Authors: C. L. Anderson
Bitter Angels (50 page)
Waited for the end of the world.
I don’t know how long
it was before the saints sliced open the locks and pulled back the doors. I only know the doors opened. I raised my gun at a bald, scarred man in a blue tunic, and there was a sharp pain in my chest and everything faded away.
When I woke again
, I was in a comfortable bed with soft sheets over me. The room around me was done in pleasant shades of yellow and beige. The curving walls made me guess I was on a ship before I even turned my head and saw the scene through the window.
Out there was the black sky, and a ship the size of the building I’d used to live in, shining silver in the light of the distant sun. Two missiles flashed toward it, making orange-and-white arcs against the black sky.
Before they reached the ship, they burst apart in silent showers of sparks.
“How’s your head?” asked a familiar voice.
I jerked around. My vision sloshed a little at the abrupt movement. In that moment, I saw Liang getting up out of a chair and realized I was in no way restrained.
“I’ve never had a tranq shot from a Guardian, but I hear the stuff is pretty intense.” There was a basin of some sort near the bed. He turned a knob and water poured down. He caught some in a cup and held the cup out to me.
“Here. There’s plenty more if you want it.”
I pushed myself up and I drank. It was sweet and clean and tasted like light.
“Thank you.” I handed him back the cup. My hands had been cleaned of blood. I wore a soft blue shirt.
“No problem.” He set the cup on the edge of the basin and leaned against it, folding his arms. “You might be interested to know you’re aboard the Guardian ship
Himalaya
, and you’ve been out for about six hours.”
Light and motion caught my eye. Three more missiles streaked toward the ship outside. Three more bursts of fireworks made burning white blossoms against the black.
“Yeah, that’s been going on for about six hours too.” He actually sounded bored.
You’ve seen only a part of what we can do if we absolutely have to
, Terese had said.
“They’re just going to sit there and be shot at?” I croaked.
“Pretty much, yes. Real waste of missiles, but nobody seems to be able to give the order to stop.” Liang shook his head. “Of course the Guardians may be interfering with communication. They kind of like it when whoever’s shooting at them has to use up all their ammunition.”
“Liang. What happened to Terese?”
He glanced at the door. “I think they’re going to be in to talk with you about that.”
He was right. The archway around the cabin’s door blinked green and the door slid back. A shortish man with bright green eyes strode in, followed closely by the scarred, tattooed man who’d shot me full of tranqs. He wore the Guardian’s blue uniform tunic, and I was grateful, because the look in his blue eyes spoke strongly of the desire to work cold-blooded murder. Behind him came a tall, blond woman I recognized as Dr. Gwin.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. My vision sloshed again, but I found my feet and my balance and was able to stand, though barely. I’d thought my weakness was due to exhaustion, but now I could tell it was because the gravity in this place was far heavier than I was used to.
“I am Captain Amerand Jireu of Erasmus Security Operations,” I said. “And I surrender.”
The man with green eyes nodded seriously. “I am Marshal-Steward Misao Smith,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
And I did. In disjointed, rambling bits, I told them all
about the Grand Sentinel, about how I had been used, and how Terese had saved me. How we’d managed to get to Oblivion. How they’d taken her.
How I’d tried to save her and done nothing at all.
It took hours. The Marshal-Steward had dozens of quick, precise questions and Dr. Gwin had dozens more. When I flagged, they gave me water to drink. Food was delivered. Steamed fish, fresh vegetables, flat bread, and something I’d heard of but never tasted: tomato soup.
Liang just sat by the window. He watched my interrogation some of the time. Some of the time he watched the fireworks, which were growing less and less frequent.
Finally, even Dr. Gwin ran out of questions. The Marshal-Steward stood up and bowed. “Thank you for your assistance, Captain Jireu.”
“Can you tell me how Field Commander Drajeske is?” I asked.
“She’s stable,” said Dr. Gwin. “Your information might help us do better.”
And that was more
or less it. I was left in my well-appointed cabin for a week. I was fed and comfortable. And God-Alone knew how much water I was given. There was water for drinking and for cleaning, and even for pissing in, available at any moment of the day. Liang came to visit me on occasion, to give me the news and to make sure I was all right. Other saints came at other times, mostly in medical gear to supervise me in my exercises so I could stand up to the rigors of their too-strong gravity. They were chatty, but somehow never managed to tell me much. The leadership of the Blood Family had collapsed and there was anarchy on Fortress. At first the Solarans didn’t leave because, they
said, there was no one official to tell them to leave, since
Saeo
Mai and
Saeo
Esteban had abandoned their offices and no one could manage to organize a vote to replace them. Then they didn’t leave because, they said, there was a refugee crisis, which Liang said had increased to amazing proportions since the Guardians had put the word out that anybody who wanted to be taken off the moons would be.
Then they couldn’t leave, they said, because they had to make sure nobody on Fortress denied freedom of movement to people who were actively seeking asylum inside the Pax Solaris.
It was sometime into the eighth day when my door opened again and Vijay Kochinski entered. They’d removed his scars and tattoos, and his hair was a brushlike stubble sticking up from his tanned scalp.
“They’re going to try to bring Terese around,” he said. “You can watch if you want.”
“Thank you.” I got up out of my chair, and in a flash, his hand caught my arm, squeezing with an iron grip. He bent close to my ear so I could feel his hot breath on my skin.
“They’re keeping Siri Baijahn in a drugged coma until they can work out how best to save her mind. They don’t know if they
can
save her, or Terese,” he whispered. “If this doesn’t work, you had better get yourself elsewhere in a hurry, because I am not losing anyone else to your fuckless system, do you hear me?”
“It’s not my system,” I whispered back, but I knew that was a lie.
Without letting go, Vijay Kochinski walked me down the ship’s corridors. The padded walls were all shaded in pleasant colors and the screens set at regular intervals showed
scenes from other worlds: natural settings mostly, but here and there was a window onto some glittering city.
He took me into a small room. The back wall was a single silver screen. He touched it and it seemed to clear. A few feet from me, Terese lay on a metal bed. She had tubes in her arms and in her nose. The satisfied smile was still on her face. People in medical whites swarmed around her, talking so fast in such deep technical language, I could barely recognize one word in three. To one side stood the Marshal-Steward in his blue uniform coat. Next to him stood a tall, lean man with greying hair and dark rings under his eyes.
“We’re ready,” said Dr. Gwin.
The Marshal-Steward and the lean man came forward. Misao Smith pulled out a flat box from the pack he had slung over his shoulder and handed it to Dr. Gwin. She and her assistants laid sprays and patches against Terese. They called out codes and levels. Misao Smith looked down at her, and I recognized the stillness that came over his face. He did not want anyone to see what he was thinking.
“David.” He spoke the name as a quiet order.
David. It was real to me, David. It was always real.
The lean man stepped up. “What do I do?”
“As soon as they’ve isolated the moment inside Jerimiah, you hold her.”
“What if it doesn’t work? What then?”
The Marshal-Steward just looked at him. The other man, David, gripped the bed rail until his knuckles turned white.
Dr. Gwin turned from her conference with a pair of the medical technicians. Her hands were covered with white gloves. Words and codes flickered across them as she touched Terese’s forehead and her throat.
“What are they doing?” I whispered. I reached out, but I touched nothing but the smooth screen.
“They think she’s trapped in a hallucination,” said Vijay. “They think she’s convinced herself she’s back in her cell with the Redeemers. But they believe they’ve found a way to convince her she’s being rescued.”
“Now,” Dr. Gwin said.
David licked his lips and slipped his arms around Terese, cradling her close. “Easy, Terese. Easy. I’ve got you.”
And Terese stirred. She twisted and she struggled, shrinking away.
“Easy, Terese. Easy,” said David. “I’ve got you.”
“Bianca?” whispered Terese.
“It’s me, Terese,” he said, although his voice cracked. “I’ve got you.”
But she twisted away from him again. “You’re dead. You killed him. I can’t die. I can’t open the door.”
“Terese, come on out. Jo is looking for you.”
Misao grabbed the lean man’s arm, digging his fingers in hard. “Stay with the script.”
David turned on him. “You did not bring me here to just play Bianca. Any one of you could have done that. You wanted it to be me because I’m the one who can bring her back. So you shut up and let me talk to my wife!”
It was real to me
. I laid my hand on the screen as if it were window glass.
David turned back to Terese again. He reached out a trembling hand and ran his fingers through her curling hair. “Terese? Did you hear me? Jo’s looking for you. You promised you’d talk to Jo, and if you don’t, she’s not going to forgive either one of us.”
“Jo?” whispered Terese. Dr. Gwin ran a cloth over her mouth. More water, I guessed.
“She’s out here,” David was saying. “And Allie and Dale.”
“Who are they?” I murmured, not even turning to glance at the man beside me.
“Her children,” Vijay said. “That’s her husband with her.”
Inside me something crumbled into ash.
“Bianca,” Terese said. “You don’t…”
“It’s not Bianca, Terese. It’s me.” His voice was strained. I could feel how close he was to breaking. “Won’t you come out?”
“Dylan?”
Tears glittered in her husband’s eyes. “No, Terese. Open your eyes. You’ll see.”
“Amerand?”
My heart stopped. But David just wrapped his hand around hers. He pressed a kiss against her forehead. She stirred, and she turned her face toward him.
“David.”
And Terese Drajeske opened her eyes.
C. L. ANDERSON has been known to tell people she lives in a stately Victorian home on a windswept island in Lake Superior with her three sisters and their pet wolf, Manfred. She has also been known to tell people she is a science-fiction writer living near Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband, son, and cat. What is known is that this is her first novel for Spectra, and more of her work can be found at
[http://www.bookviewcafe.com] www.bookviewcafe.com
.
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.