"The Base is destroyed, blown apart. Every man and woman dead. The alien ship is gone. Shub took it. The only living thing to survive the Shub attack was the man at my side, once an Investigator, living on Unseeli as an outlaw. His name is Carrion. I brought him here to tell the story, with my personal guarantee of his safety. I trust this is acceptable?"
"Yes, yes," said Gutman impatiently. "We trust your judgment in this as always. Tell us about the Shub attack. Why didn't the Fleet detect it?"
"No one sees Shub if they don't want to be seen," said the man called Carrion, in a voice like a dead man talking. Tall and whipcord lean, he wore dark leathers under a billowing black cape. He had a young face, deathly pale under long black hair, and cold, dark eyes. "They came out of nowhere, thousands of ships like nightmares cast in metal, filling the skies. They slapped aside the Base's force screen as though it wasn't there and smashed it flat. I heard the screams of men and women as they died. Shub took the alien ship, along with whatever scientists happened to be on board at the time. The attack was over almost as soon as it began. Then they began the harvesting." He paused. "Once there had lived among the metallic trees a wonderous alien race called the Ashrai. The Empire exterminated them so as to have uninterrupted access to the metal trees. But their souls survived, tied to the trees. I heard them screaming as the trees were ripped from the earth.
"I survived, underground, protected and hidden by my psionic abilities. I am the only living survivor of Unseeli. The Ashrai are dead, the humans are dead, and the trees are gone. My name is Carrion. I bring bad luck. I am the destroyer of nations and of worlds."
He stopped talking abruptly, and the silence stretched on for long moments as everyone looked at each other, caught up in the spell of the dark man's words and the terrible news he brought. Finally Gutman cleared his throat uncertainly and looked down at Carrion and Silence.
"We… thank you for this intelligence. If Shub has taken all the trees, we can only assume that they must be planning a major assault on Humanity. The heavy metals from the harvesting would fuel one hell of an armada, while at the same time denying them to us. And if they've got the alien ship, it won't be long before they have the secrets of the new stardrive, just as we do. Our work on perfecting and better understanding the new drive has become more urgent than ever. Thank you for bringing us this news, Captain Silence. As always you serve us well. You may go now, but we'll need full reports from both of you."
"Understood," said Silence. "We'll make ourselves available. One last thought for you to chew over. An esper once told me he had a clairvoyant vision of what Shub had planned for Humanity. He wouldn't tell me what he saw, but he killed himself rather than risk living to see it come true."
Parliament muttered uneasily. Gutman leaned back in his chair, his voice carefully calm and reasonable. "Precognition is the least understood and the least reliable of the esper abilities, Captain. Whatever vision your esper may have had, I don't think we should put too much faith in it. It's clear, though, that someone must investigate what Shub is up to."
"I'll volunteer," said Jack Random loudly. "If an attack's imminent, we need to know. And I'm one of the few people who could hope to get close to Shub's dealings and still come back alive to make a report."
"Ah, hell," said Ruby Journey. "Guess I'll go along as well, for the ride."
"Your offer is gratefully accepted," said Gutman. "All that remains is to thank Captain Silence and his companion for the timely news they have brought. Go with Parliament's best wishes. No doubt you are eager to return to your ship. Carrion, you will of course have to turn the power lance over to the proper authorities before you can leave."
"No," said Carrion. "I don't think so."
Gutman frowned. "Power lances are banned, and with good reason—forbidden throughout the Empire. Silence's word gives you protection, outlaw, so we do not demand your death. But you cannot be permitted to keep the lance."
He gestured with one fat hand, and a dozen armed guards stepped forward, their guns trained on the man called Carrion. He looked at Silence, who shrugged. Carrion smiled coldly at Gutman.
"Try to take it."
The light seemed to darken suddenly throughout the House, and there were shadows everywhere. Things moved in the gloom and hung threateningly out of sight overhead, huge and cold and unseen. There were glimpses of jagged teeth and great curved claws. A heavy wind was blowing from nowhere, gusting and violent. Something howled, a long, savage sound with nothing human in it. More voices rose on every side. There were unseen watching presences beyond number, and everyone could feel a malevolent rage hovering over them like a storm cloud. Guards clutched their guns tightly, but didn't know where to point them. Owen, Hazel, Jack, and Ruby stood back to back, ready for whatever came. People clutched each other, trying to look in all directions at once. They were only moments from panicking, and a stampede for the doors that would leave a lot of people dead, trampled underfoot.
And then suddenly the presences were gone, the wind stopped blowing, and all was quiet and still again. On his chair, on his raised dais, Gutman licked his lips nervously and cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him, but he was looking only at Carrion.
"What… what was that?"
"The Ashrai," said Carrion. "They died long ago, when Captain Silence gave the order to scorch Unseeli, but their ghosts lived on. Once they haunted the metallic forests, but now the trees are gone, so they haunt me. They protect me."
"Oh, hell," said Gutman. "Keep the bloody lance. Now, get the hell out of here and take your unnatural friends with you."
Carrion nodded calmly, turned, and headed for the doors, Silence at his side. People hurried to get out of their way. All except one. Diana Vertue stood in their path, and Carrion and Silence stopped before her. Diana nodded brusquely to Carrion, and then fixed her wounded eyes on Silence.
"Hello, Father," said Diana.
"Hello, Diana," said Silence. "I heard you'd taken your old name back. I'm glad. I never really liked Jenny Psycho."
"She was a real part of me. She still is, deep down. I've just… moved on. When the Mater Mundi worked her will through me, I thought I was her avatar, her focus, her saint on earth. But she abandoned me, took away the grace and the glory, and left me to live the rest of my days as a lesser being, no longer touched by Heaven. Left me alone, just like you did, on Unseeli."
"It wasn't like that," said Silence.
"Yes, it was," said Diana. "It was just like that." She looked at Carrion. "I heard the Ashrai sing on Unseeli. Joined my voice with theirs. They gave me a glimpse of Heaven and then went away. Better to be blind forever than to see the colors of the rainbow for only a few moments, before being thrown back into the dark again. I've been betrayed so many times; all I trust now is me. Whoever that is. I'm glad your planet is dead, Carrion. I'm glad the forests are gone. I just wish you and the Ashrai had disappeared with them. Stay away from me. You too, Father. Because I'll kill you if you hurt me again."
Silence tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come, and in the end he just bowed to her and left, Carrion at his side. Diana watched them go, and for a moment something of her old malevolent persona crackled about her like a halo of flies.
After that everything else was pretty much an anticlimax, and Parliament soon broke up. Owen and Hazel, Jack and Ruby left through a side entrance to avoid the media and the crowds. They didn't feel like talking to strangers. There was a tavern nearby, not much more than a hole in the wall, but the booze was drinkable and privacy came guaranteed. The four of them sat around a stained and scarred tabletop, nursed their drinks, and wondered what to say to each other. They'd come a long way from the simple band of heroes Owen had put together back on Mistworld.
"Been a long time since we last sat down together," said Jack Random finally. "But then, we've all been busy, I suppose."
"Not really that surprising," said Hazel. "I mean, all we ever really had in common was the rebellion."
"
There's still friendship," said Owen. "There's always friendship."
"Of course," said Jack, perhaps just a little too heartily. "You can't go through everything we did without becoming… close. But I know what Hazel means. The rebellion gave us a shared purpose, something to base our lives around. With that gone, we've had to reinvent ourselves, and we're not the people we used to be anymore."
"Right," said Ruby. "How the hell did we get here from there? I don't know what I expected to happen if we ever actually won, but this sure as hell isn't it. I miss… the sense of direction I used to have."
"The certainties," said Jack. "I used to know who I was. I was the professional rebel. I fought the System, any System. And now I'm part of it."
"We used to be outlaws," said Hazel. "With a price on our heads and everyone queuing up to take a shot at us. I sure as hell don't miss that."
"But we can't go back to who we were," said Owen. "To the people we were before all this started. We had to become other people, just to survive."
"Wouldn't go back if I could," said Hazel. "Hated it."
"Right," said Jack. "Roots are overrated. We're like sharks; we have to keep moving or die. And sometimes that means moving on."
"But we have to stay in touch," said Owen. "Who else can we talk to? Who else could hope to understand the things we've been through? The Maze changed us on many levels, and I'm not convinced the changes are over yet."
"Don't start that again," said Ruby impatiently. "It's over, Owen, let it go. I won't live in the past. Sit in shitholes like this every evening, talking old battles and victories, and arguing over who did what like old pensioned-off soldiers, with nothing left to do but relive the days when their lives had purpose and meaning. My life isn't over yet. I'm damned if it is."
"Right," said Jack. "That's why I volunteered us for the Shub mission."
"Yes, well," said Ruby, "I'm not sure that's entirely what I had in mind."
"Oh, come on," said Jack. "Where's your spirit of adventure? You said you wanted some action. So, tomorrow we make our start."
"So soon?" said Owen. "Hazel and I only just got back. We've hardly had any time together."
"Maybe it's for the best," said Jack kindly. "We're becoming new people, moving apart, whether we want to or not. Strangers become friends, become strangers again. That's life."
They talked a while longer, but they'd already run out of things to say. Jack and Ruby left. Owen stared into his glass. Hazel watched him do it.
"There's something I have to tell you," Owen said finally. "I'm getting married."
Hazel's pulse jumped, but she kept her voice and face calm. "Oh, yes? Anyone I know?"
"Constance Wolfe. It's an arranged marriage."
"I thought that kind of thing disappeared with the aristocracy."
"They're not really gone," said Owen. "And some of the old ways are still… valid."
"It all seems… very sudden," said Hazel.
"It took me by surprise," Owen admitted. "It was all Constance's idea. She had good reasons. I couldn't say no."
"You always were easily talked into things. Do you… love her?"
"No! I hardly know her. But then, that's often the way with arranged marriages. I would have had to marry someone eventually. Someone of my class. It's the bloodlines, you see…"
"No," said Hazel. "I don't see. But congratulations, anyway. I suppose she'll be Empress to your Emperor."
"I didn't want that either. But it seems… politically necessary. I can't say no. Not when so many of the alternatives would be so much worse."
"We could run away," said Hazel, looking into Owen's eyes for the first time. "Leave this whole mess behind us. It would be just like the old times again—you and me, running from the Empire, nothing and no one to care about but ourselves."
"It's tempting," said Owen. "But I can't. It's duty, you see. I've always understood duty. In the end, there are things more important than our happiness. And you never did say you loved me."
"No," said Hazel. "I never did."
They both waited a long time, but neither of them had anything more to say. So they sat together in the tavern, drinking their drinks, and trying to see their way through the darkening future ahead of them.
CHAPTER THREE
Shub
Daniel Wolfe passed through the dead, empty space of the Forbidden Sector in a stolen ship, heading for the cold metal hell that was Shub. He was alone and he was scared, but he wouldn't even let himself think of turning back. He had to go to Shub. That was where his father, Jacob, was, and his father needed him. Even if the old man was dead.
Perhaps especially then. Jacob Wolfe had died during the last great battle between the Wolfes and the Campbells, a bloody affair that had ended in the destruction of Clan Campbell. It had been a great victory, a triumphant end to a centuries-old feud, but Jacob hadn't lived to see it—cut down by an unseen hand in the midst of battle.
A good death for an old warrior, many said, as though that was a comfort. Daniel had mourned his late father, for many reasons, but more or less got over it. Until Jacob's missing body turned up in Lionstone's Court one day, standing on its own two feet, bearing a message for the Empress from the rogue AIs of Shub. Somehow they had obtained the missing corpse and rebuilt it into a Ghost Warrior, a metal presence within a human frame, run by computer implants. Shub spoke through its mouth, but Daniel had seen traces of his late father's personality in the Ghost Warrior, even though everyone else said that was impossible, and he had finally abandoned his Family and his beloved sister Stephanie to find the truth.
That meant crossing the dreaded Forbidden Sector to the unknown world of the rogue AIs, to Shub. Even though those who went there never came back alive.
There wasn't much in the Forbidden Sector. A few planets too far from the norm to be worth terraforming, a handful of dying suns, and a hell of a lot of space. Cold, empty, silent space. There was no comm traffic this far out on the Rim, no voices to fill the endless dark as Daniel's stolen ship pressed on. He felt very alone, so far from everyone and everything he knew, and he hated it. He'd never had to be alone before. For as long as he could remember, Stephanie had always been there, fiercely protective, doing all the thinking for both of them. Above and beyond that, their father had made all the important decisions, surrounding his youngest son with the security of perfectly planned days. And when Stephanie or Jacob weren't around, there was always the servants to keep him company, wait on his every whim, and remind him of what he was supposed to do next. There had been a wife too, but that had been an arranged marriage, and he spent as little time with her as possible. She was dead now, and he didn't miss her at all.
And now here he was, alone in the middle of nothing, the only living thing on a converted cargo ship, his only company a ship's AI called Moses. It tried hard, but it was programmed really only to deal with cargo manifests and the occasional dock crew. And since Daniel had stolen the ship from the Church, its few topics of conversation tended to revolve around official Church dogma, none of which interested Daniel in the least. So mostly he spent his days roaming the steel corridors and echoing cargo bays, keeping moving just to be doing something.
Sometimes he just stayed in his cabin, and sat in the corner, hugging his knees to his chest, and rocking silently to and fro.
He'd acquired his ship, the Heaven's Tears, on Technos III. Things had just gone terribly wrong for his Clan. The rebels had overrun his Family's stardrive factory and blown it to pieces, scattering and overwhelming a small army of Church troops in the process. So, Daniel reasoned, with the factory gone, he no longer had any Family responsibilities left on Technos III, and was therefore finally free to go looking for his dead father.
He made sure Stephanie was safe and then walked out on her, making his way fairly easily through the general chaos to the nearby landing pads, where the Church ships were docked. He chose one of the smaller vessels, pretty much at random, strode on board, and demanded that the skeleton
crew hand over control of the ship to him. He was an aristocrat, after all, and they were just low-level Church technos. He was genuinely surprised when they told him to go take a hike, and shot the nearest techno in honest outrage. Having thus committed himself, Daniel cut down the other two with his sword while they were still reaching for their weapons.
He threw the bodies off the ship, sealed all the hatches, and took off without bothering to ask for clearance. And given the widespread chaos on all sides, no one bothered to challenge him. At the time, killing the three technos hadn't bothered Daniel at all. He'd needed the ship, and the technos had just been in his way. But as days turned to weeks alone on board the Heaven's Tears, he seemed to feel their presence more and more. He cleaned up all the bloodstains himself, as a kind of penance, but he still saw their faces in his dreams. At night, lying alone in his bed, he thought he heard noises in the corridor outside his cabin. He kept the door locked and slept with his light on. It was always night in space.
There wasn't much for him to do. The AI let Daniel do a few simple things, just so he'd have something to occupy his time. Because it was a Church ship, the recreational tapes were all strictly religious in nature. Daniel's main pastime was arguing with Moses over anything and everything, which rather upset the AI, who had been programmed to be friendly and agreeable. Daniel had Moses search its memory banks for everything it had on Shub, the rogue AIs, and the Forbidden Sector, but there wasn't much. Most of it was classified, under strictly need-to-know access codes, and even Daniel's aristocratic status couldn't break those.
So Daniel sat slumped in the command chair on his bridge and brooded over what little information he had. He was a big man, in his early twenties, with a great hulking frame he'd inherited from his father and a face that mostly tended toward a scowl or a sulk. He wore his long hair in a simple pigtail, and had only the set of clothes he'd run away in. The ship kept them fresh, but they were beginning to show the strain. In his constant search for something to pass the time, he'd reluctantly taken to working out regularly with improvised weights. He hated it with a passion, but he no longer had a convenient body shop to turn to when his muscles started sagging, and he had some vague idea he might have to fight his way in and out of Shub. As a result, he was in the best shape of his life, and felt pretty good about it. Doing something he hated made him feel virtuous. And he thought it was something his father would approve of.