: on the ridge of ice not inhabited by Crilshar or Enustine. He understood. They did not want to get caught in the middle.

  The path was arduous, the landing risky. Manually, the interstellar titans were virtually impossible to manoeuvre. Automatic detection was therefore employed. One ship was lost on the way down, but the rest held out against Europa’s hostile fissures.

  Ferranti and Gordian watched the caverns around them through projection from the Stellarstream’s Control Centre. Callista was still in the medical bay, unable to leave Anna. Ketrass remained with the baby Berenguer in the captain’s quarters. Once more, the Stellarstream was without a crew. The Captain couldn’t wait until he could see Titan’s survivors and make sense of what had just happened. They were without a leader. Perhaps that placed him at the front. He ignored all such thoughts.

  He had deliberately avoided visiting Anna. In fact he refused to deal with Ruben and Gílana Berenguer’s deaths at all. Grief would come later. He was lucky in that there was so much to do and to think about besides the disaster that had just taken place. They needed to stop and to think, and then to act.

  Ferranti and Gordian stood in silence when the Enusti link rang through from the Achakachula. The face and shoulders of Empress Adelaide Abacco appeared upon the projection wall. Her face was painted a perfect white, her expression fearless, as though no genocide had swept through everything they knew to exist.

  ‘Captain of Titan,’ she said. Her eyes flickered towards Gordian, her lips pursed.

  Ferranti bowed his head. ‘Empress.’

  ‘We require your presence upon the Achakachula at once.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And what of the General?’ His voice almost croaked.

  ‘My sincerest apologies, Captain, for your people’s loss. You may take him with you upon your return. There are, of course, some surviving Titanese craft among our fleet. I imagine you will wish to gather yourselves and consolidate your forces.’

  She glanced once more at Gordian. ‘Bring him with you. The chief surviving Crilshan vessel we have down here has been boarded. Its inhabitants are in our custody, as is the High Lord himself.’

  Ferranti listened to Gordian breathe out heavily behind him.

  ‘I will gladly come across,’ he said. ‘We have much to discuss. This Crilshan, however, is in my custody and will therefore remain on my vessel.’ He paused for effect. ‘I will be with you shortly.’

  The Empress turned away and switched off the link.

  Without looking at Gordian, Ferranti strode from the control centre. ‘I suggest you return to my quarters,’ he said as he left. ‘You are still needed.’

  SEVENTY-THREE

  AT 11.30 THAT evening, Titan/Earth time – for many it was much later – Anna pressed her forehead against the cold metal wall inside the Stellarstream’s ultimatt hub-room. There remained one more torment to endure.

  She thought about her first and only trip to the ultimatt hub, when her bracelet had forced the beautiful blue and purple light into darkness. She knew just what would happen were she to step down on top of the hub floor. Her arm quivered.

  It was for that reason that Anna stood still at the top of the hub-room steps. She looked down at a room filled with people. Callista was at her side, but she did not say anything, and wept silently into withered palms. They hadn’t spoken at all about their confrontation. Anna was sorry, but Callista would not hear the words. Anna would not say them.

  Below them stretched the vast room, filled with glass plates; and the shimmering blue, pure and wondrous, swelled into a deluge of surging light, rolling royal purple from one end of the room to another. Many of those stood upon the glass shifted nervously.

  Diego Ferranti stood at the other end of the room, on top of an acting podium. He took a deep breath. ‘I have been asked to give word,’ he said. ‘We are all survivors. Survivors of the black-rock moon. But we cannot wait for rescue. Decision and action will be taken. The alien asteroid has been tracked. It passed by Jupiter not an hour ago. Destination Mars. But that is not why we are here.’

  He looked to a platform above him, upon which lay two bodies swathed in golden blankets. ‘Death, for most men, becomes them. It is a trigger for praise. A trigger to romanticize. Myths and legends begin with death. But so too do evil memories. Death guarantees that people are not remembered as they once appeared to be. People will look, years from now, if any of us still be here, at these deaths: of a wonderful, brave girl, and a powerful, good man, and what will they remember? Will death dress them in clothes that no lo
nger fit? It is a sign . . . a sign that a new stage has been reached. That all life begins again.’

  He gazed across at Anna, and she stared at him, unmoving. Both pictured the baby in its cot.

  ‘And that is what we must do. This era will soon end. But will it be replaced by a better one? That is up to us. Here lie the two greatest examples I could ask for. They were better. We need to be better for them.’

  A clear screen descended, masking their two swathed bodies as the platform lowered slowly through the top of the engine and, as was customary on Titanese vessels, into the ultimatt pool itself.

  Uncle Ruben and little Gílana. It was only their bodies. Not them. Not them.

  She refused to cry as she watched the bright blue flash of Peter Marx’s miracle creation. The ultimate form of matter, removing the final forms of the only people that ever mattered.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  CALLISTA HAD BEEN asleep only three hours when the call came through from Ferranti. He was on board the Achakachula, where he had a serious dilemma to contend with.

  Within twenty minutes she was aboard the Enusti flagship. Everybody was at their post and so nobody walked the Achakachula’s corridors. Ferranti met her on his way down to the private quarters of the Alignment leaders.

  ‘The lingering silence has finally broken?’ she said.

  ‘We won’t be able to stop word spreading,’ he said. ‘The black-rock moon has decimated the Martian Colony. We can’t leave here yet. We’re safe below Europa.’

  ‘That is how Master Marx made it.’

  Ferranti stopped and looked out the nearby casement at a dark wall of ice. ‘If they knew where they really were . . .’

  ‘They don’t,’ she said. ‘As long as any human lives, it must remain that way. There are secrets buried down here that must remain buried.’

  Ferranti nodded. ‘The Phantom Committee’s given its word. They’re commanding the fleet to prepare to leave Jupiter’s orbit and head away from Earth and Sol.’

  Callista scoffed. ‘For the sake of mankind’s survival.’

  ‘Earth is to be abandoned to its fate.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ she said. ‘We shall see about that!’

  The two walked on. They had discussed at length which route to take; and though they disagreed on how to go about it, both knew that to abandon Earth would be a death sentence for them all. Earth is where the greatest hope lay. The Phantom Committee was now leading the armada; it was they who would need to be persuaded to reconsider their current course.

  ‘How’s Anna?’ he asked.

  ‘I have no idea. She won’t speak to me,’ Callista said before stopping. ‘Now, you will enter the committee chamber, Diego. May your words and your strength be enough to dissuade them from this absurd notion of theirs.’

  ‘You aren’t coming?’

  ‘No. I must speak with Adelaide Abacco alone.’

  ‘You know where she is?’

  Callista nodded determinedly.

  Ferranti placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Would you go out there . . . if you could?’

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘Home.’

  She gazed away, picturing a life, long ago, down among glistening caves, surrounded by laughter and light. But she shook it off before she found herself too deep and looked him in the eye sternly. ‘I left Europa a lifetime ago. It is a home for no one now.’ She turned and walked away, through to the rear of the vessel. She knew what the Empress was. And she knew she would have to do something terrible in order to get the fleet to go to Earth.

  * * *

  Adelaide Abacco was alone. She stood gazing down from her balcony at her people gathered below, collecting food shares from the military teams. The Empress heard Callista approach and turned to face her.

  ‘I was wondering when you would show yourself,’ Adelaide said. ‘Your captain seems to care for your opinion.’

  ‘I am not going to hover over this, Adelaide,’ Callista said. ‘It was your vessel I sent Europa’s coordinates to. I’ve seen the recording of Ruben’s death. But I watched further. You accepted my coordinates instantaneously.’

  There was no hint of concern in her face. ‘Tell me how you acquired them, old woman.’

  ‘No, Adelaide—’

  ‘You will address me—’

  ‘I will address you how I choose to, child. You would like to know how I acquired Europa’s coordinates. But I would like to know why we didn’t head to them.’

  ‘What ever do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, Adelaide, that I sent coordinates for Europa. I sent no coordinates for the caverns we currently occupy. You chose them by yourself.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure what you are attempting to say.’

  ‘You know exactly what I’m saying.’

  ‘You’re ridiculous, verging on psychotic—’

  ‘You accepted the destination and used your own coordinates because you knew where they led to. You knew where they led to because you’ve been here before. You’ve been here before because you grew up here. I know this because so did I.’

  ‘I do not know how to reply to you, lady.’

  Callista remained fixed. ‘I’m going to ask you to show me your arm.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your left arm.’

  ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

  ‘Show me your arm.’

  ‘Who do you think you are?!’

  ‘My name is Lucasta.’

  Adelaide’s jaw dropped. Her lips turned blue. ‘Lucasta?’

  Callista reached down and pulled up the Empress’ sleeve. A black Moon and Triangle was imprinted upon her wrist. ‘You, Adelaide Abacco, are a child of Europa. You, Adelaide Abacco, are a member of the Order of the Allied Moon.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ she said, and turned away. ‘As a child I was forced to. But I gave up that charge when I found my husband. When I had . . . my sons.’

  ‘What happened to them, Adelaide?’

  She hung her head. ‘My husband . . . they killed him. My sons were c . . . captured. I . . .’ Callista took her hand and held it between both of hers. ‘My sons were taken,’ she said. ‘Tortured. They gave nothing up. They were so brave.’

  Callista sighed. ‘We—’

  ‘The youngest was thirteen! He was a child. They are MONSTERS!’

  ‘You are hurting. Everyone is hurting. Why shouldn’t we? You lost your sons, your husband, your home. And now you look for somebody to blame. So do I. But exiling Yux Dishan at a time when we need everyone to stand together is the worst thing you could do. For everyone, especially yourself. And you know that. He does not appear to me like the Yux Dishan we have all heard about, does he?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘No, he doesn’t.’

  ‘He and his people will not survive long out there on their own. Taking his life will not ease your pain. It will only make it worse.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Adelaide said. ‘I cannot go back on my judgement. The Committee has made its decision. We are on a knife edge. I cannot look weak now.’

  ‘To be compassionate and merciful is not to be weak! That is humanity’s most paradoxical mistake. We are at a tipping point, yes. But you can be the one to change the way everybody thinks. Forever.’

  Adelaide hung her head. ‘I cannot.’

  Callista knew what she must do. This woman was damaged. If she led this fleet, then they were all damned.

  ‘I recall your echo was Spiritual, Adelaide. You saw your father after he died?’

  She nodded, eyes staring out the window.

  Callista leaned in and whispered, ‘You see your husband now?’

  ‘Y . . . Yes.’

  ‘And your sons?’

  Adelaide wept.

  ‘After all this time,’ Callista said, ‘I think you deserve peace. To be with them. But you will not receive it here. Is it not better to find that peace than to face what is now so inevitable, to face what we have done . . . to face what we may yet do?’


  SEVENTY-FIVE

  ADELAIDE ABACCO LISTENED absorbedly to the trial of High Lord Yux Dishan. She knew what the result would be. She alone had made his fate certain. And with it, her own.

  Stood alone watching through the casement above the backward engine, her hands pressed into one another, stone cold and shaking. She was old. Too old to do this. Behind her, the slow humming of the ultimatt hub echoed back and forth, soft and comforting. A mighty pounding in her heart at the thought which at that very moment struck her being.

  Yux Dishan hung his head and listened. His judges were beside themselves. Several had left the great hall of the Achakachula for fear that they may act on behalf of the people they had lost. At the centre, Isil of Samos peered down upon him, pitiless eyes glowering.

  ‘Do you not see what you have done?’ spoke the prince.

  Yux’s shoulders slumped. He made no reply.

  ‘I’ll tell you what you’ve done! You have made fighting those things impossible. Completely and utterly impossible! You and your breed have spread like a sickness, weakening every last pivot and structure throughout all Four Systems. And now there is no hope.’

  ‘I disagree,’ he said.

  ‘You do not think you are accountable?’

  ‘You misunderstand. I disagree. There is hope.’

  ‘But not for you, High Lord.’

  Isil read out his crimes, one by one. Those seated around him spat and cursed whenever a particularly atrocious wrong was mentioned. The words were true, if not for him then at the very least for his family, for his people, their ancestors, and collaborators. He was willing to take responsibility for their crimes. He was Yux Dishan. All that was done had been done in that name.

  When Isil finished he sat back. ‘Well?’

  Yux spoke quietly, anxiously. ‘The crimes associated with my people are not the fault of my people,’ he insisted. ‘Punish me, not them.’

  ‘Your plea?’

  ‘I am . . . guilty.’

  ‘Your defence?’

  ‘I have none.’

  The Committee and their peers looked to one another, almost surprised at his response. They leaned in and spoke quietly for some moments. Then the prince stood.