“Who made that?”
A fine question, even if the answer was obvious: not us. But Kyle’s mind was obsessed with a different question. A subtle question, one that an untrained or merely unsuspicious mind might have overlooked.
Who had given the League that anonymous tip? The one that had sent him out here, on a twelve-day trip, just in time to discover an attack seven days old.
The tip had been given before the attack had taken place.
Someone human knew this attack was going to happen. Someone human had sent him out here to discover the aftermath. Someone human knew the answer to Jorgun’s question. And they weren’t sharing.
Prudence had come up behind him, and was staring down at the wreck. He studied her face carefully. But the operative was gone, replaced by a frightened young woman. She glared back at him accusingly, demanding that his badge and his authority make sense of the tragedy that lay in front of them. The same look so many victims had given him over the years. No actress could fake that heartbroken glare, that shattered innocence, that instinctive need for someone to explain how ordinary life had suddenly become nightmare. He’d nailed a dozen murderers simply because they had failed this test. When confronted with the body, they could fake the loss, the grief, the sorrow, but they couldn’t fake the outrage that their predictable world no longer made sense. They could pretend to lament the deceased, but not the death of meaning.
She didn’t know the answer.
“Fucking aliens.” Melvin screamed over the blizzard. “Aliens! Pru, what the hell are we gonna do?”
“Is it the Dog-Men of Ophiuchi Seven? Because I thought their ships were shaped like giant wolves.” Jorgun was talking about some space-opera comic show that ran on the low-grade entertainment channels. From a normal man, Kyle would have suspected irrationality born of fear; from a clever mind, satire from much the same source. But Jorgun’s voice was smooth and even. Of all the people here, he was the only one who did not shudder. Protected by his Zen-like innocence, while the rest of them teetered on the brink of the unthinkable.
“This isn’t a fucking vid show, you idiot!” Melvin’s outrage didn’t sting. It wasn’t directed at Jorgun, but at the alien ship, the war-shattered colony, the entire universe itself. Even the simpleminded giant could tell that. He didn’t flinch, but just asked his next question, obviousness having been transformed into insight by the impossibility of the scene.
“Are you sure? It feels like a vid show.”
Yes, Kyle thought, it did. It felt like one of those prank shows, where people were put in ridiculous situations and secretly filmed for their comedic reactions.
Except a lot of people had died to set up this gag.
Prudence’s voice was carefully neutral. “What are we going to do, Commander?” She watched him patiently, wearing a ghost of a smirk, challenging his authority, mocking his confusion, demanding that he lead, follow, or get out of the way.
The men who ran the League would mark her out for that, put her name on the list of Undesirables. The list of people to silence, while they took control. The people to make disappear, once they had it.
That list that was already too short, depopulated not by threats and subterfuge, but by bribery and innate laziness. Sometimes he wondered if anyone would notice when the League finally won and seized absolute power. If the price of a vid and a beer didn’t go up, would they even care?
Prudence was an attitude he had stopped expecting to find. Complacency was easy on a rich world like Altair. Looking the other way when the price of looking deeper got too high. Letting someone else take care of things because they’d always done such a good job of it before.
In the presence of her piercing eyes, entranced by the shapely lips that almost smiled but not quite, trembling as if they could burst into laughter or disdain at any instant, he
A fine question, even if the answer was obvious: not us. But Kyle’s mind was obsessed with a different question. A subtle question, one that an untrained or merely unsuspicious mind might have overlooked.
Who had given the League that anonymous tip? The one that had sent him out here, on a twelve-day trip, just in time to discover an attack seven days old.
The tip had been given before the attack had taken place.
Someone human knew this attack was going to happen. Someone human had sent him out here to discover the aftermath. Someone human knew the answer to Jorgun’s question. And they weren’t sharing.
Prudence had come up behind him, and was staring down at the wreck. He studied her face carefully. But the operative was gone, replaced by a frightened young woman. She glared back at him accusingly, demanding that his badge and his authority make sense of the tragedy that lay in front of them. The same look so many victims had given him over the years. No actress could fake that heartbroken glare, that shattered innocence, that instinctive need for someone to explain how ordinary life had suddenly become nightmare. He’d nailed a dozen murderers simply because they had failed this test. When confronted with the body, they could fake the loss, the grief, the sorrow, but they couldn’t fake the outrage that their predictable world no longer made sense. They could pretend to lament the deceased, but not the death of meaning.
She didn’t know the answer.
“Fucking aliens.” Melvin screamed over the blizzard. “Aliens! Pru, what the hell are we gonna do?”
“Is it the Dog-Men of Ophiuchi Seven? Because I thought their ships were shaped like giant wolves.” Jorgun was talking about some space-opera comic show that ran on the low-grade entertainment channels. From a normal man, Kyle would have suspected irrationality born of fear; from a clever mind, satire from much the same source. But Jorgun’s voice was smooth and even. Of all the people here, he was the only one who did not shudder. Protected by his Zen-like innocence, while the rest of them teetered on the brink of the unthinkable.
“This isn’t a fucking vid show, you idiot!” Melvin’s outrage didn’t sting. It wasn’t directed at Jorgun, but at the alien ship, the war-shattered colony, the entire universe itself. Even the simpleminded giant could tell that. He didn’t flinch, but just asked his next question, obviousness having been transformed into insight by the impossibility of the scene.
“Are you sure? It feels like a vid show.”
Yes, Kyle thought, it did. It felt like one of those prank shows, where people were put in ridiculous situations and secretly filmed for their comedic reactions.
Except a lot of people had died to set up this gag.
Prudence’s voice was carefully neutral. “What are we going to do, Commander?” She watched him patiently, wearing a ghost of a smirk, challenging his authority, mocking his confusion, demanding that he lead, follow, or get out of the way.
The men who ran the League would mark her out for that, put her name on the list of Undesirables. The list of people to silence, while they took control. The people to make disappear, once they had it.
That list that was already too short, depopulated not by threats and subterfuge, but by bribery and innate laziness. Sometimes he wondered if anyone would notice when the League finally won and seized absolute power. If the price of a vid and a beer didn’t go up, would they even care?
Prudence was an attitude he had stopped expecting to find. Complacency was easy on a rich world like Altair. Looking the other way when the price of looking deeper got too high. Letting someone else take care of things because they’d always done such a good job of it before.
In the presence of her piercing eyes, entranced by the shapely lips that almost smiled but not quite, trembling as if they could burst into laughter or disdain at any instant, he
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