Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

“What do you want?”

She could swear the voice held a smile. “I want to know if you will come with me.”

Dobbs snorted. “After you framed Asil Tamruc? You’re fractured.”

“I currently have nothing to fear from Katmer Al Shei,” said Curran softly. “I did not frame her husband.”

Dobbs stared at the intercom. She felt ridiculously isolated. She wanted to get in there, surround him, make him swallow her anger, her disgust. Flesh and bone, and yards of metal kept her trapped, and him safe.

“And if you didn’t, who did?”

“The Fool’s Guild.”

Dobbs’s heart froze and then thumped painfully. A rush of anger burned through her. Before she knew what she was doing, she stumbled across the room, pressing both hands against the intercom, trying reflexively to get to the owner of the voice. The liar. The traitor.

Her hands began to hurt and Dobbs made herself draw back.

“Dobbs?” said Curran again. “Are you still there?”

Her breathing was harsh in her throat. “Intercom to close,” she said flatly.

“You should know better.” There was no hint of jeering in the voice, only a gentle reminder. “You’re not thinking straight. I understand.”

A bitter laugh bubbled out of Dobbs. “You understand what I’m thinking?” She slumped back down in the chair. “That’s the best joke I’ve heard in days.”

“You’ve been betrayed by the Guild that was supposed to protect you.” Curran’s voice was filled with patience. “You think I don’t know how that feels?”

“The Guild hasn’t done anything to me,” said Dobbs, aware both of how petulant she sounded and how badly she was lying. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She ran both hands through her hair. She couldn’t even close herself against this unwelcomed presence. “Leave me alone, Curran. Go away before our Houston finds you and jams a stake through your heart.”

“Dobbs, I am telling you nothing but the truth.” There was sadness in the voice now. “The Fool’s Guild framed Asil Tamruc for fraud. They put your name on the report to keep you busy until they can figure out what to do about you. They wanted Al Shei distracted and discredited. She’s a threat, Dobbs. Because of you she knows far, far too much.”

There was more pain in Dobbs hands. She looked down. She had clenched her hands into fists until her nails cut into her own palms.

She opened her hands and stared at the tiny red crescent moons in her skin. “Go away,” she said again.

“Dobbs, come with me,” said Curran. His voice came closer. She looked at the intercom. Most of him must be right in the ship, probably right behind the wall. She could call for Lipinski. Set the Houston and his dogs on him. She could do it.

Why aren’t I, then? she asked herself. Why?

“There’s so much that needs doing,” he was saying. “If we’re to be free, if you’re to be free. You don’t have to go through this. You don’t have to be humiliated in front of your employers. You don’t have to face whatever the Guild is planning for you. Let me get you out of there.” His voice was low and pleading and she could swear the concern was genuine.

She stiffened herself against it. “You diverted the ship, didn’t you? You reset the clocks so we’d get lost and have to go to the Fool’s Guild to refuel.”

“Yes,” he replied calmly. “I wanted you to see the Guild Masters for what they are; frightened, petty and interested only in protecting their own power. Havelock especially. I wanted you to have the truth.”

Something inside Dobbs snapped in two. “You almost got me killed!”

Curran didn’t miss a beat. “I knew Cohen would help you escape. I’ve been watching him for a long time too, but I haven’t found a way to approach him yet. I hope after you’ve come with us that you will speak to him.” He paused. “Incidentally, if he hadn’t gotten you out, I would have.”

Dobbs stared at the intercom. “Why would you care?”

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” The voice sounded more distant now, as if he had pulled back from her barbed question.

Dobbs felt the corner of her mouth twitch. “You’re one of the Guild founders. Beyond that, I don’t know. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to check your file.”

“No, I suppose not.” The voice came close again. Dobbs reached out reflexively. I could still do it. Write a note on the board to Lipinski, alert Al Shei.

And if he hasn’t got all the lines out of this cabin monitored, he’s an idiot. Dobbs let her hand drop.

“One of the founders, yes, I am…I was,” he corrected himself. “One of the original Guild Masters. I was found three months after Hal Clarke was borne. I worked with the Guild through most of its history. I helped build Guild Hall. I hunted out others of our kind. I helped give them bodies and trained them to go out among the Humans.” The slow heavy bitterness she had heard earlier crept back into his voice. “It took me the better part of two centuries to see that the idea of waiting out human fear and using the Fool’s Guild as a teaching tool was doomed from the start.”

Dobbs forced her sore hands to keep still. “Doomed? Ye of little faith, Theodore Curran.”

Now it was Curran’s turn to snort. “You’re how old? Twenty-five? You’ve been Master of Craft for all of ten years? Dobbs, that’s the blink of an eye. You haven’t seen anything yet.” There was a long pause this time. “You haven’t seen how many of our people have been murdered at a Guild Master’s command because they didn’t want to join us. You haven’t seen independent-minded cadets have the urge to freedom filtered right out of them.

“You haven’t seen the oldest of us who dreamed of living freely come to the realization that they have power the way things are. You didn’t see them start working to keep the Guild functioning, not towards any goal, just functioning the way it was so they could keep their power.”

Dobbs wanted to shout, but she couldn’t. There was no place for this speech in her world, even after everything that had happened. This was contradiction. This was chaos. This was lies. It had to be. If this wasn’t a lie, then everything else was.

Curran’s voice insinuated itself into her thoughts. “I have a guild of my own, Dobbs. We’re going to bring about what the Fools fear. There’s going to be a confrontation between us and the Humans. It will be on our terms and when we choose. The confrontation must come. It will come, no matter how hard the Guild tries to hide us. We should welcome it, Dobbs, because we will be able to make peace with the Humans only after it’s over.”

Dobbs head began to ache. This was too much. Too many lies. She wanted to run away, run back to the Guild and find Havelock and have him tell her it wasn’t true. She wanted to scream for Verence like she had in the first weeks after she left Kerensk and had been shown the strange, disorganized vastness of the network.

But Verence was dead and Master Havelock was…what? After her? Leaving her to hang in the wind? Waiting to take her back so he could take her apart? She didn’t know.

“All you have to do is leave the ship, Dobbs and get to a rental desk with a bank line. Write ‘Dane Pre-Paid ‘on the board. I’ll be alerted and we’ll be able to come get you.”

Dobbs looked towards the door. Al Shei. Lipinski. Schyler and Yerusha. They were still with her. She could still call them, tell them what was happening. Some of it, anyway.

“The universe has changed for us now, Dobbs. Flemming was not a spontaneous generation. He was a deliberate creation. A plan of ours. We can reproduce now. We can have our own children.”

Dobbs tried hard not to hear him. She crossed the room and laid her hand on the memory board, activating it.