Conscience of the Beagle (20 page)

I get up. Follow. Lift the rock. Bring it down. Despite the metal, a fragile skull. Under my hands he squirms. Blind, deaf, he tries to escape, and ends up at the wall.

I bring the rock down. Knock him off balance. Wires spill, and pieces of plastic. Orange streamers and red confetti. His nails rake the ground.

Hit him. Hit him. Christ. For Lila. For everything. I hit him until I can’t lift the rock anymore.

Head below me dull orange. Flattened oval. When did he stop moving? How long has it been?

“Dyle.”

Beagle. On the ruby creep paint. On the bright orange of Reece’s struggle. A dark Archangel with a red coal in its hand.

“Jesus God, Dyle.” A whisper loud as judgment.

I raise my visor and the world hits me full in the face. By my side, an outrage. Looks like a man. Even looks vulnerable. Those arms twisted under him. The sprawled legs. I search for the blood on me. Should have blood, with his head smashed like that.

“It’s not my fault,” I tell Beagle. Metal and silicon and wires. Not really a death. And it didn’t feel good enough to be murder. I wanted blood on my hands. Wanted to hear him scream.

“He killed Lila.”

Beagle says, “I know.”

“Don’t look at me like that, damn it! It’s just a fucking machine.” Beagle looks hurt. But nothing can hurt him. Just silicon. Just wires. “Besides, he attacked me first.” And the lie is out before I can stop it.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m just fine.”

Not really. I get up. Body at my feet. His face. God. His face. Sharp shiny metal underneath. All that effort, and no pain.

A hand touches my shoulder. Just once, and very briefly. I turn, but no one’s there. Not now. Not ever again.

VANDERSLICE,
legs
crossed, sits in a floral overstuffed chair. On the desk lies Reece’s severed head. No one looks at it. I do. I force myself to look.

Artificial bogeyman, memories buried in metal, under synthetic flesh. Red bundles of fiber optics. Yellowish mock fat. The mouth is torn. Teeth missing. No blood, damn it. No blood. But still, the lips are open in surprise.

I stare until my eyes burn. Until my stomach does a slow, queasy roll. My hands are clenched so hard that they cramp. So hard that fingernails dig into flesh. I understand now how far HF was willing to go. The planning it took. We’ll never make it out alive. Colonial Security will find us eventually. Hunt us, one by one. They have all the time in the world.

I let my eyes drift to the chair behind, to the slumped figure of Marvin. A minister clears his throat. Marvin doesn’t look up.

“Excellency?” Vanderslice asks.

Marvin lifts his head. His face is marshmallowy from insomnia. But his eyes are sharp. “Gentlemen. The end time is nigh.”

A clink as a minister fumbles his coffee cup, but Beagle’s quiet. He’s looking at Reece’s crushed skull.

Beagle’s expression is thoughtful, as if he’s contemplating his own mortality, that metal under the skin. Just a machine, I told him. Not really murder. And he cut the head off, not me.

Marvin says, “Harold the first Chosen commanded us: if thy brother sin, smite him. It is written that at the end time the good brother will lift hand against his evil twin.”

Beagle cut off his head.

“The righteous blow will smite the demon into the dust.” Marvin’s tiny eyes. Agate eyes. They meet mine and I feel his strange intensity. “God has laid his hands on us to fulfill the prophecy, gentlemen. We must rise up and smite Earth.”

No. Insanity.

“Uh . . .” from a chair near the fireplace. A short man with a frog-like face has raised a hand.

“Yes, Kreger?”

Kreger licks his lips. “Begging your pardon, Your Excellency, but we only have two armed ships, and those are designed to be defensive.”

“A paltry army,” Marvin says. “That was what Harold the First told us of the end time. A paltry army, a glorious victory. With God at your side, there’s no need for fear. Go to your Transportation Ministry and pick out your followers.”

Christ. What’s Marvin doing? He’ll give Colonial Security an excuse to invade. Can’t he see we have to buy time? He’s crazy. Like Szabo with the softgun. Crazy like that.

Kreger says, “It pains me, Your Excellency, but the defensive ships aren’t designed for the event horizon. They’re a border patrol.”

“Perhaps we can arm some transports,” Marvin says.

Stupid. Lives in a dream world. Vanderslice was right. How did I think Tennyson could survive? This whole damned planet, a dream world.

Kreger slouches, makes himself a smaller target. “Even if we managed to get armed transports through the event horizon, Your Excellency, it would take my men a couple of hours to get reoriented after jump sleep. By the time we woke up, Earth would have surrounded us. They’d be waiting and they’d . . .”

Stars in their night fields. Houses and green lawns. That’s how these people grew up. Not shoulder to shoulder. Not fighting for room, never listening for footsteps. Grew up trusting the dark.

“Maybe we could send a strongly-worded communique instead.”

Quickly, everyone looks toward Marvin.

He links his hands on the desk. “If we cannot go to Earth, we will bring Earth to us. Kreger. Get what ships you have readied and set them outside our end of the singularity. Sanderson, have your Communications Ministry send a declaration of war. As the Earth ships fly through, we will smash them.”

Which one is Sanderson? The man with the weak blue eyes? He could be pushed. The dark-headed one? He looks cocky enough.

“A declaration of war?” Tall, thin man. Long legs, like a spider. “To Earth, Your Excellency?”

A crack. Marvin slaps his hand on the desk and stands. His face is incipient-embolism red. “Of course, Earth! Gentlemen, please. We must strike now, lest God consider us weak-willed!”

Sanderson regards the head of Reece Wallace. That’s right. Look at it good. Think what memories that brain case contained. Think about that.

“Go. Send our demand for unconditional surrender to Earth.”

A skittish laugh escapes. Then Sanderson clamps his fingers over his mouth. “You’re joking, right, Your Excellency? I mean, don’t you see that we’d never have a chance?”

“If you haven’t the stomach for it, just say so.”

Sanderson untangles his legs. Getting up. If he leaves the room
—
if he obeys that order
—

“Respectfully, sir. I can’t,” he says. The other ministers watch him leave.

“Kreger?”

At the brink now. At the edge. Only takes one of them to say yes.

But Kreger gets to his feet as well. “You’re forcing me to choose between the safety of the people I represent and the religion I’ve dedicated my life to.”

“What we are faced with is the choice between flesh and spirit, Kreger. I don’t ask you to choose. God does.”

Kreger’s eyes search the room, and meet mine. Does he see me sweating? Does he understand what that means? Nervous, he looks away. “Your Excellency? If we war against Earth, Earth will win. I just can’t do this.”

Kreger walks away fast and Marvin lifts his head to the ceiling. Toward mute Heaven. “Which of you has faith? Carney?”

Older man with white hair. He pulls himself wearily to his feet. “Thank you, sir. I’ll hand in my resignation in the morning.”

Carney, a strange attractor, pulls the rest of the crowd after him.

“John!”

At Marvin’s anguished shout, Vanderslice stops, his hand on the door, me at his side.

“Peter might have denied Christ, but John was faithful. I’ve always thought of you as my own beloved John. Did you know that?”

Vanderslice doesn’t turn. His face is bloodless. And I’m glad when he walks out the door. There’s too much destruction in that room. Marvin. Reece. Everything a ruin.

TOE, HEEL.
Dark
figures ahead on the crimson, like cooler spots in lava. Beagle beside me. No sound but the whispers of breathing.

Dull red road and darkness. And then
—
What’s that? Hot orange streaks in the red. Yellow scuff marks where something was dragged. One clear handprint. Reece’s. As he tried to crawl away.

“You all right?”

Beagle’s voice. A giant black silhouette against the road.

Ahead, someone stops and turns. Slender body. Duffel bag. Not Reece. Vanderslice.

“I’m fine.”

That handprint. Just a machine. The way he trembled. Like Tal trembled under me. Didn’t die easy this time. Toyed with him. Until his face changed. But it wasn’t good enough.

“Dyle?” Beagle.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.”

Toe, heel. Toe, heel.

“Sir?”

Vanderslice’s “Yes?”

“We’ve arrived at the door. Taking up positions along the alcove. No activity as yet.”

Ahead, a black knot of men, flaws in ruby. Not as far as I remembered it, then.

A guard’s voice. “All clear.”

Sparks in the gloom now. The Glos.

I take off my helmet to twilight. Slender man in a dark suit. Curly hair. Vanderslice. I crouch next to him as he sets up equipment. Beagle slumps against the opposite wall.

“Do or die time, Major.” Vanderslice unrolls the flex monitor, props it atop the transmitter.

Do and die.

Beagle fondles the bomb. His eyes have lost their focus. I know what he’s doing. Counting down to zero. I’ve done it before. Repeating last minute instructions, a liturgy, a Hail Mary. Get in. Set the bomb. Get out.

Vanderslice fits a lead into the monitor. “Gene?”

A blond guard looks around. “Sir?”

“Everything set at my house?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll get word to them if something goes wrong? They’ll take the EPAT out? Get her and the baby away?”

“Yes, sir. Don’t worry about that, sir.”

Vanderslice’s eyes on me. I’ve finally seen him scared. And I don’t like it. Then he snaps in the last lead. “Ready.”

Beagle puts on his helmet and starts to the door. I leap to my feet. Hoad!” I call him by name. By his name. And in my voice
—

He turns. Want to see his eyes again. But can’t, not through the helmet.

“Let me go with you.”

“You’d mess up my timing.”

Just for once, I need to see them beaten. “I want
—”

“Goddamn it, Dyle. Don’t play your power games with me. I said I can handle it. And we aren’t sure the door isn’t booby-trapped now.”

Hurt him. Pricked his vanity.

He waits. But what do I want to say? If I can’t go, do it for me. Do it right. “Get back here quick. Four minutes. Remember.”

“Three minutes fifty nine seconds.” He walks around the edge of the alcove, trailing the camera wire.

Vanderslice kneels by the monitor. I crouch beside him. The guards shuffle backward, set up a new defensive perimeter.

Beagle’s inside. On the screen is a bright room. White room. Full of Colonial Security. They’re frozen in the first stage of surprise.

Camera lowers. Beagle’s huge form steps into view. “Please stay where you are. The bomb has a limited range.”

Anxiety sweeps the crowd like gossip. A tech drops a Sheet. White-haired man steps forward. Stops short when Beagle raises the softgun.

“You can’t set off a bomb in here,” the man says, and he sounds so panic-stricken that I start to smile.

Beagle edges toward the camera. His hand drops out of view. An empty click. Then another. A breathy, “Shit.”

Across the bottom of the monitor time unravels in blue. Two minutes, fifty-nine seconds.

“Vanderslice?” Beagle’s voice. Like a newscaster reporting on a remote disaster. “The floor’s too slick. The suction cups won’t grab.”

“Try it again, Dr. Taylor.”

Beagle kneels. Click.

Two minutes, twenty-one seconds.

The white-haired man whirls to a female technician. “Shut down the null-door!”

She lunges toward the controls. We lose the feed. Image dances, flips crazily. Then . . . tech on the ground. Fists to chest. Face surprised. He killed her. Beagle killed her. Thank God. Was afraid he wouldn’t have it in him. Didn’t think
—

One minute, forty-eight seconds.

“Listen!” The white-haired man. Face red with anger. “This is a no-weapons room, you understand? No explosives. No softguns.”

Colonial Security men huddle in a corner. Helpless. Impotent. The bastards. Of course. I understand. No softguns. Beagle tears the helmet off. His jowls droop over the tight collar of his suit.

“The door exists in null-space,” the man says. “If you add energy to one side, you open a temporary pathway. Vacuums are inherently unstable . . .”

Vanderslice half-rises. Screams, “Shut off the bomb!”

The shout must have been deafening. A flinch. The softgun lowers. A flicker of movement to Beagle’s left and the screen dissolves.

I grab for Vanderslice, for the mike. He pulls away in surprise. “Let Beagle do it!” I shout.

Kill them all. That’s what I want. They’re so afraid. Must set up a backblast, that’s why. Can’t let Vanderslice stop him now. Feels too good. I fumble for the mike, to tell him
—

Then a guard wrestles me away.

On the screen. Picture flips. Clears. Two Colonial Security men down. Trash can rolling away from the corpses.

I struggle, reach out. Want to tell Beagle
—
“Let him do it!”

Fifty-six seconds.

Vanderslice says, “Dr. Taylor! Disarm that bomb!”

Beagle looks into the camera, his face so close that I can see the broken capillaries in his cheeks. Seventeen seconds.

“Dyle? I
—”
A whisper so quiet he might have been speaking to himself.

Do it. Goddamn. Do it. For Lila. For me.

Four seconds. Waiting until the last instant. Has to. Or they’ll push the bomb through to our side.

“The red lead!” Vanderslice. Terrified and frustrated. His fists pummel his thighs. “The red lead!”

Two seconds.

Thank God. Beagle will.

One.

It happens suddenly. And all in silence. Quiet as the palace coup. Bloodless as that. The monitor is black.

I’m laughing. The guard lets me go. I jump up. Run to the alcove. Want to tell him how good it felt.

A body. There, in the shadows. He’s fallen. Beagle’s hurt. No. Just a tarp. A pile of rubble. A severed strand of wire. And three blank Permacrete walls.

“Major?” Vanderslice behind me.

The door’s gone. But where’s Beagle? Oh, that’s what he’s doing. He’s hiding. That’s all. Playing a game. Wants to scare me. But nothing can scare me anymore.

“Beagle?” My voice quakes with laughter. “Hey, Beagle!”

Blank gray wall. Severed wire. And no one answers.

“God.” Vanderslice’s whisper, like a knife.

I turn. There are tears in his eyes.