The Dark Side (44 page)

“From what I understand, there are plenty in the PPD who've been secretly loyal to you all along. What about Dash Chin—is he one of yours? Or Prince Oda Universe? Why not appoint him Chief?”

“Don't be ridiculous. There's no one better for the job than you.”

“But I just failed to uphold the law—you said so yourself.”

“And I expect you to do so again, until we get things straightened out.”

“That would make me no different from Chief Buchanan.”

“No, you'd be completely different. Because you'd be working for me.”

“And King Leo.”

“No,
for me
.”

Justus thinks about it for all of two seconds. “Forget it,” he says. “I can't stay here. Not now.”

“Why not? You believe in Redemption, don't you?”

“In redemption, yes, but—” But he stops, realizing she's tricked him. “I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to do it without me. I'm sure you'll manage.”

“And I'm sure you'll have second thoughts. This is where you were meant to be, and you know it. You were
made
for the Dark Side.
God
has summoned you.”

“
God
, now?”

She tries to sound self-effacing. “Well, I sometimes let Him think He's in charge too.”

Justus shakes his head, definitively this time, and continues toward the stairs. Halfway down he sees Leonardo Grey coming up, butler-like, with a freshly laundered black suit.

“The royal robes,” Justus says.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Never mind. Perhaps he'll make you a prince, for your part in the coup.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Nothing,” Justus says.

At ground level there's a good deal of alarm: The palace staff are not sure if the Sinners are going to break through the barriers and storm the Kasr. Perhaps, Justus thinks, there's wisdom in QT's decision to make her presence felt so soon.

The guards tell him he should wait until the coast is clear, but he insists on leaving immediately. So he's led through the gardens to the restraining wall, which is almost buckling under the pressure, and with a blast from the water cannon he's allowed past the security doors.

At first the crowd seem intent on pouncing on him, but as soon as they realize who it is they start cheering.

“JUSTICE! JUSTICE! JUSTICE!”

A few of them beg him for news from inside the Kasr. He tries to answer—“You just wait and see”—but he's unable to make himself heard over the general clamor. So he begins to forge his way through the mass of bodies. He sees freshly painted signs saying DEATH TO BRASS and BUTCHER BRASS. He sees Sinners spattered with blood and waving body parts in PPD uniforms—possibly bits of Chief Buchanan and the cops of his own investigative team. He sees a discarded front page of the morning's
Tablet
—CHAOS IN SIN.

But he can't make any progress, as much as he tries, and is about to give up when a sudden hush descends over the crowd. He sees them looking up at the Kasr. And he turns.

There on the imperial balcony, Leonardo Black has appeared—black-suited but still with dyed hair. He's grinning emphatically. He seems, as much as any android can, to be
triumphant.
He surveys the multitudes silently for a few seconds, as though savoring the glory, and suddenly he raises his right hand. He's holding something up, like a lantern.

It's the severed head of Fletcher Brass.

The crowd doesn't know what to make of it. They want to cheer but can't be sure what's going on. They can't quite work out who the droid is, and from a distance can't be sure whom the head belongs to. So the murmurs of confusion swell and fade. Until they stop entirely—and give way to gasps.

Justus, who's taken advantage of the confusion to gain some more ground, looks back again. And now he sees that QT Brass herself has appeared on the balcony. She stands there for a moment, taking it all in, and then moves to King Leo's left side, takes hold of his free hand, and raises it victoriously. And smiles—
beams
—like a first lady at a victory celebration.

And again the crowd doesn't seem to know what to make of
it. They're dealing with two stunning deceptions at once: that QT Brass is not dead, and that a palace coup has been staged without their knowledge. Justus actually wonders if she's gotten ahead of herself, and if the mob might respond with fury. But then, seeing her there on the Patriarch's balcony, seeing her so proud and exultant, the Sinners, swept up in it, suddenly
believe.
They break out in spontaneous cheers. They scream with approval. And slowly they start to chant:

“Q-T! Q-T! Q-T! Q-T! Q-T!”

The chant follows Justus through the near-deserted streets of Sin—where there are only a few locals and some puzzled tourists—and into the vehicle bay—where he's lucky to find someone to operate the airlock—and is still ringing in his ears when he heads into the endless lunar night, on his way to the outer rim of Purgatory and beyond.

But he's not sure exactly what he's doing. He has an idea he might get a job at Peary Base, but that's probably not much better than a paycheck in Purgatory. And it's not as if he'll be any closer to his daughter, or that it'll make life any safer for her. Considering what he knows, it might even make her life more dangerous. So where is he going? All he knows is that he has to express his disgust by turning his back on all the foulness, the deceit, the mendacity, the cynicism, the ruthlessness, and the self-righteousness of Sin. And the death—the
murder
—in which he himself became embroiled.

He thought he was above all that, and he was wrong.

But at the same time, he's acutely aware that he's just a hair's breadth away from changing his mind. Because he doesn't like quitting on anything. And, for all its horror, he has to admit that Purgatory offered him a rare sense of purpose—a chance to continue the good fight, the ongoing war against corruption, that
he was forced to leave unfinished on Earth. The place might be a sewer, but that only means there's so much more pleasure in cleaning it up—Nat U. Reilly was right after all.

He's halfway to the outer rim, thinking these thoughts, when suddenly the headlights of a pressurized vehicle appear on the road ahead. Swinging around a curve at an illegal speed—it must be doing at least eighty kilometers per hour—it looks for a moment to be heading straight for him. Justus has to wrench his own car to the left, into the lunar dust, just to avoid a collision. And when the car flashes past—without slowing, without even acknowledging his presence—he sees in the backwash of his brake lights that it's a security vehicle, probably driven by customs officials eager to be part of the game-changing events in Sin.

Justus, with his wheels half buried in regolith, spends a few moments welling up with rage. He could have been injured or even killed. But there's more to it than that. There's the insurmountable policeman's instinct to enforce the law. To catch the lawbreaker, no matter who it is, before someone innocent is hurt. What if they drive like that through the streets of Sin? What if they hit a pedestrian? And Justus suddenly realizes that this is the very moment he's been hoping for. This is the thing that happened
not without a cause
.

So he swings the wheel, churning up moondust, and gets back on the road. He chases after the utility vehicle with blue lights flashing.

Dark Side/Farside, Purgatory/Sanctuary, Sin/Redemption, Brass/Black, QT/Cutie, Justus/Justice.

God—or someone—had summoned him, all right.

The writing of this book would not have been possible without the Springer Praxis series of books on the Moon, particularly
The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Settlement
(various authors);
Lunar Outpost: The Challenges of Establishing a Human Settlement on the Moon
by Erik Seedhouse;
Turning Dust to Gold: Building a Future on the Moon and Mars
by Haym Benaroya;
The Far Side of the Moon: A Photographic Guide
by Charles Byrne;
Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions
by David M. Harland; and
Lunar and Planetary Rovers: The Wheels of Apollo and the Quest for Mars
by Anthony Young (see
http://www.springer.com/series/4097
). I also consulted
The Lunar Base Handbook
by Peter Eckart;
Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space
by Harrison Schmitt;
Welcome to Moonbase
by Ben Bova;
Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century
, edited by W. W. Mendell;
Moonrush: Improving Life on Earth with the Moon's Resources
by Dennis Wingo;
The Once and Future Moon
by Paul D. Spudis;
The Moon: A Biography
by David Whitehouse;
The Exploration of the Moon
by Arthur C. Clarke;
A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts
by Andrew Chaikin;
The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space
by Gerard K. O'Neill;
Space Enterprise: Living and Working Offworld in the 21st Century
by Phillip Harris;
From Antarctica to Outer Space:
Life in Isolation and Confinement
(various authors);
The Development of Outer Space: Sovereignty and Property Rights in International Space Law
by Thomas Gangale;
Expedition Mars
by Martin J. L. Turner;
The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must
by Robert Zubrin;
The Hazards of Space Travel: A Tourist's Guide
by Neil Comins;
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe
by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee;
SETI 2020: A Roadmap for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
(various authors);
Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations
by Brian S. McConnell;
Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs
by Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre;
Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World
by David D. Friedman;
2025: Scenarios of US and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology
(various authors);
The Edge of Medicine: The Technology That Will Change Our Lives
by William Hanson;
21st-Century Miracle Medicine: RoboSurgery, Wonder Cures, and the Quest for Immortality
by Alexandra Wyke;
Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension
by Stephen S. Hall; and
Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Biotechnology Age
by Lori Andrews and Dorothy Nelkin.

Any errors or exaggerations are almost certainly mine.

Thanks also to Ariel Moy; Peter Roberts; Stephen Clarke; Thomas Colchie; David Scherwood; Brit Hvide, Sarah Knight, Amar Deol, Jonathan Evans, and Molly Lindley at Simon & Schuster; Michelle Kroes at CAA; and my agent, David Forrer, at InkWell.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Anthony O'Neill

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Cover photographs: Man © Justin Pumfrey/Getty Images, Moon © Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock