Mouse crouched over his father for a long time, holding
Storm’s hand, fighting back tears. Someone came and rested
gentle fingers on his shoulder. He looked up. Pollyanna had come
over, using a laserifle as a crutch.
“He’s dead,” Mouse said. Disbelief distorted
his face. “My father is dead.”
“They’re all dead. Everybody’s dead but
us.” Her voice was as dull as his.
He rose slowly, mumbling, “Everybody. Helmut and Thurston.
And Lucifer. And everybody.” The magnitude of it slowly sank
in. His father and two brothers. His father’s friend. And all
the people and family who had died
already . . .
“I’ll kill them,” he whispered Then,
screaming, “All of them!” He started smashing consoles
with his rifle. But it was a delicate weapon. Soon he held nothing
but a shard.
“We’ve got things to do, Mouse,” Pollyanna
reminded, indicating the corpses and wreckage. Her voice held no
real interest. She was in such a state that getting on with the job
was the only glue holding her together.
“I suppose.” The dull voice again. “Will you
be all right while I hunt up some of our people?”
“Who’s left to hurt me?”
Mouse shrugged. “Yes. Who’s left?”
He went hunting Legionnaires, using business like a sword with
which he could fend off the madness clawing at his mind “All
of them,” he kept muttering. “Someday. Every Dee. Every
Sangaree.”
Withdrawing from Twilight took a day. Too many people, including
Hawksblood and the brothers Dee, could not make it to the Ehrhardt
under their own power. And the dome had to be patched, and someone
had to be found who would take charge in Twilight, someone whose
loathing for Sangaree was insurance that Michael would have nowhere
to run, insurance that Twilight would not come under the worldwide
sanctions being threatened by her Blackworld sister cities. Mouse
found his candidate after a long search. Most Twilighters wanted
shut of any identification with the seat of power. They seemed
afraid the Sangaree disease was contagious.
Time to leave arrived. And a new problem raised its Scylla-like
head.
“Polly,” Mouse said, “I don’t know if
we’re going to make it back “
“What? Why not?”
“I’m the only pilot left, and I’m not rated on
anything like the Ehrhardt.”
“Call for somebody to come up here.”
“Can’t waste time waiting for somebody to come
overland. I’ll just give it my best go myself.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“It can’t be that much harder than piloting
Cassius’s corvette. I managed that fine.”
“With him there to help if you got in any
trouble.”
“Yeah.” He truly believed he could handle the
cruiser. And he was determined to try. “Strap in,
lady.”
“Mouse . . . ”
“Then get out and walk.”
She grinned. “You’re as stubborn as your
father.”
He grinned back. “I’m his son.”
His liftoff was a little rocky.
“Gah!” Pollyanna grunted, nearly throwing up.
“We’re off!”
“That was the part that had me worried. Anybody can come
down. It’s just how fast you’re going when you get
there . . . ”
“A man does what he has to,” Mouse told her.
For a few hours the pain and hatred did not touch him. The
cruiser demanded all his sweat and guts and concentration.
He managed to get the Ehrhardt to and down on Edgeward’s
landing field without any irreparable damage.
Getting down required some careful maneuvering. A bank of ships
had arrived during their absence. They were the battered bones of
the Legion’s once-powerful little fleet. They had brought
Hakes Ceislak in from Helga’s World. They were still
off-loading the commando battalion.
Mouse had not informed anyone that he was returning, but the
word was out by the time he entered Edgeward. Blake was waiting for
him.
“Where’s Colonel Storm?” Blake asked. His face
was drawn. He feared the worst.
“My father was killed in action against
Sangaree . . . ” Mouse stopped to look
inside himself. Somehow, for the outside world, he was removing
himself from his feelings. He was reporting it as if it had
happened to a stranger.
“And Albin Korando?”
“Killed in action, Mr. Blake. I’m sorry.”
“No. That’s terrible. I’d
hoped . . . What about Colonel
Darksword?”
“Dead, sir. If you don’t see someone with me,
he’s dead. The cruiser is full of bodies. It was rough up
there.”
“Your brother Thurston, too?”
Mouse nodded.
“Who’s going to take charge? Colonel Walters is cut
off in the Shadowline . . . ”
“I speak for the Legion, Mr. Blake. We have a new
commander. Nothing else changes. If you’ll excuse
me?”
Blake struggled to roll along with Mouse. “What
happened?” There was an almost whining, pleading note in his
voice. The Shadowline War was tearing him to pieces.
For a moment Mouse could sense the man’s feelings. Blake
was thinking, What have I wrought? What have I unleashed? What did
I do that reduced Blackworld to this state?
Mouse shut everything out. He strode toward City Hall,
unconsciously imitating the walk of Gneaus Julius Storm. Knifing
through his pain was a driving need to demonstrate his competence,
to show everyone that he could step into his father’s
role.
Heads turned when he entered the war room. He checked the
boards. Dee now held the Whitlandsund. Cassius’s marker had
reached the shade station. The unit markers were dense there. Only
a handful lay more than five hundred kilometers west of the
station. Those were all small units meant to aid the Twilighters in
their withdrawal from the Shadowline’s end.
The situation was in balance, in tension. Cassius was ready to
jump off. It was discussion time.
“Get Colonel Walters on the scrambled clear trunk,”
Mouse ordered.
The man responsible, who seemed on the edge of exhaustion, gave
him a brief who-in-the-hell-are-you? look before turning to his
equipment.
Cassius came on quickly.
“Masato, Colonel.”
“Mouse. How are you?” Then Walters got a better look
at his face. “What happened?”
“Father’s dead. And Helmut. And Thurston and
Lucifer. Both younger Dees. And Richard Hawksblood. They murdered
him and his staff.”
Cassius frowned.
“All beyond-the-resurrection.”
Cassius’s features grew taut, grim.
“Cassius, we’re the only ones left.”
“It’s ending, then. But first there’s Michael
Dee. And his Sangaree.”
“Dee is trapped. We cleaned out Twilight. He can’t
go back.”
“He doesn’t know? Don’t let him find
out.”
“Ceislak’s here now. I’m taking over at this
end. I can squeeze him . . . ”
“Keep Ceislak at Edgeward. Protect the city. Don’t
let Dee hold it hostage. And get your ships off the ground.
Don’t give Dee any way out. Make him stand and fight. But let
me take care of that part. I’ll make the wasting of the
Legion useful.”
Mouse had never seen Cassius’s face so expressive. His
grief and hatred were primal.
“As you wish. I’ll make my dispositions right
away.”
“Did your father . . . say
anything?”
“Not much. He did it on purpose, Cassius. To give me a
chance to get the Dees from behind. He left a letter. He wrote it
before he went up. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I
have a feeling he knew he wasn’t coming back.”
“Let me know what he had to say. Soon. We’ll be
jumping off in a few hours.”
“Right.”
Blake, with his wife’s help, arrived. The head of the
Corporation seemed to have shrunk into a tiny old cripple. Before
he could begin condolences that would only aggravate, despite their
sincerity. Mouse told him, “It’ll be over soon, Mr.
Blake. We’ll start clearing the Whitlandsund in a few hours.
I’ll be holding Ceislak’s battalion in reserve in case
Dee turns on Edgeward.”
Blake started to say something. Grace touched his hand
lightly.
“Pollyanna’s in the hospital, Mr. Blake. I expect
she’d appreciate a friendly face. I think her heart has been
hurt worse than her body. She lost Lucifer and Korando both, and
she was very fond of my father.” He turned away from Blake.
“Ceislak. I want a screen of pickets around the crater. I
want all the listening devices out there doublechecked. If Dee
turns on us, we’ll need all the warning we can get.
Donnerman. Where’s Donnerman? Donnerman, I want your ships
off planet as soon as possible. Gentlemen, I’ll be in my
father’s apartment if I’m needed.” He pushed out
of the war room and went to Storm’s quarters.
Geri and Freki whined pathetically. They rushed into the hall,
ran back and forth anxiously, searching for their master. Finally,
they turned on him with sorrowful eyes.
“He won’t be coming back,” Mouse whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
They seemed to understand. The whining grew louder. One let out
what sounded like a low moan.
Mouse looked at the ravenshrikes. They had retreated into their
little nest, into a tight, intertwined tangle from which they
refused to be drawn. They knew. He tried coaxing them with canned
meat from the store of delicacies his father had kept. They would
not open their devil eyes.
He sighed, looked for the letter.
It lay on his father’s desk, page after page of hasty
scrawl beneath a plain sheet bearing nothing but the name Masato.
Storm’s Bible and clarinet weighted them down. The Bible lay
open at Ecclesiastes, the clarinet book-marking.
“I should’ve guessed when he didn’t take them
with him,” he whispered.
The letter, though addressed to him, sounded like an
ecclesiastical missive from Gneaus Storm. It began: “Today I
hazard the Plain of Armageddon, the blood-drenched field of
Ragnarok, to play my part in a destined
Gotterdamerung . . . ”
Mouse read it three times before he returned to the war room,
the Sirian warhounds tagging his heels apathetically. Their tails
were between their legs and their noses were down, and they made
strange snuffling sounds in their throats, but they stayed with
him.
A whisper ran around the room. Technicians turned to watch his
entrance. The Legionnaires took the behavior of the dogs as somehow
symbolic, as a seal on the transfer of the mantle of power.
“Cassius,” Mouse said, “he knew he was going
to die. He planned it. So there wouldn’t be any reason for
the rest of us to coddle Michael Dee anymore. It was the only way
he could keep from breaking his word.”
Cassius’s laugh was both harsh and sad. “He
always found a way to slide around that promise. Too bad he
couldn’t find it in him to go back on it.”
Walters’s mad humor faded. “Don’t let Michael
find out. That’s got to be our most important secret.”
Walters’s face became dreadful, something inhuman, something
demigodly. Something archetypal. “It’s time to jump
off. Take care, Mouse.” He switched off before Mouse could
question him as to his intentions. What is he going to do? Mouse wondered. He knew Cassius. It
would be something unusual, something nobody would expect. Quite
possibly something impossible . . . He settled
into the chair his father had been wont to occupy. His gaze seldom
strayed from the situation boards.
At times one or another of the technicians would glance his way
and shudder. A slim, oriental youth of small stature filled the
Colonel’s chair, yet . . . Yet there was
an aura about him, as if a ghost sat in the chair with him. The
body of Gneaus Julius Storm had perished, but the spirit lived on
in his youngest son.
Mouse crouched over his father for a long time, holding
Storm’s hand, fighting back tears. Someone came and rested
gentle fingers on his shoulder. He looked up. Pollyanna had come
over, using a laserifle as a crutch.
“He’s dead,” Mouse said. Disbelief distorted
his face. “My father is dead.”
“They’re all dead. Everybody’s dead but
us.” Her voice was as dull as his.
He rose slowly, mumbling, “Everybody. Helmut and Thurston.
And Lucifer. And everybody.” The magnitude of it slowly sank
in. His father and two brothers. His father’s friend. And all
the people and family who had died
already . . .
“I’ll kill them,” he whispered Then,
screaming, “All of them!” He started smashing consoles
with his rifle. But it was a delicate weapon. Soon he held nothing
but a shard.
“We’ve got things to do, Mouse,” Pollyanna
reminded, indicating the corpses and wreckage. Her voice held no
real interest. She was in such a state that getting on with the job
was the only glue holding her together.
“I suppose.” The dull voice again. “Will you
be all right while I hunt up some of our people?”
“Who’s left to hurt me?”
Mouse shrugged. “Yes. Who’s left?”
He went hunting Legionnaires, using business like a sword with
which he could fend off the madness clawing at his mind “All
of them,” he kept muttering. “Someday. Every Dee. Every
Sangaree.”
Withdrawing from Twilight took a day. Too many people, including
Hawksblood and the brothers Dee, could not make it to the Ehrhardt
under their own power. And the dome had to be patched, and someone
had to be found who would take charge in Twilight, someone whose
loathing for Sangaree was insurance that Michael would have nowhere
to run, insurance that Twilight would not come under the worldwide
sanctions being threatened by her Blackworld sister cities. Mouse
found his candidate after a long search. Most Twilighters wanted
shut of any identification with the seat of power. They seemed
afraid the Sangaree disease was contagious.
Time to leave arrived. And a new problem raised its Scylla-like
head.
“Polly,” Mouse said, “I don’t know if
we’re going to make it back “
“What? Why not?”
“I’m the only pilot left, and I’m not rated on
anything like the Ehrhardt.”
“Call for somebody to come up here.”
“Can’t waste time waiting for somebody to come
overland. I’ll just give it my best go myself.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“It can’t be that much harder than piloting
Cassius’s corvette. I managed that fine.”
“With him there to help if you got in any
trouble.”
“Yeah.” He truly believed he could handle the
cruiser. And he was determined to try. “Strap in,
lady.”
“Mouse . . . ”
“Then get out and walk.”
She grinned. “You’re as stubborn as your
father.”
He grinned back. “I’m his son.”
His liftoff was a little rocky.
“Gah!” Pollyanna grunted, nearly throwing up.
“We’re off!”
“That was the part that had me worried. Anybody can come
down. It’s just how fast you’re going when you get
there . . . ”
“A man does what he has to,” Mouse told her.
For a few hours the pain and hatred did not touch him. The
cruiser demanded all his sweat and guts and concentration.
He managed to get the Ehrhardt to and down on Edgeward’s
landing field without any irreparable damage.
Getting down required some careful maneuvering. A bank of ships
had arrived during their absence. They were the battered bones of
the Legion’s once-powerful little fleet. They had brought
Hakes Ceislak in from Helga’s World. They were still
off-loading the commando battalion.
Mouse had not informed anyone that he was returning, but the
word was out by the time he entered Edgeward. Blake was waiting for
him.
“Where’s Colonel Storm?” Blake asked. His face
was drawn. He feared the worst.
“My father was killed in action against
Sangaree . . . ” Mouse stopped to look
inside himself. Somehow, for the outside world, he was removing
himself from his feelings. He was reporting it as if it had
happened to a stranger.
“And Albin Korando?”
“Killed in action, Mr. Blake. I’m sorry.”
“No. That’s terrible. I’d
hoped . . . What about Colonel
Darksword?”
“Dead, sir. If you don’t see someone with me,
he’s dead. The cruiser is full of bodies. It was rough up
there.”
“Your brother Thurston, too?”
Mouse nodded.
“Who’s going to take charge? Colonel Walters is cut
off in the Shadowline . . . ”
“I speak for the Legion, Mr. Blake. We have a new
commander. Nothing else changes. If you’ll excuse
me?”
Blake struggled to roll along with Mouse. “What
happened?” There was an almost whining, pleading note in his
voice. The Shadowline War was tearing him to pieces.
For a moment Mouse could sense the man’s feelings. Blake
was thinking, What have I wrought? What have I unleashed? What did
I do that reduced Blackworld to this state?
Mouse shut everything out. He strode toward City Hall,
unconsciously imitating the walk of Gneaus Julius Storm. Knifing
through his pain was a driving need to demonstrate his competence,
to show everyone that he could step into his father’s
role.
Heads turned when he entered the war room. He checked the
boards. Dee now held the Whitlandsund. Cassius’s marker had
reached the shade station. The unit markers were dense there. Only
a handful lay more than five hundred kilometers west of the
station. Those were all small units meant to aid the Twilighters in
their withdrawal from the Shadowline’s end.
The situation was in balance, in tension. Cassius was ready to
jump off. It was discussion time.
“Get Colonel Walters on the scrambled clear trunk,”
Mouse ordered.
The man responsible, who seemed on the edge of exhaustion, gave
him a brief who-in-the-hell-are-you? look before turning to his
equipment.
Cassius came on quickly.
“Masato, Colonel.”
“Mouse. How are you?” Then Walters got a better look
at his face. “What happened?”
“Father’s dead. And Helmut. And Thurston and
Lucifer. Both younger Dees. And Richard Hawksblood. They murdered
him and his staff.”
Cassius frowned.
“All beyond-the-resurrection.”
Cassius’s features grew taut, grim.
“Cassius, we’re the only ones left.”
“It’s ending, then. But first there’s Michael
Dee. And his Sangaree.”
“Dee is trapped. We cleaned out Twilight. He can’t
go back.”
“He doesn’t know? Don’t let him find
out.”
“Ceislak’s here now. I’m taking over at this
end. I can squeeze him . . . ”
“Keep Ceislak at Edgeward. Protect the city. Don’t
let Dee hold it hostage. And get your ships off the ground.
Don’t give Dee any way out. Make him stand and fight. But let
me take care of that part. I’ll make the wasting of the
Legion useful.”
Mouse had never seen Cassius’s face so expressive. His
grief and hatred were primal.
“As you wish. I’ll make my dispositions right
away.”
“Did your father . . . say
anything?”
“Not much. He did it on purpose, Cassius. To give me a
chance to get the Dees from behind. He left a letter. He wrote it
before he went up. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I
have a feeling he knew he wasn’t coming back.”
“Let me know what he had to say. Soon. We’ll be
jumping off in a few hours.”
“Right.”
Blake, with his wife’s help, arrived. The head of the
Corporation seemed to have shrunk into a tiny old cripple. Before
he could begin condolences that would only aggravate, despite their
sincerity. Mouse told him, “It’ll be over soon, Mr.
Blake. We’ll start clearing the Whitlandsund in a few hours.
I’ll be holding Ceislak’s battalion in reserve in case
Dee turns on Edgeward.”
Blake started to say something. Grace touched his hand
lightly.
“Pollyanna’s in the hospital, Mr. Blake. I expect
she’d appreciate a friendly face. I think her heart has been
hurt worse than her body. She lost Lucifer and Korando both, and
she was very fond of my father.” He turned away from Blake.
“Ceislak. I want a screen of pickets around the crater. I
want all the listening devices out there doublechecked. If Dee
turns on us, we’ll need all the warning we can get.
Donnerman. Where’s Donnerman? Donnerman, I want your ships
off planet as soon as possible. Gentlemen, I’ll be in my
father’s apartment if I’m needed.” He pushed out
of the war room and went to Storm’s quarters.
Geri and Freki whined pathetically. They rushed into the hall,
ran back and forth anxiously, searching for their master. Finally,
they turned on him with sorrowful eyes.
“He won’t be coming back,” Mouse whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
They seemed to understand. The whining grew louder. One let out
what sounded like a low moan.
Mouse looked at the ravenshrikes. They had retreated into their
little nest, into a tight, intertwined tangle from which they
refused to be drawn. They knew. He tried coaxing them with canned
meat from the store of delicacies his father had kept. They would
not open their devil eyes.
He sighed, looked for the letter.
It lay on his father’s desk, page after page of hasty
scrawl beneath a plain sheet bearing nothing but the name Masato.
Storm’s Bible and clarinet weighted them down. The Bible lay
open at Ecclesiastes, the clarinet book-marking.
“I should’ve guessed when he didn’t take them
with him,” he whispered.
The letter, though addressed to him, sounded like an
ecclesiastical missive from Gneaus Storm. It began: “Today I
hazard the Plain of Armageddon, the blood-drenched field of
Ragnarok, to play my part in a destined
Gotterdamerung . . . ”
Mouse read it three times before he returned to the war room,
the Sirian warhounds tagging his heels apathetically. Their tails
were between their legs and their noses were down, and they made
strange snuffling sounds in their throats, but they stayed with
him.
A whisper ran around the room. Technicians turned to watch his
entrance. The Legionnaires took the behavior of the dogs as somehow
symbolic, as a seal on the transfer of the mantle of power.
“Cassius,” Mouse said, “he knew he was going
to die. He planned it. So there wouldn’t be any reason for
the rest of us to coddle Michael Dee anymore. It was the only way
he could keep from breaking his word.”
Cassius’s laugh was both harsh and sad. “He
always found a way to slide around that promise. Too bad he
couldn’t find it in him to go back on it.”
Walters’s mad humor faded. “Don’t let Michael
find out. That’s got to be our most important secret.”
Walters’s face became dreadful, something inhuman, something
demigodly. Something archetypal. “It’s time to jump
off. Take care, Mouse.” He switched off before Mouse could
question him as to his intentions. What is he going to do? Mouse wondered. He knew Cassius. It
would be something unusual, something nobody would expect. Quite
possibly something impossible . . . He settled
into the chair his father had been wont to occupy. His gaze seldom
strayed from the situation boards.
At times one or another of the technicians would glance his way
and shudder. A slim, oriental youth of small stature filled the
Colonel’s chair, yet . . . Yet there was
an aura about him, as if a ghost sat in the chair with him. The
body of Gneaus Julius Storm had perished, but the spirit lived on
in his youngest son.