Selene picked out narrow side-passages that took them in roughly the direction they needed to go, hoping they would be free of City Guard ambush. Security platforms hummed overhead, heading for some new trouble spot, and more than once Selene and the woman had to huddle in a doorway until one of them passed over. Creeping along, wary, Selene listening for trouble ahead to the fullest extent of her perceptions, they edged away from the city centre.
It took them the best part of an hour to cross the bridge and reach the quieter hillside suburb where the woman lived. In the distance, fires burned in the centre of the city, their glow reflected broken in the rippling waters of the lake. The night air was wonderfully cool after the press and heat of the crowd. The woman lived in a low, oblong house, one of many scattered around on the slopes among clumps of towering trees. The heady scent of night blooms filled the air, as did woodsmoke from fires and cooking pits.
The woman's door unlocked automatically as they approached, and Selene let her down into a chair within the shadowy interior. City light filtered in through the shuttered windows. Colourful, twisting glass sculptures were set here and there upon the room's carved wooden furniture. Some flowery, herby scent filtered through the air.
Selene said, “I don't know your name.”
The glow from the city lit up the woman's face. The blood on her forehead had dried up. Unexpectedly, she looked amused. “And I don't know yours, not your real name, anyway. You basically just carried me for three kilometres. How did you do that?”
Selene took her mask off and let it drop to the ground. “It's possible you do know my real name.”
Unsurprisingly, Concordance hadn't broadcast any video of events on the ice of Maes Far to the wider galaxy, but there had been stories about her and Ondo: the dangerous renegades, the terrorists, threatening to overthrow the galaxy's order. Threatening everything. She'd been depicted as a monster, half-person, half-machine, but she'd be recognizable.
In the half-light of the room, the woman nodded her head as she studied Selene. “Right, so that starts to make sense. It explains the poor accent for one thing. Why are you here? Because of Kane? We heard he was on Maes Far.”
“I thought he was dead, but I wanted answers, yes. He killed my father right in front of my eyes. He waited under the polar ice-cap for me to come so he could do it. Waited a year and a half, just the two of them. That's pretty extreme behaviour. So, yeah, I wanted to know how he ended up as he did. I guess, how everything ended up as it did.”
The woman didn't reply for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “Given that I know who you are, I'll tell you my name in return. I'm Myrced Iles. I'm a teacher here, nowhere near as exciting as a galactic renegade with superhuman biomechanical enhancements. I'm grateful to you for getting me out of there.”
“I told you that you didn't have a chance against them.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What's going on upon this planet? If you know who I am, then you know what they did to my world. Why are they letting you openly oppose them?”
Myrced climbed painfully to her feet and limped to her small kitchen. She poured two long drinks, the juice of some purple fruit mixed with a dash of a clear alcoholic spirit. She added tinkling cubes of ice and handed one of the glasses to Selene.
She sipped her own drink, and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don't know how to answer that properly, because it's hard to understand what's going on elsewhere. We saw the Maes Far shroud being deployed, and we know what it did to your world, but we only get to hear what they want us to hear. It's hard to know what's normal. Were there anything like the Temples on Maes Far?”
“Nothing. We had a few minor religions here and there, but they were irrelevant to most people.”
“Perhaps that explains it. Our understanding is that on worlds like ours, they control the planet by making use of an existing power structure. Elsewhere, it might be a world government, or a Guild structure, but here it's a religion. The Revelation Temples have been important on all continents for a long, long time, thousands of years. They're central to many people's lives, a source of wisdom and comfort and meaning. By infiltrating the Temples, adapting their moral codes, we've been invaded without the need for a fight.”
Selene sipped at her drink, feeling its coolness trickling down inside her. “I don't get why they bother. They can simply threaten to destroy a population that doesn't succumb to their rule.”
“Godel has made veiled threats along those lines in the past, promises to cleanse the planet of its evils. Of course, that just makes us more determined to fight back. In the end, I suppose it isn't going to go well.”
Selene said, “I'm going to kill Godel. And Kane. And all of them.”
Myrced drained her drink and set it down on a table. A curious smile played across her lips. “I believe you. You don't need to do that now, though, do you?”
She stepped closer, her gaze frank. The fires from beyond the lake lit up her eyes. They'd walked side-by-side for hours, Selene supporting her weight, breathing each other's breath, but the intimacy of their situation in that quiet room was suddenly stark.
It took Selene a few beats to adjust to the shift in the conversation. “You're thinking about this now?”
“All we have is now,” the woman replied. “We've learned to relish the moment, find our pleasures where we can. You think we have carnivals because it's some ancient tradition? No, we've learned to laugh and dance precisely because Omn disapproves. You, on the other hand, look
