“Are you just going to watch like a wastrel or are you going to help us plant?” she asks without looking up.
“I’m not sure I’d be a good farmer,” I say.
She stands with the help of one of her companions, dusts the dirt from her pants, and takes her time setting her tools away before coming to say hello. She’s only eighteen years older than I am, but she wears the years hard. Still, she is stronger by leagues than when she lived below. Her joints are worn from years in the mines. But her cheeks are ruddy with life now. Our physicians have helped relieve most of the symptoms of the stroke and heart condition that ravaged her. I know she feels guilty for this life. This luxury, when my father and so many others wait for us in the Vale. Her work in the garden and on the grounds is a penance for surviving.
My mother gives me a hard hug. “My son.” She breathes me in before pulling back to look all the way up to my face. “You put the death in me when I heard of that damn Iron Rain. You put the death in all of us.”
“I’m sorry. They shouldn’t have told you before that I was unaccounted for.”
She nods and says nothing, and I realize how deep her worry went. How they must have huddled in the living room here or in the Citadel and listened to the holoNews just like everyone else. The Red man shuffles to join us, his bad leg dragging behind.
“ ’Lo, Dancer,” I say past my mother. My old mentor wears laborer’s garments instead of his senatorial robes. His hair is gray, his face fatherly and creased from hard years. But there’s still mischief in his rebel eyes. “Given up the Senate for gardening, have you?”
“I’m a man of the people,” he says with a shrug. “Good to have dirt under the nails again. The gardeners in that museum the Senate gave me won’t let me touch a damn weed. ’Lo, Sevro.”
“Politician,” Sevro says, joining me from behind. Heedless of the mood, he pretends like he’s going to scoop my mother up into the air, but she scowls at him and he turns the scoop into a gentle hug.
“Better,” she says. “You nearly broke my hip the last time.”
“Oh, don’t be such a Pixie,” he mutters.
“Say that again?”
He steps back. “Nothing, ma’am.”
“What word from Leanna?” I ask.
“They’re well. Was hoping to visit them soon. Maybe take Pax along to Icaria in the winter. This place gets too cold for these old bones.”
“All the way to Mars?” I ask.
“It’s his home,” she says sharply. “You want him to forget where he came from? Red’s as deep in his blood as Gold. Not that he’s ever reminded it, ’cept by me.”
Dancer looks away, as if to give us privacy.
“He’ll go to Mars,” I say. “We all will when it’s safe.”
We might control Mars, but that’s a far cry from it being a world of harmony. The Sirenian continent is still infested by a Gold army of iron-skinned veterans, just like the battleground of South Pacifica on Earth. The Ash Lord hasn’t risked putting a major fleet in orbit in years, but ground wars are decidedly more stubborn than their astral counterparts.
“And when will it be safe, according to you?” my mother asks.
“Soon.”
Neither Dancer nor my mother is impressed by that answer. “And how long are you staying here?” she asks.
“A month, at least. Rhonna and Kieran will be coming, like you asked.”
“About bloody time. Thought Mercury had stolen them.”
“Victra and the girls will come up for a spell too. Though I do have business in Hyperion at the end of the week.”
“With the Senate. Asking for more men.” Her tone’s as sour as her eyes.
I sigh and look at Dancer. “Infecting my mother with your politics now?”
He laughs. “Deanna most certainly has a mind of her own.”
“With both of you in my ears I’ll go deaf,” she says.
“Plug your ears,” Sevro replies. “It’s what I do when they jabber about politics.”
Dancer snorts. “If only your wife did the same.”
“Careful, boyo. She’s got ears everywhere. She could be listening now.”
“Why weren’t you at the Triumph?” I ask Dancer.
He grimaces. “Please. We both know I’ve got no stomach for pomp. Especially on this damn moon. Give me dirt and air and friends.” He looks fondly at the trees around. A shadow passes over his face at the thought of returning to Hyperion. “But I must be heading back to the mechanized Babylon. Deanna, thank you for letting me garden with you. It’s just what I needed.”
“You’re not staying for supper?” my mother asks.
“Unfortunately, there are other gardens that need tending. Speaking of which…Darrow, could I have a moment?”
—
Dancer and I leave my mother and Sevro bickering about the smell of his wolfcloak to walk along a dirt footpath leading into the trees toward the lake. A patrol skiff skims the water on the far shore. “How are you?” he asks me. “None of that patriotic hero shit. Remember, I know all your tells.”
“Tired,” I admit. “You’d think a month’s journey back would let me catch up on sleep. But there’s always something.”
“Can you sleep?” he asks.
“Sometimes.”
“Lucky bastard. I piss the bed,” he admits. “Probably twice a month. I don’t ever remember the bloodydamn dreams, but my body sure as hell does.” He was in the thick of the fighting to free Mars. The tunnel wars there were even nastier than the block fighting on Luna. Even the Obsidians don’t sing songs of their victories in the tunnels. The Rat War, they call it. Over the course of three years, Dancer personally liberated over a hundred mines with the Sons of Ares. If Fitchner is the father of the Rising, it’d be fair to call Dancer the favorite uncle, despite the dissolution of the Sons of Ares.
“You can take meds,” I say. “Most of the vets do.”
“Psych meds? I don’t need Yellow synthetics. I’m a Red of Faran. My wits are damn sure more important than a dry bed.” On that we agree. Even though he’s my wife’s main opposition in the Senate, and thereby mine, he’s still as dear to me as my own family. Only when Mars and her moons were declared free did Dancer give up the gun and take up the senatorial toga to found the Vox Populi, the “Voice of the People,” a socialist lowColor party to counter what he saw as undue Gold influence over the Republic. It’s a bloodydamn thorn in my boots every time he gives a speech on proportional representation. If he had his way, there’d be five hundred lowColor senators to every Gold senator. Good math. Bad reality.
“Still, must be good to feel grass under your boots instead of sand and metal,” he says softly. “Must be good to be home.”
“It is.” I hestitate and look out at the rocky shore below. “Gets harder every time. To come back. You’d think I look forward to it, but…I don’t know. I dread it in a way. Every time Pax grows a centimeter, it feels like an indictment against me for not being there to see it.” I pick a loose thread impatiently. “Not to mention the longer I spend here, the more time the Ash Lord has to prepare Venus, and the longer this all stretches out.”
His face hardens at the mention of the war. “And how long do you think this will…stretch out?”
“That depends, doesn’t it?” I ask. “You’re the only thing standing in my way of getting the men I need to end this.”
“That’s always your answer. Isn’t it? More men.” He sighs. “I’m the mouth of the Vox Populi, not the brain.”
“You know, Dancer, humility isn’t always a virtue.”
“You disobeyed the Senate,” he says flatly. “We did not give you permission to launch an Iron Rain. We preached caution and—”
“I won, didn’t I?”
“This isn’t the Sons of Ares any longer, much as you and I both wish it were. Virginia and her Optimates were content to let you run roughshod over the Senate, but the people are learning just how strong their voice is.” He steps close to me.
“Still, they revere you.”
“Not all of them.”
“Please. You’ve got cults that say prayers in your name. Who else has that?”
“Ragnar.” I hesitate. “And Lysander au Lune.”
“The line of Silenius died with Octavia. You were a fool to let that boy go, but if he was alive we’d know it. He got swallowed up by the war just like the rest of them. That leaves only you. The people love you, Darrow. You can’t abuse that love. Whatever you do, you set an example. So if you don’t follow the law, why should our Imperators, our Governors? Why should anyone else? How are we supposed to govern if you go off and do whatever you damn well please, like you’re a—” He catches himself.
“A Gold.”
“You know what I mean. The Senate was elected. You were not.”
“I do what’s necessary. You and I always have. But the rest of them, they do what gets them reelected. Why should I listen to them?” I smile at him. “Maybe you want an apology. Will that get me the men I need?”
“It may be too late for apologies.”
I raise an eyebrow. I wish I could say his coldness is alien to me, but that bond between us has never been the same since he learned how I bought my peace with Romulus. I gave Romulus the Sons of Ares. Those were Dancer’s men I left to die on the Rim. The guilt I felt for that defined our relationship for years, made me desperate for his approval. I thought if I could destroy the Ash Lord, I could amend the horror I consigned those men and women to. Nothing has been amended. Nothing will be. And it breaks my heart to know Dancer will never love me again the way I love him.
“Are we threatening each other now, Dancer? Thought you and I were beyond that. We started this together.”
“Aye. We did. I care for you as if you were my own blood. Have ever since you came to me covered in dirt, no taller than my nose. But even you have to follow the laws of the Republic you helped build. Because when the law is not obeyed, the ground is fertile for tyrants.”
I sigh. “You’ve been reading again.”
“Damn right. The Golds hoarded our history so they could pretend they owned it. It’s my duty as a free man to read so I’m not blind, being led around by my nose.”
“No one is leading you around by your nose.”
He snorts his disagreement. “When I was a soldier, I watched as your wife gave pardons to murderers, to slavers, and I bore it because I was told it was necessary to win the war. I watch now as our people live fifteen to a room with scraps for food, rags for healthcare, while the highColor aristocracy live in towers, and I bear it because I’m told it is necessary to win the war. I’ll be damned if I sit back and watch another tyrant replace the one we left behind because it is necessary to win the fucking war.”
“Spare me the speeches, man. My wife’s no tyrant. It was her idea to diminish the strength of the Sovereign in the New Compact. Her choice to give that strength to the Senate. She helped give our people a voice. You think that was convenient for her? You think that’s what a tyrant would do?”
He fixes me with hard eyes. “I wasn’t talking about her.”
I see.
“I remember when you told me I was a good man who’d have to do bad things,” I say. “Your stomach go soft? Or have you spent so much time with politicians that you’ve forgotten what the enemy looks like? Usually they’re about seven foot tall, wear a big Pyramid badge, oh, and they’ve got Red blood all over their hands.”
“And so do you,” he says. “One million was the total loss, wasn’t it? One million for Mercury. You might be willing to bear that. But the rest of us tire of the weight. I know the Obsidians do. I know I do.”
“So that leaves us at an impasse.”
“It does. You’re my friend,” he says, voice heavy with emotion. “You will always be my friend. I won’t put a dagger in your back. But I will stand up to you. I will do what is right.”
“And so will I.” I put out my hand. He takes it and lingers for a moment before walking down the path. He turns before it bends into the trees. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Darrow? If there is, now is the time. When it’s between just us friends.”
“I’ve no secrets from you,” I say, wishing it were true, wishing he believed me. Wishing he were still the leader of the Sons of Ares, so we could bear our secrets together like we once did. Sadly, not all adversaries are enemies.
He turns and limps back to the garden to say farewell to my mother. They embrace and he makes his way to the southern landing pads where his Warden escorts wait. He takes a white wool toga from one and puts it on over his shirt before he goes up the ramp.
“What did he want?” Sevro asks.
“What do all politicians want?”
“Prostitutes.”
“Control.”
“He knows about the emissaries?”
“He couldn’t.”
Sevro watches Dancer’s wool toga billow in the wind as he boards his shuttle. “I liked the bastard better in armor.”
“So did I.”
DINNER IS SERVED SHORTLY AFTER Daxo and Mustang arrive from Hyperion with my brother Kieran and niece, Rhonna. We eat at a long wooden table covered with candles and hearty provincial Martian dishes spiced with curry and cardamom. Sevro, swarmed by his daughters, makes faces at them as they eat. But when the air cracks with a sonic boom, he bolts upright, looks at the sky, and runs off into the house, urging his children to stay put. He returns a whole half an hour later arm in arm with his wife, hair a mess, two jacket buttons missing, touching a white napkin to a bloodied, split lip. My old friend Victra, immaculate in a high-collared green jacket threaded with gemstones, beams devilishly across the patio at me. She’s seven months pregnant with their fourth daughter. “Well, if it isn’t the Reaper in the leathery flesh. Apologies, my goodman. I’m dreadfully late.”
Her long legs cover the distance in three strides.
I greet her with a hug. She squeezes my butt hard enough to make me jump. She kisses Mustang on the head and slides into a chair, dominating the table. “Hello, gloomy one,” she says to Electra. She looks at young Pax and Baldur, who’ve been huddled conspiratorially at the far end of the table. Both boys blush furiously. “Will one of you handsome lads pour Aunty Victra some juice? She’s had a hellish day.” They scramble over one another to be the first to grab the pitcher. Baldur wins, and, pleased as a peacock, the quiet Obsidian lad solemnly pours Victra a towering glass. “Damnable mechanics union is on strike again. I’ve got docks full of freight that’s ready to move, but the little bastards got all spiced up by a Vox Populi mouthpiece and took the power couplings out of more than half the ships in my Luna food haulers and hid them.”
“What do they want?” Mustang asks.
“Aside from the moon to starve? Higher wages, better living conditions…the usual tripe. They say it’s too expensive to live on Luna with their wages. Well, there’s plenty of room on Earth!”
“How ungrateful of the unwashed peasants,” my mother says.
“I detect your sarcasm, Deanna, and I’m choosing to ignore it in honor of our recently returned heroes. There will be enough debate later in the week. Anyway, I’m practically a saint. Mother would have sent Grays in to crack their ungrateful skulls. Thank Jove the tinmen still bloody any Vox they see.”
“It’s their right to bargain collectively,” Mustang says, reaching down to wipe a bit of hummus off the face of Sevro’s youngest, Diana. “Written in ink in the New Compact.”
“Yes, of course it is. Unions are the heart of fair labor,” Victra mutters. “It’s the only thing Quicksilver and I agree upon.”
Mustang smiles. “Better. You’re a paragon of the Republic once again.”
“You only just missed Dancer,” Sevro says.
“I thought it reeked of self-righteousness.” Victra goes to sip her juice and jumps in surprise. Baldur still stands at her side, smiling a bit too earnestly. “Oh, you’re still here. Begone, creature.” She kisses her fingers and th
en presses them to Baldur’s cheek, pushing him away. He goes, drifting on air back to my envious son.
Afterwards, as the children go off into the vineyard to play, we retire to the back grotto. My family, those by blood and by choice, surround me. For the first time in over a year, I feel peace settling into me. My wife puts her feet in my lap and instructs me to rub them.
“I think Pax is in love with you, Victra,” Mustang laughs as Daxo pours her a glass of wine. His hands dwarf the bottle. A taller man than I am, he has difficulty sitting in his chair and keeps accidentally kicking my shins under the table. Kieran and his wife, Dio, hold hands on a bench by the fire. When I was younger, I remember thinking how much she looked like Eo. But now, as time passes, the shadow of my wife’s face fades and I see only the woman who is the center of my brother’s being. She lurches forward suddenly, away from a shower of embers as Niobe dumps another log on the flames. Thraxa sits off in the corner, furtively lighting a burner.
“Well, Pax could have worse an idol than his godmother,” Victra says, eyeing her husband, who is picking his teeth with a splinter of wood he’s pried from the outdoor table. She pushes him with her foot. “That’s grotesque. Stop.”
“Sorry.”
“Yet you’re not stopping.”
“Bit of gristle, my love.” He turns like he’s throwing the splinter away, but keeps picking. “Got it,” he says gloomily. Instead of throwing the salvaged gristle to the side, he chews on it and swallows. “Beef.”
“Beef?” Mustang looks back at the table. “We had chicken and lamb.”
Sevro frowns. “Odd. Kieran, when did we last have beef?”
“At the Howler dinner, three days ago.” Noses wrinkle around the table.