He fired at the light that was suddenly in his eyes.
But then they were on him. Many of them. He hurt some of them. Possibly fatally. He didn’t get off a shot.
He heard no shots from Lustre.
They forced something into his face and at last he had to take a breath of darkness.
Hamilton woke with a start. And the knowledge that he was a fool and a traitor because he was a fool. He wanted to bask in that misery, that he’d failed everyone he cared about. He wanted to lose to it, to let it halt his hopeless trying in favour of certainty.
He must not.
He sought his clock, and found that it was a few hours, not years, later. He’d kept his eyes closed because of the lights. But the light coming at him from all around was diffuse, comfortable.
Whatever situation he found himself in, his options were going to be limited. If there was no escape, if they were indeed in the hands of the enemy, his job now was to kill Lustre and then himself.
He considered that for a moment and was calm about it.
He allowed himself to open his eyes.
He was in what looked like the best room at an inn. Sunlike light shone through what looked like a projection rather than a window. He was dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing on the street. A few serious bruises. He was lying on the bed. He was alone. Nobody had bothered to tuck him in.
The door opened. Hamilton sat up.
It was a waiter, pulling a service trolley into the room. He saw that Hamilton was awake and nodded to him.
Hamilton inclined his head in return.
The waiter took the cover off the trolley, revealing dinner: what looked like real steak and eggs. He placed cutlery appropriately, bowed, and left once more. There was no sound of the door being locked.
Hamilton went to the trolley and looked at the cutlery. He ran his finger on the sharp, serrated edge of the steak knife. There was a message.
He sat down on the bed and ate.
He couldn’t help the thoughts that swept through him. He felt them rather than discern them as memories or ideas. He was made from them, after all. They all were, those who kept the balance, those who made sure that the great powers shared the solar system carefully between them, and didn’t spin off wildly into a war which everyone knew would be the last. That end of the world would free them all from responsibility, and join them with the kingdom which existed around the universe and inside every miniscule Newton Length. The balance, having collapsed, would crest as a wave again, finally, and stay there, finally including all who had lived, brought entirely into God. That much rough physics Keble had drummed into him. He’d never found himself wanting the final collapse. It was not to be wished for by mortals, after all. It was the shape of the very existence around them, not something they could choose the moment of. He enjoyed his duty, even enjoyed suffering for it, in a way. That was
That thought he heard as words, as the part of himself that had motive and will. He smiled at this restoration of strength and finished his steak.
The moment he’d finished eating, someone came for him.
This one was dressed in the uniform that Lustre had mentioned. Hamilton contained his reaction to it. To his eyes, it looked halfway to something from a carnival. Bright colours that nevertheless had never seen a battlefield, with no history to be read therein. The man wearing it looked like he’d been trained in a real army, he walked, Hamilton behind him, like he’d known a parade ground. A former officer, even. One who’d bought himself out or deserted. He ignored Hamilton’s attempts to start a conversation. Not questions, because he was already preparing himself for the forthcoming interrogation, and pointless questions were a hole in the dam. Instead Hamilton asked only about the weather, and received just a wry look in return. A wry look from this bastard who’d sold his comrades for a bright coat.
Hamilton gave him a smile, and imagined what he’d do to him, given the chance.
He’d left the knife beside his plate.
The corridors were bright and smooth, made of space, cast with colours and textures for the comfort of those who lived here. Hamilton followed the man to the door of what looked like an office and waited as he knocked on it and was called to enter. The door slid open on its own, as if servants were in short supply.
The chamber they stepped into was enormous. It was a dome, with a projected ceiling, on which could be seen…
Above them was a world. For a moment, Hamilton thought it must be Jupiter, on its night side. But no. He reeled again, without letting his face show it. This was a world he hadn’t seen before. Which was impossible. But the notes in his eyes told him the projection was hallmarked as real space, not as an imagined piece of art. The sphere was dark and enormous. Its inky clouds glowed dully like the coals of hell.
“Hey,” said a voice from across the room, in a breezy North Columbian accent, “good evening, Major Hamilton. Delighted you could join us.”
Hamilton tore his gaze away from the thing above them.
Across the chamber were standing two men, one to each side of an enormous fireplace, above which was carved, and Hamilton was sure it had actually been carved, a coat of arms. Normally, the out-of-uniform man would have recoiled, but he was now in a world of shock, and this latest effrontery couldn’t add to it. The arms weren’t anything the International Brotherhood of Heralds would have approved of, but something…
The two men were smiling at him, and if he hadn’t been before, now Hamilton was ready to hate them. They were smiling as if the coat of arms and the unknown world they claimed was real were a joke. Like their pantomime guards were to Hamilton, though he wondered if these two saw
“Am I addressing the two… Mr. Ransoms?” He looked between them. And found a mystery had been repeated.
The men were both tall, nearly seven footers. They both had thinning hair, the furrowed brows of an academic, and had decided to wear glasses. More ostentation. They were dressed not like gentlemen, but in the sort of thing one of the husbands who came home to those little boxes in Kent might have worn for an evening at the golf club. They were similar in build, but…
One had at least a decade on the other.
And yet—
“These are Castor and Pollux Ransom, yes,” said Lustre, from where she stood on the other side of the room. She had a glass of brandy in her hands, which were shaking. “The twins.”
Hamilton looked between them. Everything about them was indeed exactly the same, apart from their ages. This must have the same cause as Lustre’s situation, but what?
The younger man, Pollux, if Hamilton recalled correctly, separated himself from the fireplace and came to regard him with that same mocking gaze. “I assume that was Enochian for the obvious answer. It’s true, Major. We were born, in a place that had the Iroquois name of ‘Toronto,’ but which people like
Hamilton raised an eyebrow. “What’s the difference, then? Clean living?”
“Far from it,” laughed the older twin. “In either case.”
“I guess you’d like some answers,” said Pollux. “I’ll do my best. You certainly left chaos in your wake. At 9:59 P.M., the Court of Saint James officially declared Denmark a ‘protectorate of His Majesty,’ and dispatched forces ‘in
