To Crush the Moon (15 page)

“Not for the workers,” he told it. “They'd treasure the experience forever.”

“Presumption is rude, Architect,” the invitation had chided. Then, “Come now, you owe the luminaries of Sol a chance to congratulate you.”

So here they were, seated at a pair of long, arch-shaped tables that followed the curve of Ash's surface. Forty people, only half of whom Conrad knew at all well. But Feck was here, and Eustace, and a handful of other revived Barnardeans who'd made good in the stodgy old Queendom. The king was here too, of course, and so were Donald and Maybel Mursk and, rather surprisingly, Xmary's parents as well.

Since Mimi and David Li Weng had disowned their daughter after the Revolt, Conrad had never actually met them. Nor wanted to, though it wasn't a position he'd considered overmuch. They were historical figures more than anything, and though Xmary was largely ignoring them, their presence did lend an odd authority to the proceedings. Their daughter, the Governor Adjudicate of Central Pacifica and wife of a celebrated architect, was no longer an embarrassment to them.

“Hi. I hope you burn in hell,” Conrad had told them both brightly when the queen had introduced them, and it felt good to get that off his chest. Really.

“Be reasonable. I would say the same to you, Architect,” the queen answered him now, forking a bit of cheese-draped sausage into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. Seconds later she touched a napkin to her lips and added, “You really must try the cheese. That woman over there—in the green frock, yes—is perhaps the most brilliant flavor designer in human history.”

“High praise indeed,” Conrad allowed, taking a nibble. Damn, it
was
good. Melting in his mouth, almost vaporizing, it had a taste at once fatty and ethereal, rich and salty and yet somehow subtle as well. His eyes closed for a moment, of their own accord.

“Immorbidity demands novelty,” the queen opined. “Else it's bread and water forever. Bless our flavor designers, every one.”

And to that Conrad could not help answering, “We did without them on Sorrow, Majesty. But aye, not forever.”

Tamra nodded solemnly. “You see my point, then. Shall we consign ourselves to no better a fate? Will you not surrender yon world to me? Our population crisis continues to grow. Our middle-class homeless now number in the tens of millions, and the political pressure to open a new frontier—any frontier—is overwhelming. Am I to resist the will of the people? The
need
of the people? They don't require a perfect world, and your quest for one—though admirable—consumes precious time.
And
money. Endings are always difficult, but there comes a point when the engineers and craftsmen must disperse, and find new projects.”

“No doubt, Your Highness,” Conrad hedged, “but is that day truly upon us? We've only just sealed the last of the neutronium plates. The lithosphere above them is full of voids and faults, which store a tremendous unwanted energy. Over time they will settle, with unpredictable results.”

“That's been understood for some time,” the queen countered, “but you can relieve these pressure points at leisure, with minimal disruption at ground level. True? I'm informed that the largest tremors will cause only minor damage at the surface.”

“Possibly, Your Highness, but none of us can say that with confidence. We're speaking of probabilities, in a world of imperfect knowledge. The first Ring Collapsiter was considered safe as well, and we know how that turned out.”

“Cunning sabotage,” the queen said dismissively, “at the deepest levels of design. We trust you, sir, to eschew such scheming.”

“Do you? Then trust me that Lune is incomplete, Majesty. The biosphere is another problem, immature and unstable. On Sorrow and Pup we've seen what that can do. How much suffering has our impatience created there?”

“Your point is duly noted, Architect. However, as on Sorrow and Pup, we're installing town-sized fax plates to churn out fresh gases and creatures, keeping the ecology in crude balance. Yes? And
unlike
those worlds, we've the infrastructure of an entire civilization to draw upon. Mars and Venus are better analogies, for in their early civilized histories they prospered with no biosphere at all. As did Luna herself, for a dozen centuries and more. In any event, these risks are mine to assess, and I have more brains to pick than yours alone. You
will
prepare the moon for immediate habitation.”

And here the king added his own voice to the fray: “It's no use, lad, to argue with the facts. Focus on the work itself, yes, but remember who pays your salary. Your job is not to
run
the new world, but to deliver it.”

“Aye, Your Majesty,” Conrad said, unconvinced and unconvincing.

“Come now,” the king expounded, tossing a grape onto Conrad's plate. “Do you think you're the first? Has no engineer before you surrendered his treasures to a witless society? I do know the feeling, lad. How many deaths linger on my conscience, do you suppose, from the discovery of collapsium alone? When I finally get these wormholes working, do you think I expect there to be no accidents? No malice? All systems are subject to failure, but the mere possibility should not shackle our striving.”

He tossed another grape, and another. “Will you choke on these? Are they poison? Will they beguile you and squander your time, as mass-stabilized wormholes have squandered mine? I could let you
starve
, lad, for fear of what a grape might do. Or we could get on with the party, and see what happens.”

“You've become quite the orator,” Conrad said. “When did that happen?”

Such a comment might easily have been taken as rudeness, but the king just laughed. “With fifteen hundred years of life, my boy, one does eventually learn to speak.”

At that, Conrad's old friend Feck chimed in. “Don't let the refugee crisis escape your attention, hmm? We've got six million in storage, and
three billion
on the way. At present deceleration,
Perdition
is only two months out, with fifteen percent of the load. I would say there are risks in
every
course of action, and especially in responding too slowly.”

And Conrad, being a refugee himself, could hardly argue with that. The remaining colonies were simply collapsing. They were up to their armpits in dead and mortal children, and had turned their spasm-wracked economies to the sorry task of triage: shipping “home” as many as possible, by whatever means possible, and leaving the rest to their fate. Whatever that might be.

Conrad sometimes wondered whether this trend had been inevitable all along. Had the colonists carried out with them the seeds of their own destruction? Or was this simply a fad, a mass surrender, a herd action inspired by the traitorous flight of
Newhope
? If so, then Conrad and Xmary and Feck had a lot to answer for: the death of billions. The death of hope itself.

“Have there been any further communications with the
Perdition
or the
Trail of Tears
?” Conrad asked, for no matter what Feck said, he was poignantly interested in the refugee crisis. He was just out of step with the news. But Feck was the queen's Minister of Colonial Affairs, and would know everything.

“Communications, yes,” Feck said, sounding both chagrined and incensed. “Meaningful dialogue, no. Eridani breeds angry, suspicious men. And women, too, one supposes, but since they're cloistered, we never hear from them. At any rate, the Eridanians' journey has been a hard one, and they're not eager to park their butts in Kuiper Belt storage when they finally arrive.”

“Nor would I be,” Conrad said. He'd visited Eridani twice in virtual form, and remembered it as a place of sharp contrasts: molten metal and frozen gas, wild anger and wilder compassion. Eridani boasted no habitable worlds, and like all the colony stars it was richer than Sol in stormy radiation. And the outer system's Dust Belt was treacherous—it could grind even the proudest of habitats to rubble in a matter of years. Even the inner system was full of flying crap. Eridani had thousands of times more asteroids and comets and random small meteoroids than Sol; its planets had been battered all to hell, and still endured several large impacts each year.

So the people, in their tens of billions, lived deep underground in Aetna, the moon of Mulciber, and ventured only rarely to its cratered-upon-cratered surface. To compensate for their bleak, cramped quarters, they had opted for a gradual reduction in body size, and while they were at it they'd added new metabolic pathways and—they claimed—new modes of thought which opened their minds to a greater spiritual awareness. And why not? What the hell else did they have to do under there?

But they were also energy-rich and element-rich and lived like kings in their stifling burrows. Or they had, anyway, before the fax machines started giving out. Theirs was a sad history, as fraught with broken promise as Barnard's own.

“What are we supposed to do?” Feck demanded suddenly, taking the comment as a barb. “There are a dozen asylum-seeking vessels parked in the Kuiper Belt already, and if we wake their sleepers only as new living space becomes available, we're accused of breaking up families and friendships, of scattering the refugees out over time and space. Of
destroying their culture.

“But if we hold them in storage, awaiting a world of their own, then we're pushing them off into some indefinite future. Which is a kind of murder, for many suspect we'll never wake them at all. And that's a valid question, Conrad, because even Lune cannot absorb the colonies' entire human flux. How long will those worlds take to die, and how many of their children will they dump on us beforehand?”

The queen cleared her throat. “These decisions are
also
mine, Minister Feck. You've done very well for your charges, and argue their case most effectively. But their fate is not yours to choose. This is the point of monarchy, you see: to concentrate blame.
You
may sleep soundly, your conscience untroubled.”

Feck looked ready to argue that point, but finally thought better of it and dropped his eyes to his dinner. “Of course, Your Highness. My apologies.”

“Accepted,” she said, favoring him with the smile that had earned her the love of billions.

“The day grows late,” warned the red-haired Wenders Rodenbeck, in a tone that managed to convey at once a personal sadness, an official gravitas, and a semiamused kind of told-you-so. “A stiff wind rises at last, and we find our house of straw less sturdy than we'd hoped.”

“Don't gloat, Poet Laureate,” the queen said, clearly annoyed. “It shows off the food in your teeth. If we'd listened to you all these years, I suppose the Queendom would still be a paradise, and never a tear would be shed?”

“No indeed, Majesty.” The playwright's voice was, to Conrad's ear, rather shrill, but in a way that enhanced rather than detracted from his air of authority. “I would suggest a more careful reading of my oeuvre, when time permits. In fact, my own paradise would likely have collapsed by now as well, for reasons we couldn't imagine at the outset. Such is the fate of human endeavor; our vision is not extended merely by the stretching of our lifetimes.”

“Go on,” the queen said skeptically. “You have my attention. What remedies do you propose?”

“Why, none,” said Rodenbeck, spreading his hands as if this should have been obvious. “Who has taught me to plan for the long, long term? Where shall we draw our lessons, when this civilization of ours has outlasted all that came before it? The Queendom rose from the ashes of Old Modernity, which sprang from the embers of Rome, which drew upon the lessons of Greece, and Egypt before her. Indeed, Highness, Egypt had the Minoan example to emulate, and fair Atlantis was a focused echo of the civilizations of Indus and Jomon, drowned in the Deluge at the closing of the Ice Age.

“History is not linear, I'm afraid, but cyclic, for sustainability has never guided human affairs. And in banishing death, we simply condemn ourselves to observe the cycle from within. To live, as it were, in the filth we've excreted, with the sound of falling towers all around.”

“Ah,” said Tamra, “so we needn't listen to you, then.”

“Not at all, Majesty. I am but a mote in the vastness, amazed by all that I perceive. Let's do take a moment, though, to congratulate ourselves for all that we've accomplished. Even this ghastly destruction of Luna, yes, for it speaks to grand intentions. And here at the end of the day, we shall need a warm thought like that to remember ourselves by.”

“Quite,” the queen agreed, in a tone that closed the subject. And then, to Conrad: “We do have evidence, Architect, that
Perdition
is in regular contact with someone in the Queendom. Does that make you feel better?”

“Um, well,” Conrad said, “that depends on who they're talking to.”

The queen's smile deepened. “Someone charming, I'm sure. Shall we have dessert?”

chapter thirteen

in which the demands of
beggars are voiced

It was, of course, the Fatalists with whom
Perdition
communicated, and while the details of their exchange were quantum-encrypted and thus impossible to decipher, archaeologists and historians agree on this much:

First, that the exchange was hundreds of petabytes long in both directions—more than adequate for a self-aware data construct to be passed back and forth several times. Or, alternatively, for several constructs to make the crossing once.

Second, that the Queendom recipients of these messages were, without a doubt, located well away from Earth and Mars and Venus. Mercury and the moons of Jupiter are considered unlikely but cannot be ruled out altogether. Almost anywhere else in the system is possible; no physical traces have ever been found.

Third, that the virus released into the Nescog on Lune Day was of Eridanian origin, or evolved from an Eridanian template which in turn traced its heritage back to the early Queendom. Sol had endured crippling network attacks during the Fall, and the “Eridge” plague showed a cunning grasp of both the strengths of that ancient assault, and the weaknesses of the contemporary network.

These weaknesses were few and slight, so the virus spread at only a tiny fraction of the classical speed of light, and was not truly lethal in its effects. Still, it was stealthy, and raised no conclusive alarms until it had wormed its way to the heart of every switch and router, collapsiter and precognitor in the system.

Conrad Mursk first learned of the attack indirectly, faxing home from a meeting with the Europan Ice Authority. As he stepped out of the print plate into his penthouse apartment in the city of Grace, he found himself staggering for a drunken moment. This was not entirely unheard of, for Grace was a floating city, and the Carpal Tower at its center was very slightly flexible. On windy days, you could feel the roll and sway of the city here as nowhere else.

But never this much. Though his balance reasserted itself, Conrad felt at once that something was wrong. For one thing he was covered with a fine white dust, like talcum powder. For another thing, the evening lights of the city below were not all lit. Some were flickering; others were simply out.

Worse, he had the distinct sense that there was something different
about him
. Inside, in his mind or his memories or his immortal soul. Nothing monumental—he was still Conrad Mursk of Ireland and Sorrow, Lune and Pacifica—but it seemed to him that he was suddenly peppered with small absences. With tiny half-remembered things, now wholly forgotten. Or was he imagining it?

“Call Xmary,” he said to the ceiling, but he needn't have bothered, for moments later she spilled out of the fax in person. This was, after all, dinnertime, and she'd've called him already if her gubernatorial duties required her to be late, or to spawn an extra copy or two.

She was also covered in powder, and looked startled and subtly off-kilter.

“What just happened?” she said, fixing her eyes on Conrad, her hands on the black hair hanging down past her neck.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “Are you all right?”

“I . . .”
I think so,
she'd been about to say. But something stopped her. She
didn't
think so.

“Maintenance,” Conrad instructed the apartment. “Fax diagnostic,
now
.”

“All functions nominal, sir,” the fax said, sounding ever-so-slightly offended.

“Seconded,” said the ceiling. “No sign of anomalies.”

“Not here,” offered the floor. “But look at sir and madam. They're quite disturbed. Perhaps they encountered a transit glitch.”

“Impossible,” the fax replied.

“Improbable,” the floor countered, “and yet—”

“Everyone shut up!” Xmary commanded firmly. “Conrad, do you feel . . .”

“Funny? Full of holes? Dusty? Yes. Something's happening.”

Xmary looked up at the ceiling. “News.”

“Today's top story: Travelers report fax anomalies. No details available. Please propagate this message on supraluminal channels where possible.”

Well, that was helpful.

“That could mean anything,” Xmary grumbled. “What travelers? Where?
Us?
Update the top story every time it changes, please.”

“Yes, madam. Today's top story: This is a travel advisory. Travelers in the vicinity of Earth and Mars report minor cellular injury after Nescog transport. Citizens are advised to avoid Nescog travel wherever possible. No further details available. Please assign this story top priority on all civilian supraluminal channels.”

And then, on the heels of that: “Today's top story: Her Majesty has declared a state of emergency. Please remain where you are, or limit necessary travel to licensed air, ground, and space vehicles. The Nescog is hereby reserved for authorized emergency personnel.”

“Damn,” Xmary said. “I'd better get back to the office.”

“How?” Conrad wanted to know. The Central Pacifica governor's office was on Cooper Ridge Construct, eight hundred kilometers away.

“I'm emergency personnel,” she pointed out. “I must be.”

“But do you want to risk the damage? It could be permanent. For all we know it could be
fatal
.”

“Hmm. I could take a glider, I suppose. Or maybe a boat. There
are
boats here, right? It's an island.”

She was spared any further thought on the matter by a crackling from the fax machine behind her. It coughed out a cloud of dust, then a sizzle of blue sparks, and finally the staggering body of a heavy, bearded man.

Bruno de Towaji, the King of Sol. Presently, he put an arm out and fell flat on his face.

“Blast,” he said woozily, “that
is
a nasty smack, isn't it? Am I still me?”

“Your Highness!” Conrad and Xmary said together. “What are you doing here?” Conrad added, while Xmary asked, “Are you all right?”

“Scrambled,” the king said, picking himself up, brushing the dust from his eyebrows and beard. “If that's the worst they can do I'll be happy, but still. How dare they do their worst!”

“What's happening?” Xmary asked him. “Why
are
you here?”

“I set up a point-to-point filter between this apartment and the Beach Palace, but someone had to go through it first. As a calibration article.”

“Why?”

He didn't answer, but turned groggily back toward the fax again. “I'm close to a breakthrough on the wormhole front. I can feel it! But Maplesphere and Earth are suddenly very far apart. It'll take us
months
to filter this irritant from all possible routes. Indeed, it may be quicker to purge the virus entirely than to design emergency workarounds.”

“What virus?”

“Eh?” Bruno looked over his shoulder. “The one they've attacked us with.”

“Who?”

“The Fatalists. The Eridanians. The dark angel of unintended consequences. My errors return to me, young lady, a thousand times magnified.” To the fax he said, “Royal Override. Apply calibration results and clear your buffer. Begin point-to-point transfer.”

The Queen of Sol stepped out of the plate, with no more fuss than if she'd stepped through an ordinary doorway.

“Thank you, darling,” she said to her husband. “I appear to be intact. And you?”

“I will be,” he said, “when I can get my hands on a previrus backup. They've taken down the first-tier error correction. The damage is minor but . . . disconcerting.”

“All right,” she said brusquely. “Give me safe passage to
Malu'i
. For two.”

Malu'i
. Protector. The navy's flagship.

“Are we under attack?” Conrad asked stupidly. He'd fought a dozen battles in his life, and they were all different, all surprising. But they shared this characteristic: he never really believed they were happening until he was in the thick of it, fighting for his life or his freedom or for some empty principle he'd barely remember afterwards.

“Play message Doxar twenty-one,” the queen said to the apartment walls, instead of answering Conrad directly. “Full exchange, half duplex.”

A hollie window appeared near the fax, and in it the face of an Eridanian man. There was no mistaking the Eridanians, for their heads were overlarge and overround, their dark eyes glaring out from beneath bushy white eyebrows and thick manes of curly silver hair. Their skins were as pale as chalk, except in the shadows and creases, where they were as black as coal. This was a trick that helped them radiate excess body heat, but it made them look . . . exaggerated. False. Like comic drawings designed to highlight particular emotions: here is
HAPPY
! Here is
ANGRY
! Here is
FILLED WITH THE ENNUI OF TOO MANY CENTURIES IN A CAVE
! Their small size—about two-thirds the height of a natural human—only exaggerated the effect.

This particular Eridanian was
ANGRY
.

“I am Doxar Bagelwipe,” he said self-importantly, “of Humanitarium
Perdition
. Y'all poseth unacceptably, y'hear? We
will not
end our travail in forgettable parking orbits, for yet more centuries of unlife. To prove the sincerity of our conviction, we assail your teleport network. Consider it declared: no less than full sanctuary is acceptable, for all persons stored cold or warm aboard this vessel.”

Next, Queen Tamra's own image replaced Doxar's. “Captain,” she said calmly, “the people of Eridani will be resettled in the Queendom of Sol
as space and resources permit
. Your impatience is understandable, and in sympathy with your plight we're doing all we can to prepare new worlds for habitation. But this sabotage is counterproductive, and can only hurt your standing with the people of Sol. Please reverse it immediately, and proceed to your designated orbit.”

Doxar reappeared then, for his message was interactive, and carried with it the full force of his personality. Why wait for the speed of light, when you can send your image to negotiate in your stead? Particularly when your position is inflexible, and no persuasion can hope to alter it. “Unacceptable. We declare the right to escalate,” Doxar's image said, and then winked out.

Damn.

The king said to Conrad, “If they actually enter the Queendom, right now and all at once, they'll destabilize the economy. We
must
delay them. Meanwhile, my boy, you and I are traveling to Lune, and thence to Callisto and Europa. Just in case things go astray, we've got to get as much water onto that dustball of yours as we can in the next seven weeks.”

When
Perdition
was due to arrive. With guns blazing?

Said Queen Tamra to Governor Xmary, “You captained a starship for hundreds of years. You know how starship crews think, how they react. And you have actual combat experience, correct? You fought a space battle.”

“Once,” Xmary protested.

“Not a police impoundment,” the queen pressed. “Not a simulation or staged maneuver, but a to-the-death battle against a determined and capable opponent. From the forces of my son, King Bascal.”

“Once!”

“That's once more than anyone else, Governor. You won the fight, correct? You survived, and your opponent didn't.”

“That's accurate, yes.”

“Then come with me,” the queen said. And to Bruno: “Is the fax machine ready?”

“It is.”

“Then kiss your husband good-bye,” the queen instructed Xmary. “Your respective duties may keep you apart for some time. I wish I could say how long.”

Conrad reeled. Was this truly happening? Was Xmary being drafted right in front of his eyes? Sent off to fight for her life in the wilds of space?

“I—,” he said, but nothing else came out.

“Don't,” Xmary told him, turning into his arms, putting a finger to his lips. She looked scared and somewhat dazed, but fully in control of herself. “You know how these things go. All we need is a show of force, then a show of compassion, and then a get-to-know-you coffee in the observation lounge. I'll see you soon.” She kissed him then as he had rarely been kissed, in a thousand years of life.

“Be careful,” he said, clutching her in his arms, unwilling to let go. But she extricated herself anyway, and answered, “Always.”

She nodded to the queen then, who was kissing her own husband good-bye. Then the two of them—the strongest women Conrad had ever known—stepped into the fax plate and vanished.

What happened next is history, in all the great and small senses of the word, for it is written in the Ballad of Conrad Mursk, “They faxed from the house / the queen and his spouse / and he never saw neither no more.”