“So,” said Frost. “How have you been? Not wasting time mourning me, I hope?”
“I’ve been ... getting on with my life,” said Silence. “Keeping busy. A lot’s happened since you died.”
“More wars, I suppose. There’s always a war going on somewhere. Did Lionstone live long enough to stand trial? I would have liked to see that.”
“She escaped, in spirit at least. Joined her mind with the AIs of Shub, leaving her body behind. Kid Death destroyed it, just in case.”
“Ah yes,” said Frost. “The SummerIsle. I remember him. He killed me. Did you kill him?”
“No,” said Silence, after a moment. “It seemed to me there’d been enough killing. And besides ... you would never have surrendered to the rebellion. That’s why you let him kill you. It’s no surprise to me that my mind chose this place for us to talk. I nearly died here, when Stelmach shot me. But I used my abilities to heal a wound that would have killed anyone else. You had the same abilities. You could have healed yourself, if you’d wanted to. But you wanted to die.”
“Yes,” said Frost. “I did. I’m glad you finally admitted that to yourself. Don’t feel guilty over my death, John. It was inevitable. There was no place for me in the new order that was coming.”
“Did you ever love me?” said Silence.
“I was an Investigator,” said Frost. “What do you think?”
By now, Micah Barron and his father Ricard were riding horses over the shifting scarlet sands of their homeworld, Tau Ceti III. The sky was a shade of green that most outworlders described as sickly, and the ever-present drifting clouds were jet black, shot within by sudden golden lightning storms. Just another day on Tau Ceti III. Micah and Ricard were following a long-established trail, and didn’t even need to guide their mounts. The horses knew the way. That gave father and son all the more time to talk together, but they were finding the going hard. Father-and-son talks have always been tricky, difficult things. Especially when son and father are pretty much the same age, and the father’s been dead for years.
“I joined the Fleet to follow you, Dad,” said Micah, looking straight ahead of him. “To go where you’d gone, to see the things you’d seen. I thought it would help me feel ... closer to you.”
“I know I was never home much,” said Ricard, looking straight ahead of him. “They promised us a lot of accumulated leave when we got back from Unseeli, but ... well. I gather a lot of us never came home from Unseeli.”
“The Ashrai are dead,” said Micah fiercely. “Captain Silence made them pay for what they did to you. To all of you. He scorched the planet. Wiped them all out.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better, son? I hated the Ashrai while I was fighting them. But time, and being dead, gives you perspective. It was their planet. Of course they fought. I would have, to defend Tau Ceti III from invaders. Tell me you didn’t join up just to kill aliens, son.”
“Not really. Mostly I just wanted to get off Tau Ceti III. I mean, I know it’s home, but it was ... Small. Limited.”
“Boring.”
“Right! I wanted to see the Empire. Other worlds, other people. I requested transfer to Captain Silence’s command, so I could follow in your footsteps. You’d always spoken well of him in your messages home. Turned out to be pretty easy getting a place on his ship; he’s not been the most popular Captain in the Fleet for some time.”
Ricard snorted. “Trust me, Micah; he never was. Silence was good to his crew, but no good at politics. Anyone else with his abilities and record would have been an Admiral by now. But he never was any good at kissing the right asses. Most of us respected him for that. You always knew where you were with Silence. How’s your mother, these days?”
Micah shrugged uncomfortably. “All right, I suppose. I haven’t heard from her in a while. Probably owe her a letter.”
“Write to your mother!” said Ricard sternly. “Better still, save up and send her a personal holo.”
“You’re a fine one to talk!”
“Learn from my mistakes, son. That’s what fathers are for.”
They rode on awhile in silence, moving easily to the rhythm of the horses beneath them.
“I never meant to die on Unseeli, you know,” said Ricard quietly. “I always meant to come home to your mother, and to you. Don’t think I went off and deserted you.”
“I never thought that!”
“Really? Not ever?”
“Maybe sometimes. When I was young, I wondered if I’d done something wrong, and that was why you never came home. But I got over it.”
“Did you? Then why are you serving in the Fleet, trying to recreate my life? I never expected you to sign up. I expected you to strike out on your own and make your own life. Not just copy me.”
“I ...” Tears burned in Micah’s eyes, and his voice was unsteady. “I just wanted you to be proud of me, Dad.”
“Of course I’m proud of you,” said Ricard. “You’re my son.”
They rode on across the shifting scarlet sands, and for a while they didn’t need to say anything at all.
Carrion stood in the middle of the metallic forest on Unseeli. Before Shub came and harvested the trees, before the Empire came and exterminated the Ashrai. The huge metal trees soared up high into the sky, branches radiating out from the smooth, featureless trunks in needle-sharp spikes dozens of feet long. Gold and silver and brass, violet and azure, standing firm and unyielding against the planet’s never-ending storms. And all through the metal trees, the Ashrai; alive and glorious, filling the forest with their song. They soared in the skies like ancient dragons, vast and powerful, and down below Carrion smiled and smiled, eyes wet with unshed tears, back home and at peace again.
Captain Silence looked around him, at the green and peaceful forest bathed in the autumn sunlight. “This isn’t real. None of this is real. Virimonde is light-years from here. But it looks just the way I remember.”
“Of course it does,” said Frost. “Marlowe took the images from your mind, and had his nanos recreate them for you. Same way he produced me.”
Silence reached out with his mind, trying to reestablish the old mental link he and Frost had once shared, but it was like looking into a mirror, with only his own face looking back at him.
“Sorry,” said Frost. “But I’m not real either. Just a memory, given shape and form by nanotech and a madman’s power. I’m just real enough not to want to be used as a weapon against you. Come on, Captain; you really only needed to say good-bye properly, and we’ve done that. It’s time to let me go, and get back to dealing with Marlowe. He may think he’s the Son of God, but he’s actually quite limited in what he can do.”
“There was ... so much I wanted to say to you,” said Silence.
“Then you should have said it while I was still alive,” said Frost. “I probably knew it all anyway. Good-bye, John.”
She walked away into the forest, and Silence stood and watched her go, knowing he’d never see her again. When she’d passed completely out of sight, he took a deep breath and let it go, and then glared at the trees around him.
“I don’t believe in you,” he said firmly. “None of this is real. I deny you. Damn you, Marlowe, stop this. Damn your soul to hell, stop this right now.”
Something moved within him, as his own power stirred reluctantly from its rest, uncoiling and reaching out in strange directions. And one by one, the trees began to crumble and fall apart, into dust and less than dust.
Micah Barron reined in his horse, and dismounted. A low wind was blowing, sending the red sands dancing this way and that. His father dismounted too, and the two young men stood facing each other for a long moment. They looked more like brothers than father and son.
“I think we’ve gone as far as we’re going,” said Micah. “We’ve said all we needed to say.”
“Yes,” said Ricard. “Time to say good-bye. Any last thing I can do for you, son?”
“Yes,” said Micah. “Hug me, as a father hugs
his son, because I don’t remember that at all.”
Ricard looked at him expressionlessly. “You know what you’re asking, Micah? What you’ll have to do?”
“Oh yes. I’ll have to drop my force shield, and let you in. But that’s what I want, Father. What I’ve always wanted. So we’ll never be apart again.”
He keyed the right combination into the control pad at his waist, and the shimmering force field around him snapped out in a moment. Ricard stepped forward and took his son in his arms. They held each other, and the nanos went to work. The two forms merged, and Micah Barron finally became what he most wanted. His father.
Silence walked out of the disappearing forest of Virimonde, and suddenly found himself walking among the metallic trees of Unseeli. He didn’t need to ask whose dream he was walking through now. He paused a moment to look at the Ashrai flying overhead, and tried to feel guilty, but it was all so long ago. Still; it had been a long time since he’d seen them in flight. They were ... marvelous.
He found Carrion easily enough. Marlowe, or Jesus, or whatever the hell he was now, hadn’t bothered to recreate much of the metallic forest. Silence walked quickly through it, and there he was, sitting peacefully in full lotus, with his back against the smooth trunk of a golden tree, his eyes closed. Silence had never seen him look so happy. Even if he was still wearing his traitor’s black.
“Sean,” he said sternly. “Time to wake up. Time to go.
“Go away, John,” said Carrion, without opening his eyes. “You have no place here. You don’t belong here. I have come home, and everything’s all right again.”
“Nothing’s right! This isn’t real; it’s just a nanotech recreation.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Carrion’s voice remained calm, but he still refused to open his eyes, as though denying Silence’s presence. “I know this isn’t real, and I don’t care. I have found peace, and heart’s content, that I never thought to know again. I will stay here.”
“Then you’ll die.”
“Yes, John. That’s what I want, really. What I’ve always wanted. Don’t you know that?”
Silence knelt down beside him. “I need you, Sean.”
“You always need someone. You used that argument to drag me away from peace last time. Made me live again, when all I wanted was to die. Leave me alone.”
Silence put a hand on Carrion’s shoulder, as though grabbing at a man drifting away down a dark river. “Please, Sean. Don’t do this. You’re my friend. I lost Frost. I don’t want to lose you too.”
There was a moment that seemed to last forever, and then Carrion sighed and opened his eyes. “You always did know how to fight dirty, John. But don’t think even you can pull me out of this grave I’ve dug for myself. This is a place of the dead, and I belong here.”
“God, you’re a gloomy bastard,” said Silence. “Ask the Ashrai; ask the ghosts that insist on haunting you. See what they think of this show, this mockery.”
A corner of Carrion’s mouth twitched into a smile, in spite of himself. “Now that ... should be interesting.”
He opened his mouth and let out an alien sound, the harsh, eerie cry of the Ashrai. And in a moment, as though they had only been waiting to be summoned, the real Ashrai were there with him, huge and brutal presences that had only contempt for this recreation of everything they had lost. They tore through the fake metallic forest like a living storm, and reduced it to shreds. The metal trees burst apart, and the jagged gleaming shards and fragments were pulled up into a great maelstrom of howling gargoyle faces. The fake Ashrai disappeared in a moment, unable to withstand the furious presence of the real thing, like shadows dispersed by a blinding light. Silence and Carrion huddled together as the storm raged about them, but somehow never quite touched them. The song of the dead Ashrai was a powerful, awful thing, and the will of the man once called Marlowe could not stand against it. The dream of a vanished forest was blown apart, and carried away on an all too real wind, and soon there was nothing left but the whirling dust from which it had sprung.
Silence and Carrion found they were standing before Jesus again. He looked seriously angry.
“I make a Heaven for you, and you spit in my face! Must man always walk away from paradise?”
“Every dream has to end sometimes,” said Silence. “Even yours, Marlowe.”
“Don’t call me that! That man is dead!” Jesus had lost his halo, and his crown of thorns had caught fire. Flames danced on his brow and in his eyes. “You can have no comprehension of what I’ve become!”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” said Silence. “Both Carrion and I have known the touch of a greater force in our time. We just never lost our sense of proportion.” He moved over to the esper Morrell, standing a little to one side. “What was your dream like?”
“Never had one,” said the esper briskly. “The moment he came fumbling round my mind, I put up the toughest mental shield I could fashion. He didn’t even come close to cracking it. He may command the nanotech, but as a telepath, he’s strictly low level. I have to say, this guy is a real letdown. The nanos gave him control over an entire planet, and all he does is play childish games. He hasn’t even touched his real potential.”
“Hold everything,” said Carrion. “Where’s Barron?”
They looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. There were only the three of them, and Jesus, and the whirling dust storm. Jesus was smiling again. Silence glared at him.
“What have you done with Barron, Marlowe?”
“He gave in to his dream,” said Jesus. “In the end, he was just a lost child, who only wanted to be the man his father was. And now he is. He belongs to me, and soon you will too. Since you won’t accept my Heaven, I condemn you to Hell.”
Flames leapt up everywhere, replacing the dust storm. The landing party flinched back from the heat, even though it couldn’t touch them through their shields. The sky was dark, lit by lightning, and clawed and fanged demons soared overhead on huge batwings. From everywhere came the sounds of countless people screaming in horrible agony. Silence and Carrion and Morrell moved close together.
“Damn,” said Morrell. “He’s got past my shields!”
“Either he’s getting stronger,” said Carrion, “or he’s getting more determined.”
“This isn’t real,” said Silence. “Don’t believe in it.”
“It’s as real as the nanos can make it,” said Carrion. “This vision comes from Marlowe’s mind, not ours. Disbelieving in it won’t make it disappear. Not when he’s obviously enjoying himself so much.”
They looked at Marlowe, and where Jesus had been now stood the Devil, with scarlet skin, cloven feet, and a goat’s head with curling horns. It was more like a child’s picture than a detailed creation, but it made Marlowe’s state of mind clear enough. The thick lips leered. “I’m tired of being the Prince of Peace. I think this will be much more fun. I’ll just hold you here till your shields go down, and then you’ll be mine, to make and remake as the whim takes me. I’ll stir my sticky fingers in your flesh, and mold you into your worst nightmares. You’ll be my playthings, forever and ever and ever.”
“He could do it,” said Morrell, his face white and desperate. “I can’t break his hold on my mind. Oh God ... Captain; do something!”
Silence turned to Carrion. “Call the Ashrai. See if they’re still angry.”
“They’re already here,” said Carrion, smiling a very dark smile.
Huge forms came plunging down from above, gargoyle faces roaring their rage in a sound almost too loud to be borne. The Devil snarled, and threw demons at them with a wave of a clawed crimson hand. The huge forms slammed together, filling the dark sky. More and more demons formed out of nothing, created by Marlowe’s nanos. Silence and Carrion looked at each other. Almost against their will, their altered minds reached out to each other, and came together in a fusion that was far greater than the sum of its parts. Morrell cried out, and had to look away, hiding behind his stro
ngest shields for fear of being blinded by the light their fusion was generating. Silence and Carrion struck out at the Devil, and it was only the work of a moment for their more powerful will to snatch control of the nanos away from Marlowe. He really wasn’t much of a telepath, and he’d been alone so long with no one to challenge his will.
He screamed as Hell flickered out and was gone, like a blown-out candle. Silence and Carrion and Morrell stood on a bare rock plain, facing a man already crumbling and falling apart. Only the nanos had kept him alive, and now they were deserting his body like rats leaving a sinking ship. He became dust and less than dust, and blew away on a gusting wind. Above, the sky was clear of Ashrai and demons. Silence and Carrion separated their thoughts, and looked away from each other, embarrassed by the enforced intimacy of their sharing. They could have retained control of the nanos, but chose not to. They had come far enough from humanity as it was. They had enough damnation on their souls already without adding further temptation.
“Well,” said Morrell, just a little breathlessly. “That was ... interesting. Can we get the hell out of here now, please, Captain?”
“We might as well,” said Silence. “This mission is a bust. There’s nothing here we dare let loose. No one can be trusted with this kind of power. I’d recommend scorching the world from orbit, if I thought it would do any good, but the nanos might survive even that. So we leave the genie in the bottle, until Humanity’s evolved into something wise enough to use it correctly.”
“And we lost Barron,” said Carrion. “I brought him here. He trusted me. He should have remembered I was always a bird of ill omen.”
Silence looked around at the empty rocky plain. “I wonder what the nanos will make of this place, now they no longer have a human mind to guide or limit them. Might be worth coming back here in a few centuries, just to see what kind of world the nanos make.”
He put in a call to the pinnace waiting in orbit, and it came down and hovered above the rocky ground as the landing party took turns to jump awkwardly up into the open airlock. Silence was last off, as Captain. He took one last look back, and off in the distance he thought he saw Barron, standing alone, waving good-bye. Silence turned his back on Zero Zero, and let the pinnace take him back to the Dauntless, and his duty.