The Burning Skies

“This is some kind of hack,” he says.

“Yeah. I need you to upload it.”

“I need to know more about it—”

“Upload it and you will.”

“I’m getting really sick of these surprises, Leo.”

“This is the last of them.”

“Where the hell did you get this?”

“Where do you think? The Throne.”

“He could have handed me this to begin with.”

“He trusts me more than you.”

“Fuck’s sake—”

“Don’t take it personally Spencer. If we’d been busted in the opening rounds, you might have tried to bargain with the East. Might have tried to sell this for your hide.”

“And now?”

“You no longer have that option.”

“I’m not following.”

“Run the program and you will.”

I’m still dreaming, aren’t I?” she asks. “Not exactly.”

“But I’m still trapped inside my head.”

“More like a zone-construct I’m creating with your help.”

“My help?”

“However involuntary.”

“You’re in here with me,” she says.

“Yes.”

“We’re both still on this ship.”

“Yes.”

“And the Throne is on board too.”

“Of course,” says Carson.

“He wants me close at hand.”

“He needs you for what’s about to happen.”

“He’s going to start a war,” she says.

“He’s going to finish one. One that’s been going on for decades. One that’s torn our planet at the seams.”

“I thought he believed in peace!”

“There’ll be peace, sure. When the East lies in wreckage at our feet.”

“And detente?”

“Failed at the Europa Platform. As I said.”

“But you also said the Throne was still hoping to avert war.”

He shrugs. She snarls.

“Goddamn it, Carson, why the hell didn’t you tell me earlier? Why this charade?”

“Because I’d never have gotten so far inside you otherwise.”

She cradles her head in her hands. Says nothing.

“Your conscious resistance accounts for only so much,” he continues. “It’s your unconscious resistance that’s the bulk of the challenge. Had you known that we intended to harness you as the primary node in a first strike against the Coalition, you would never have let me get to the center of your mind.”

“But now you’re here.”

“And now the time for hiding’s over.”

“Someone should tell the Throne that.”

“We’ve crossed behind the far side of the Moon,” says Carson. “In mere minutes we —”

“Land outside Congreve,” she says. “Go to ground in the Throne’s bunker beneath the city suburbs.”

“You’re guessing.”

“It’s not that hard. Tell the Throne to come in here and face me.”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” says Carson. “You’re the one who’s going to face him. Once the last of your resistance has dropped away. Once you wonder why you ever wanted to call him anything besides sir.”

“You can’t make me do anything.”

“Can’t I?”

On the wall beside Carson appear two vid screens: two sets of grids. One depicts a cross-section of the Himalayas and the labyrinth beneath them, the other the L2 fleet. Each grid shows coordinates of something moving through it.

“The missions,” breathes Haskell.

“Now approaching their last phases. And ready for a little nudge from you.”

“Right now?”

“Can’t you feel it?”

And suddenly she can. Even though she can’t do anything about it. Dashboards light up within her mind and it’s like someone else is hitting her controls. She looks at Carson.

“So you really did give it to me backward,” she says.

“That’s always the best way.”

“You don’t want to do a surgical strike on the Eurasians to stop them from starting something. You want to do it so you can.”

“And we will.”

“And Szilard? He’s not really trying to unleash war?”

“Does it matter?”

“Sure it does.”

“It doesn’t. What matters is that when the shit hits the fan the president can’t have someone running the L2 fleet he can’t depend on. If Szilard didn’t personally organize the SpaceCom conspiracy to hit the Throne, then he gave it the green light. And if he didn’t even do that, then he should be executed for incompetence. For allowing treason to sprout under his nose. He’s dead regardless.”

“And so am I.”

“Not at all. You’ll be the Throne’s prime razor.”

“But I won’t remember anything before that.”

“You’ll remember everything you need to.”

“That’s all I’ve ever been allowed to do!”

“But don’t you want to know the reason why?”

“What?”

He says nothing. Just gestures. A door’s appeared between the two wall-screens. Haskell stares at it. It seems familiar. She wonders where she’s seen it before.

And then she remembers.

“No,” she says.

Grey, metallic. It’s just a door. But she can feel the presence of what lurks behind it. Something she hasn’t felt for so long. Something that reminds her how much mercy there is in being able to forget.

“Don’t do this,” she says.