The Iron Tactician Read online

  ‘What would you have done if it had failed?’ Teal asked, managing to make the question sound peremptory and businesslike, as if she had no real interest in the answer.

  They had taken off their helmets, but were still wearing the rest of their suits. Merlin had closed the airlock, but kept Tyrant docked with the larger ship. He had shown Teal through the narrow warren of his linked living quarters without stopping to comment, keen to show her that at least the syrinx was a verifiable part of his story.

  ‘I doubt I’d have had much time to worry about it, if it failed. Probably ended up as an interesting smear, that’s all.’ Merlin offered a smile, but Teal’s expression remained hard and unsympathetic.

  ‘A quick death’s nothing to complain about.’

  She was a hard one for him to fathom. Her head looked too small, too childlike, jutting out from the neck ring of her suit. She was short haired, hard boned, tough and wiry-looking at the same time. He had been right about her eyes, even through the visor. They had seen too much pain and hardship, bottled too much of it inside themselves, and now it was leaking back out.

  ‘You still don’t trust me, and that’s fine. But let me show you something else.’ Merlin beckoned her back through into the living area, then made one of the walls light up with images and maps and text from his private files. The collage was dozens of layers deep, with the records and annotations in just as many languages and alphabets.

  ‘What is this supposed to prove?’

  He skimmed rectangles aside, flicking them to the edge of the wall. Here were Waynet charts, maps of solar systems, schematics of the surfaces of worlds and moons. ‘The thing I’m looking for,’ he said, ‘the weapon, the gun, whatever you want to call it – this is everything that I’ve managed to find out about it. Clues, rumours, whispers, from a hundred worlds. Maybe they don’t all point to the same thing – I’d be amazed if they did. But some of them do, I’m sure of it, and before long I’m going to find the piece that ties the whole thing together.’ He stabbed a finger at a nest of numbers next to one of the charts. ‘Look how recent these time tags are, Teal. I’m still searching – still gathering evidence.’

  Her face was in profile, bathed in the different colours of the images. The slope of her nose, the angle of her chin, reminded him in certain small ways of Sayaca.

  She turned to him sharply, as if she had been aware of his gaze.

  ‘I saw pictures of you,’ Teal said. ‘They showed us them in warcreche. They were a warning against irresponsibility. You look much older than you did in those pictures.’

  ‘Travel broadens the mind. It also puts a large number of lines on you.’ He nodded at the collage of records. ‘I’m no angel, and I’ve made mistakes, but this proves I’m still committed. Which means we’re both in the same boat, doesn’t it? Lone survivors, forced together, each needing to trust the other. Are you really the last of your crew?’

  There was a silence before she answered.

  ‘Yes. I knew it before I went under, the last time. There were still others around, but mine was the last reliable cabinet – the only one that stood a chance of working.’

  ‘You were chosen, to have the best chance?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded, thinking again of those inner scars. ‘Then I’ve a proposition.’ He raised a finger, silencing her before she could get a word out. ‘The Huskers did something terrible to you and your people, as they did mine. They deserve to be punished for that, and they will be. Together we can make it happen.’

  ‘By finding your fabled weapon?’

  ‘By finding the syrinx that’ll help me carry on with my search. You said that system wasn’t far away. If it’s on the Waynet, I can reach it in Tyrant. We backtrack. If you traded with them once, we can trade again. You’ve seen that system once before, so you have the local knowledge I most certainly lack.’

  She glanced away, her expression clouded by very obvious misgivings.

  ‘We sold them a syrinx,’ Teal said. ‘One of the rarest, strangest things ever made. All you have is a little black ship and some stories. What could you ever offer them that would be worth that?’

  ‘I’d think of something,’ Merlin said.

  The transition, when it came, was the hardest so far. Merlin had been expecting the worst and had made sure the two of them were buckled in as tightly as their couches allowed, side by side in Tyrant’s command deck. When they slipped into the Waynet it had felt like an impact, a solid scraping blow against the ship, as if it were grinding its way along the flank of an asteroid or iceberg. Alarms sounded, and the hull gave off moans and shrieks of structural complaint. Tyrant yawed violently. Probes and stabilisers flaked away from the hull.

  But it held. Merlin waited for the instruments to settle down, and for the normal smooth motion of the flow to assert itself. Only then did he start breathing again.

  ‘We’re all right. Once we’re in the Way, it’s rarely too bad. It’s just coming in and out that’s becoming problematic.’ Long experience told him it was safe to unbuckle, and he motioned for Teal to do likewise. She had kept her suit on and her helmet nearby, as if either of those things stood any chance of protecting her if the transition failed completely. Merlin had removed all but the clothes he normally wore in Tyrant – baggy and tending to frills and ornamentation.

  ‘How long until we come out again?’

  Merlin squinted at one of the indicators. ‘About six hours. We’re moving very quickly now – only about a hundred billionth part less than the speed of light. Do you see those circles that shoot past us every second?’

  They were like the glowing ribs of a tunnel, whisking to either side in an endless, hypnotic procession.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Constraining hoops. Anchored back into fixed space. They pin down the Way, keep it flowing in the right direction. In reality, they’re about eight light hours apart – far enough that you could easily drop a solar system between them. I think about the Waymakers a lot, you know. They made an empire so old that by the time it fell hardly anyone remembered anything that came before it. Light and wealth and all the sunsets anyone could ever ask for.’

  ‘Look at all the good it did them,’ Teal said. ‘We’re like rats, hunting for crumbs in the ruins they left us.’

  ‘Even rats have their day,’ Merlin said. ‘And speaking of crumbs... would you like something to eat?’

  ‘What sort of rations do you have?’

  He patted his belly. ‘We run to a bit more than rations on Tyrant.’

  With the ship weightless, still rushing down the throat of the Way, they ate with their legs tucked under them in the glass eye of the forward observation bubble. Merlin eyed Teal between mouthfuls, noticing how entirely at ease she was with the absence of gravity, never needing to chase a gobbet of food or a stray blob of water. She had declined his offer of wine, but Merlin saw no need to put himself through such hardship.

  ‘Tell me about the people you traded with,’ he said.

  ‘They were fools,’ Teal said. She carried on eating for a few mouthfuls. ‘But useful fools. They had what we needed, and we had something they considered valuable.’

  ‘Fools, why exactly?’

  ‘They were at war. An interplanetary conflict, fought using fusion ships and fusion bombs. Strategy shaped by artificial intelligences on both sides. It had been going on for centuries when we got there, with only intervals of peace, when the military computers reached a stalemate. Just enough time to rebuild before they started blowing each other to hell again. Two worlds, circling different stars of a binary system, and all the other planets and moons caught up in it in one way or another. A twisted, factional mess. And stupid, too.’ She stabbed her fork into the rations as if her meal was something that needed killing. ‘Huskers aren’t thick in this sector, but you don’t go around making noise and light if you’ve any choice. And there’s always a choice.’

  ‘We don’t seem to have much choice about this w
ar we’re in,’ Merlin said.

  ‘We’re different.’ Her eyes were hard and cold. ‘This is species-level survival. Their stupid interplanetary war was over trivial ideology. Old grudges, sustained and fanned. Men and women willingly handing their fates to battle computers. Pardalote was reluctant to do business with them: too hard to know who to speak to, who to trust.’

  Merlin made a pained, studious look. ‘I’d never meddle in someone else’s war.’

  She pushed the fork around. ‘In the end it wasn’t too bad. We identified the side best placed to help us, and got in and out before there were too many complications.’

  ‘Complications?’

  ‘There weren’t any. Not in the end.’ She was silent for a second or two. ‘I was glad to leave that stupid place. I’ve barely thought about them since.’

  ‘Your logs say you were in that system thirteen hundred years ago. A lot could have changed since then. Who knows, maybe they’ve patched up their differences.’

  ‘And maybe the Huskers found them.’

  ‘You know what, Teal? You’re cheerful company.’

  ‘Seeing the rest of your crew die will do that. You chose to leave, Merlin – it wasn’t that you were the last survivor.’

  He sipped at his wine, debating how much of a clear head he would need when they emerged from the Way. Sometimes a clear head was the last thing that helped.

  ‘I lost good people as well, Teal.’

  ‘Really?’

  He pushed off, moved to a cabinet and drew out a pair of immersion suits.

  ‘If you went through warcreche you’ll know what these are. Do you trust me enough to put one on?’

  Teal took the dun-coloured garment and studied it with unveiled distaste. ‘What good will this do?’

  ‘Put it on. I want to show you what I lost.’

  ‘We’ll win this war in reality, not simulations. There’s nothing you can show me that ...’

  ‘Just do it, Teal.’

  She scowled at him, but went into a back room of Tyrant to remove her own clothes and don the tight-fitting immersion suit. By the time she was ready Merlin had slipped into the other suit. He nodded at Teal as she spidered back into the cabin. ‘Good. Trust is good. We’ll only be inside a little while, but I think it’ll help. Ship, patch us through.’

  ‘The Palace, Merlin?’

  ‘Where else?’

  The suit prickled his neck as it established its connection with his spine. There was the usual moment of dislocation and Tyrant melted away, to be replaced by a surrounding of warm stone walls and tall fretted windows, shot through with amber sun.

  Teal was standing next to him.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Where I was born. Where my brother and I spent the first couple of decades of our existence, before the Cohort came.’ Merlin walked to the nearest window and bid Teal to follow him. ‘Gallinule created this environment long after we left. He’s gone now as well, so this is a reminder of the past for me in more ways than one.’

  ‘Your brother’s dead?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  She left it at that. ‘What world are we on?’

  ‘Plenitude, we called it. Common enough name, I suppose.’ Merlin stepped onto a plinth under the window, offering a better view through its fretwork. ‘Do you see the land below?’

  Teal strained to look down. ‘It’s moving – sliding under us. I thought we were in a castle or something.’

  ‘We are. The Palace of Eternal Dusk. My family home for thirteen hundred years – as long as the interval between your visits to that system.’ He touched his hand against the stonework. ‘We didn’t make this place. It was unoccupied for centuries, circling Plenitude at exactly the same speed as the line between day and night. My family were the first to reach it from the surface, using supersonic aircraft. We held it for the next forty generations.’ He lifted his face to the unchanging aspect of the sun, hovering at its fixed position over the endlessly flowing horizon. ‘My uncle was a bit of an amateur archaeologist. He dug deep into the rock the palace is built on, as far down as the anti-gravity keel. He said he found evidence that it was at least twenty thousand years old, and maybe quite a bit more than that.’ Merlin touched a hand to Teal’s shoulder. ‘Let me show you something else.’

  She flinched under his touch but allowed him to steer her to one of the parlours branching off the main room. Merlin halted them both at the door, touching a finger to his lips. Two boys knelt on a carpet in the middle of the parlour, their forms side-lit by golden light. They were surrounded by toy armies, spread out in ordered regiments and platoons.

  ‘Gallinule and I,’ Merlin whispered, as the younger of the boys took his turn to move a mounted and penanted figure from one flank to another. ‘Dreaming of war. Little did we know we’d get more than our share of it.’

  He backed away, leaving the boys to their games, and took Teal to the next parlour.

  Here an old woman sat in a stern black chair, facing one of the sunlit windows with her face mostly averted from the door. She wore black and had her hands in her lap, keeping perfectly still and watchful.

  ‘Years later,’ Merlin said, ‘Gallinule and I were taken from Plenitude. It was meant to be an act of kindness, preserving something of our world in advance of the Huskers. But it tore us from our mother. We couldn’t return to her. She was left here with the ruins of empire, her sons gone, her world soon to fall.’

  The woman seemed aware of her visitors. She turned slightly, bringing more of her face into view. Her eyes searched the door, as if looking for ghosts.

  ‘She has a gentle look,’ Teal said quietly.

  ‘She was kind,’ Merlin answered softly. ‘They spoke ill of her, but they didn’t know her, not the way Gallinule and I did.’

  The woman slowly turned back to face the window. Her face was in profile again, her eyes glistening.

  ‘Does she ever speak?’

  ‘She’s no cause to.’ Merlin’s mouth was dry for a few moments. ‘We saw it happen, from the swallowship. Saw the Husker weapons strike Plenitude – saw the fall of the Palace of Eternal Dusk.’ Merlin turned from the tableau of his mother. ‘I mean to go back, one of these days – see what’s left with my own eyes. But I find it hard to bring myself to.’

  ‘How many died?’ Teal asked.

  ‘Hundreds of millions. We were the only two that Quail managed to save, along with a few fragments of cultural knowledge. So I know what it’s like, Teal – believe me I know what it’s like.’ He turned from her with a cold disregard. ‘Ship, bring Teal out.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I need a little time on my own. You can start remembering everything I need to know about the binary system. You’ve got about five hours.’

  Tyrant pulled Teal out of the Palace. Merlin stood alone, silent, for long moments. Then he returned to the parlour where his mother watched the window, imprisoned in an endless golden day, and he stood in her shadow wondering what it would take to free her from that reverie of loss and loneliness.

  They made a safe emergence from the Waynet, Merlin holding his breath until they were out and stable and the syrinx had stopped ringing in its cradle like a badly-cracked bell.

  He took a few minutes to assess their surroundings.

  Two stars, close enough together for fusion ships to make a crossing between them in weeks. A dozen large worlds, scattered evenly between the two stars. Hundreds of moons and minor bodies. Thousands of moving ships, easily tracked across interplanetary distance, the vessels grouped into squadrons and attack formations. Battle stations and super-carriers. Fortresses and cordons. The occasional flash of a nuclear weapon or energy pulse weapon – battle ongoing.

  Tyrant was stealthy, but even a stealthy ship made a big splash coming out of the Waynet. Merlin wasn’t at all surprised when a large vessel locked onto them and closed in fast, presumably pushing its fusion engines to the limit.

  Teal carried on briefing him as
the ship approached.

  ‘I don’t like the look of that thing,’ Tyrant said, as soon as they had a clear view.

  ‘I don’t either,’ Merlin said. ‘We’ll treat it respectfully. Wouldn’t want you getting a scratch on your paintwork, would we?’

  The vessel was three times as large as Merlin’s ship and every inch a thing of war. Guns bristled from its hull. It was made of old alloys, forged and joined by venerable methods, and its engines and weapons depended on the antique alchemy of magnetically bottled fusion. A snarling mouth that had been painted across the front of the ship, crammed with razor-tipped teeth.

  ‘It’s a Havergal ship,’ Teal said. ‘That’s their marking, that dagger-and-star. It doesn’t look all that different to the ships they had when we were here before.’

  ‘Fusion’s a plateau technology,’ Merlin remarked. ‘If all they ever needed to do was get around this binary system and blow each other up now and then, it would have been sufficient.’

  ‘They knew about the Waynet, of course – hard to miss it, cutting through their sky the way it does. That interested them. They wanted to jump all the way from fusion to syrinx technology, without all the hard stuff in between.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like they got very far, does it?’

  The angry-looking ship drew alongside. An airlock opened and a squad of armoured figures came out on rocket packs. Merlin remained tense, but commanded Tyrant’s weapons to remain inside their hatches. He also told the proctors to hide themselves away until he needed them.

  Footfalls clanged onto the hull. Grappling devices slid like nails on rust. Merlin opened his airlock, nodded at Teal, and the two of them went to meet the boarding party. He was half way there when a thought occurred to him. ‘Unless they bring up your earlier visit, don’t mention it. You’re just along for the ride with me. I want to know if there’s anything they say or do that doesn’t fit with your picture of them – anything they might be keeping from me.’

  ‘I speak their language. Isn’t that going to take some explaining?’

  ‘Feign ignorance to start with, then make it seem as if you’re picking it up as you go. If they get suspicious, we’ll just say that there are a dozen other systems in this sector where they speak a similar dialect.’ He flashed a nervous smile at Teal. ‘Or something. Make it up. Be creative.’