Exodus, page 79
“She hasn’t said anything. My mother is trying to call her.”
“If this is the empress responding to the capsule bomb, the first thing they’ll do is replace the governor. The empress will need to blame someone. Zelinda, I’d suggest you send your family out of the city. Just in case.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I hope I’m wrong, but it can’t hurt. You have a lot of country estates, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said with a dry throat.
“Do it. I’ll see what I can find out.”
* * *
—
Three minutes after the assault carrier docked at High Rosa, all network lncs to the georing were cut. No personal lncs, no feeds. No information.
Zelinda was still reluctant to send her family out of the city, but she did ask her children to return to the palace. Her younger daughters, Amaryllis and Mackenzie, were both at college, while Augusta was out at the palace stables, riding her favorite Awakened panda. They came back just as puzzled as everyone as to what was happening.
Her brother Everett flatly refused to even consider coming home from the Treasury building, let alone leaving Santa Rosa. “It’s preposterous,” he said. “And you didn’t hear it from me, but frankly it’s not such a bad idea to replace the governor. Our economy hasn’t been this precarious since the cape storms three hundred years ago wiped out an entire season’s crops. We could do with the empress injecting some liquidity into the banks.”
“Oh, Asteria, Everett, this is the Crown Dominion Navy we’re talking about! They are not here to help with your accountancy issues.”
“If they want to keep the economy afloat, they’ll have to pay attention to the numbers.”
His attitude decided it for her. She called for a limousine to take her daughters to Hovey station, where they could catch a train to Hafnir. “You’re staying with your aunt Otylia for a week,” she told them.
“Are you coming?” Augusta asked anxiously.
“I’m hoping I don’t have to. But Aunt Variaka and your cousins will be going with you.” And to hell with her brother; at least Variaka was practical.
* * *
—
Two hours after the assault carrier docked, capsules started to descend from High Rosa. The network hadn’t been restored—not for humans, anyway—but Santa Rosa’s tower station began receiving the arrival schedules. A lot of them.
Zelinda went and sat with her mother in the Privy Council chamber. They dismissed most of the palace staff, sending them back to the residential wing. Some of the most long-serving refused the offer, including a division of guards led by Colonel Eiesha.
“The city’s unnerved, ma’am,” she said. “Now is not the time to leave you unguarded.”
An hour after the first wave of capsules started their descent, every lnc in the prefecture activated. “This is General Avone-Valero, Knight Commander of the empress’s Gondiar task force mission, Restore Order. As of now, I am the custodian of Gondiar, replacing the governor until such time as Her Imperial Majesty sees fit to appoint a new governor. All citizens are now subject to my authority. All residents of Santa Rosa are ordered to return to their homes immediately and await further instruction. You have three hours to comply, then all ground traffic will be shut down. Farmers will continue to work as normal, but may not leave their farms. My troops will be enforcing the law of the empress planetwide, with no exceptions. The general lawlessness that has infected your society will be purged. Your compliance is expected. Any acts of defiance directed toward the empress will be met with lethal force.”
The marchioness gave Zelinda a distraught stare. “Lethal force? Killing people? Why? What have we done?”
“I can only assume it’s because of the tower capsule bomb.”
“I don’t understand. We arrested all of those awful gang people, the ones who were smuggling weapons. They are all serving life sentences on penal farms.”
“Maybe the Celestials didn’t think that was enough.”
“They’d have told us, surely? I must speak to the general when he arrives.”
“Mother, please don’t.”
“I cannot allow the people of my city to live in fear. I cannot stand by and do nothing. I am the marchioness; our family was appointed by the empress herself. We are related to them by blood.”
Zelinda took her hands, saddened by how frail her mother was becoming. I hadn’t noticed before. Everything stays the same on Gondiar, forever. That’s what I’ve chosen to believe—until now. “Mother, please, we have no say in this invasion.”
“Don’t use that word; it will provoke people. The general represents the empress. She will understand. We are loyal subjects.”
“We’ve changed, mother. We bent the laws a little too much, and people have become dissatisfied. The Celestials don’t like that.”
“A few urban dilettantes, that’s all. We’ve always allowed that; it was a way for people to let off steam.”
“It’s more than that. Hafnir has showed people a different kind of life—one where you can own your own house. You can keep what you’ve worked for and hand it down to your children.”
“This is nonsense. People did not go homeless before Hafnir.”
“No, they didn’t, but their attitudes have changed. I believe that’s what this may be about, and that the capsule explosion is just an excuse. We went too far, and now we will be pulled back. Forcefully.”
A tear began to trickle down the marchioness’s face. “That is not fair. We help people. There is a good life for everyone here.”
For the first time in more than fifty years, Zelinda hugged her mother. There was no resistance. “I know.”
* * *
—
Three hours after General Avone’s announcement, the entire planetary network went offline. People kept in touch locally through inter-patch lncs, but that was all. The skyway gondolas in Santa Rosa stopped and hung where they were, swinging gently from side to side without power. Anyone left inside had to break out the emergency ladders, unrolling them with a prayer that they were long enough to reach the ground. Globecabs halted abruptly, their doors sliding open, then a minute later started to drive back to their depots. Private and commercial vehicles came to an emergency stop, triggered by the city’s traffic CI. Everyone left stranded looked anxiously at the length of the orbital tower, gleaming in the twilight sun, before walking home. A few lucky ones took scooters and bikes, which the CI couldn’t deactivate.
* * *
—
The marchioness chose to wait for the arrival of the general at the entrance of the Sibylla wing’s reception hall. She was going to stand at the top of the curving Grand Staircase by herself, but Zelinda refused to let her do that and stood beside her. Lined up in the hall behind them were a handful of senior aides, along with Colonel Eiesha and five honor guards. Zelinda had insisted they carry no weapons, not even inactive ones, and they had to hold their helmets under an arm to show they were not hostile. There was no family present besides Zelinda; she’d been quite insistent about that, too.
It was a strange time, standing there in the early morning with the low-floating dawn mists swaddling Makeda Park just starting to fluoresce with light. The first capsules had reached the station two hours earlier. They had received one communication from the general saying he was coming to the palace to set up his administration there, but there was no ETA provided.
“Why the palace?” the marchioness wondered. “Why not the governor’s mansion?”
“I suspect because the palace is bigger, mother. He does have an army to command, as well as enough administration staff for the whole planet.”
“Yes, that would make sense.”
Zelinda found the small talk really wasn’t any comfort. And it wasn’t the cool air that was making her limbs shiver every couple of minutes. It didn’t help that she kept thinking of the concern in Terence Wilson-Fletcher’s voice just before the network was shut off. The archon’s agent was seriously worried about the task force and what they would do. He kept saying: “You haven’t met Imperial Celestials like this before. Be extremely careful what you say. Be as bland and meek as it’s possible to sound, and never question them.” Which led to the question: How did he know that?
Some fast movement out in the park caught her eye, but it was gone before she could focus on it. The mist was swirling in the wake of whatever it was. She gripped her mother’s hand. “Here they come.”
It was the Ghosts that approached the palace first, advancing in a juddery insectoid motion. They were nothing like anything Zelinda had seen files of. One of them raced through the courtyard’s tunnel-like archway, its speed allowing it to run horizontally along the wall. Then more of them appeared up along the roofline. There must have been twenty of them in total. One of them finally stood still, scanning around the courtyard. It was easily three meters tall. Below its implausibly small hip joint, its legs made up two-thirds of its overall height, with long feet that had a triple hoof so it was always standing on the tips: a posture that seemed to leave it unstable, as the legs and short torso were perpetually leaning forward. Balance, then, was achieved by the arms. They bifurcated just below the shoulder, the forward pair mimicking a hominoid arrangement of a single elbow joint with the smooth forearm ending in normal hands—if a lot bigger than a human’s. The rear arms, however, were more like fat curving scimitars that reached down almost to ankle level. Their tips were some kind of wicked blade that glowed radioactive blue. It didn’t have a head. Instead, its sensor arrays were twin flat plates on either side of the upper torso giving it a full surround coverage.
Once the squad of them had secured the courtyard, a pair of massive Awakened lions walked through the archway. They must have weighed seven tons each. Even though they were only wearing light armor with their faces exposed, Zelinda found them far more terrifying than the Ghosts. Instinctively, she knew that even among all the Awakened monsters that Celestials had produced, they remained apex predators. It was the sheer arrogance of their measured walk that left her in no doubt.
“Sweet Asteria,” the marchioness whimpered.
The general who followed them in seemed almost diminished by comparison. His armor was polished silver perfection, of course, seamless and featureless, like a single metallic carapace. Zelinda got the impression that it was more fluid than solid. As he grew closer, she realized it was actually a thick layer of minute silver spheres.
He took the steps of the Grand Staircase four at a time while the lions waited at the bottom. When he reached the top, he was an easy meter and a half taller than the human women. The spheres forming his helmet parted with a ripple down the front, flowing back onto both sides of a head that was almost as featureless as the silver specks that had shielded it.
A face built for radiating exquisite contempt, Zelinda thought. His forehead and cheeks were embossed with a shining web, as if he’d been given a tattoo of wires.
The marchioness bowed politely. “General Avone, welcome to Santa Rosa. I wish the circumstances were more—”
“You can leave now,” the general said in a gruff voice.
“Leave? My family is at the disposal of the empress, as we have always been since she permitted us to settle this wonderful world. We will of course continue to assist you in whatever manner—”
“No. Leave.”
Zelinda recovered her composure. “Why are you here?” she asked. “What have we possibly done to deserve this treatment?”
“You shat on the kindness of the empress with your whining and complaining. You stole lands from the empress.”
“If you’re talking about Hafnir, then—”
“Shut up. You committed an act of terrorism against the Crown Dominion, for which there is only one punishment: death.”
“The explosio—”
“Not the tower capsule bomb, though that is almost as serious. I refer to the assassination of the archon for the Now and Forever Queen of Wynid.”
All Zelinda could do was grunt. “Huh?”
“Archon Makaio-Faraji was murdered two years ago in the Governor’s Roundhouse Mansion. If you doubt me, ask his agent, Terence Wilson-Fletcher, who was standing next to him when it happened.”
“Terence knew?”
“More than you, clearly.”
She gave her mother a bewildered frown. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple,” the general said. “You had your chance to prove humans could govern themselves, and you screwed up. We’re done with you. I’m taking charge now.”
“We can help—”
“Be silent! It’s over, Changeling. Now, all you rancid parasites: Get the fuck out of my headquarters.” He parted his lips in a snarl as he bent down to put his face intimidatingly close to hers. “Unless you want to fight me for it?” Down below, the lions both growled.
It took all her courage just to shake her head.
* * *
—
They gathered everybody together: family, staff, aides, the guards. There were no personal possessions to carry. Even if they’d been allowed time to collect them, nobody wanted to go back inside now that the Ghosts and Awakened were moving through the Sibylla wing and into the main section of the palace. The marchioness herself led them across the courtyard as still more Ghosts and Awakened arrived with their Knights.
Colonel Eiesha was waiting beside the Lucia Arch at the front of the palace with eight limousines from the garage. “I told one of the bastards we’d be away quicker if they let us have them. She unlocked their power cells for us, but it’s personal guide driving, I’m afraid. There’s still no traffic management.”
“That was a stupid risk,” Zelinda said. “But thank you so much.”
Her mother needed help to climb inside; she didn’t seem to react to anything anymore. Zelinda exchanged a worried look with her father, then joined him on the limo’s curving bench. Her husband, Haian, sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. A badly shaken Everett got in, along with a trio of senior palace aides.
Colonel Eiesha had taken off her armor, leaving just her gray-blue one-piece thermal regulator overalls. She slipped into the front seat and put her hand on the contact bulb. The limo rolled out into Makeda Park. All the other limos followed, crammed full of people.
They drove in silence for several minutes. Every street was empty. Even the macaques had fled, as if they could sense the uncertainty and fear of the human population. Zelinda found the sight of the familiar buildings and squares bereft of people to be deeply unsettling. They were still there, of course; unlike her, they hadn’t been given permission to leave. So they’d be hiding behind the windows, not even knowing what they’d done wrong nor how to make amends so they could return to their normal lives. Ghosts were scampering down the roads, scaling walls to swing along balconies with an ease that was completely at odds with how much they must weigh. Several kinds of fearsome Awakened prowled about menacingly.
They crossed a junction into Nonpur Avenue. Zelinda caught sight of an armored Knight down a narrow side alley—or thought she did. Whatever the thing was, it was half as big again as the general, with four legs and a broad hindsection that curved up like some giant scorpion stinger. It was so unterrestrial it caused a phobic revulsion, chilling her.
Please, Asteria, don’t let anyone challenge it. Although she knew in her heart it wouldn’t be long—maybe even tonight, when the foolish and the reckless came out to demonstrate their bravado, taunting and testing their new overlords.
“Where to?” Eiesha asked.
“Hafnir,” Zelinda said, because there was nowhere else left. The Jalgori-Tobu family were now as much outcast strangers on Gondiar as the Diligent settlers had been the day they arrived. With her mother weeping quietly beside her, they headed out of the city.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The apartment security sensors detected a motion on the little balcony that overlooked Sonoma Avenue. Medusa kept it casual as she walked across the living room to check it out. Two of her braids stirred, their tips curling around to point at the window. Target graphics slipped up into her lenses. Then the unexpected happened: her patch opened its petals and reported a lnc opening.
“Morning,” Terence said.
Medusa stared at his image in surprise. “How the hell did you do that? I couldn’t even get my deep burn routines into the building’s public node. Whatever they did has shut it down like they physically smashed it up.”
“Not sure, to be honest. My CI is using the Knights’ secure network somehow. Who cares? Point is, we’re talking.”
“Sure. That’s a comfort.” She opened the slats on the window and peered out guiltily. There was nothing moving on Sonoma Avenue, same as the rest of the city as far as she could judge. Just birds overhead, calling out to each other, asking where everyone has gone. Then she saw a small delivery drone had landed on the balcony. “Is that yours?”
“Yes. I don’t want to be dramatic or anything, but you need to get the hell out of that apartment.”
Medusa let out a snort of contempt. “I’d love to.” The arrival of the Knights had been a bad surprise. Over the last two years, she’d spent time preparing a few discreet exit routes, unsure if Terence was watching. It had seemed a bit stupid given she’d agreed she would leave, but professional pride and some healthy paranoia pushed her onward. The way he’d scooped her up, and that Asteria-damned helmet interrogation, had left her very wary of him. Despite them keeping it civil ever since—or pretending to, anyway—she wanted to be able to disappear on her own terms should she need to.
