Wil McCarthy - To Crush the Moon

Tamra nodded, absorbing that. “I see. And the chance that we’ll kill at least one person? Permanently, irrevocably? For no greater crime than the seeking of asylum?”

“That’s all but certain,” Xmary said quietly.

Tamra brooded, and would have wept if she didn’t still need her face for negotiating. She’d been fifteen when they made her Queen of All Things. An orphan, grieving for her drunken, foolish parents. Was it any wonder she’d made mistakes? How could she not? She grieved now—she ached for that lonely girl, on whom such burdens were heaped. What a bitter cup to drink from!

To Xmary she said, “Tell me if that ship changes course. If they twitch, if they move at all , I want to know about it. Immediately.”

“Aye, Majesty.”

“Time to nasen firing?”

“Six minutes.”

A while later: “Time?”

“Four minutes.”

Later still, Xmary piped up with a guarded, “ Perdition is turning, Majesty.”

“Oh, thank God,” Tamra said, feeling suddenly clammy and limp. “Stand down all weapons and prepare to destealth.”

But Xmary remained rigid in her captain’s chair. “Ma’am, the maneuver could be defensive. It could be offensive . It could mean anything.”

“Yes, yes. Is their drive beam pointed through the heart of civilization?”

A pause, then, “No.”

“Does it impinge on any habitats?”

“No.”

“Then we’ve room to de-escalate this encounter. Stand down all weapons and prepare to escort Perdition into high orbit over Lune.”

“But Majesty,” Brown protested. “The economy—”

“Will muddle along somehow. Stand down all weapons, Xmary. That’s a decree .” Then: “Navywide transmission: Royal Override, all channels, all devices. Cease hostilities and escort Perdition to Lune.”

History records this command as Tamra’s greatest—and final—mistake, and perhaps that is so. But erring on the side of compassion had always been her way, and if nothing lasts forever, then at least a queen should die as she has lived.

Was there a spy onboard Malu’i ? A saboteur? Was there perhaps some superweapon onboard Perdition , whose design and function has since been forgotten? In any case, these words were Tamra’s last, for Malu’i exploded three seconds thereafter, in a flash of light so brilliant it was visible to telescopes as far away as Eridani itself.

And then the Nescog fell.

The last official act of the Queendom of Sol was a simple radio message eleven hours later, from a King Bruno mad with grief. “The speed of light is hard upon us, my friends. God forgive us our sins. I cannot rule, with confidence, any region larger than the Earth and moon together. Full legal authority is hereby transferred to the regional governors for the duration of this emergency. Royal Override on all channels, all devices. Be brave, and uphold the ideals for which we’ve stood.”

And so they did, those citizens of the Queendom, for the bravely fought decades it took the shattered Nescog—nearly a trillion miniature black holes, equaling the mass of several Earths—to alight upon the planets of Sol, one by one, and crush them to oblivion.

Accipe signaculum doni Spiritus Sancti.

“A denouement gives flight to mere incident,” Wenders Rodenbeck wrote in the classic Past Pie Season , “freeing us at last from the rigid rail of time. Berries wither, leaves fall, and the mourning dove bows her head, with a song of distant spring beating frozen in her breast.”

“In light of your past service to the nation of Imbria,” says the woman named Danella Mota, “we are prepared to forgive the excesses of your men on the ramparts today.”

They are deep within the city of Timoch, on the hard-pressed world of Lune, where three women—with shadowy Eridanian faces and six-fingered Sirian hands—apparently rule over humanity’s strongest remaining nation-state.

“The Furies are most generous,” Radmer answers, with a bow of the head that is surely calculated for maximum ambiguity. Is he being surly or ironic? Is he partly or wholly sincere? Bruno can’t tell.

A partial answer comes when the second woman, Pine Chadwir, admonishes him, “That term is no longer considered polite, General. We are, as always, the Board of Regents of the Imbrian Nation.”

“Ah, yes. My failing memory is abetted by your grandmother’s sense of humor in these matters, Madam Regent.”

But “Furies” is a good nickname for these three old women, who command a quarter of Lune’s surface from this very room, the Silver Chamber. They are seated on a dais ringed by aides and pages, scribes and whispering advisors, but the room’s three primary lights—halide-filament vacuum bulbs, Bruno thinks—point straight down at them, with a smaller, dimmer bulb casting a cone of yellow around himself and Radmer.

Behind them, the Olders Sidney Lyman and Brian Romset—who were permitted to accompany Radmer as bodyguards—exude an air of angry but fearless distrust. And in counterpoint, a dozen Dolceti guards in canary-yellow uniforms loom quietly in the shadows behind the dais, looking grudgingly respectful but ready for anything. Dead before you hit the ground, villain, their looks seem to say, though if it came to that Bruno could probably take down one or two of them himself before succumbing to any serious injury.

But all things considered, the chamber is exceedingly quiet, and the lighting makes it seem dreamlike as well, and the seated ladies mythic in proportion and demeanor. All they need is a spindle, loom, and scissors to complete the effect. But out of courtesy they speak the Old Tongue—essentially Queendom-standard English—and Radmer, with a different kind of courtesy, does the same. That makes them seem more human, and anyway Bruno is well familiar with the psychological tricks a leadership can employ to enhance its mystique, its air of natural authority. The Queendom was founded on these principles, long before he’d been drafted as its king.

“Do enlighten us, Radmer, with your reason for this accostment,” says the third Fury, whose name Bruno can no longer remember from the introductions. Sprain? Spirulina? Something like that. “It may surprise you to learn we’ve an invasion to repel.”

“The very reason I’m here,” Radmer tells her, “for I watched Nubia fall to the Glimmer King’s armies. I know very well what Imbria faces in the coming weeks.”

“Our guards report you’ve distinguished yourself in clashes against the enemy.”

“Aye, madam, on Aden Bluff and outside your gates, and in Nubia before that.”

“We also had a string of reports out of Highrock. That you supervised the construction of a very large catapult? Using the Tillspar bridge as its lath?”

“That’s so, madam.”

“And this catapult is capable of flinging a hollow canister completely off the planette?”

“Not to escape velocity, madam. The capsule falls back again unless its rockets are fired. But yes. The VLC can also bombard any point on Lune, though its accuracy is measured in kilometers, and its firing time in days. If we knew the location of the Glimmer King’s palace—assuming such a place exists at all—then with a hundred shots we might have a hope of hitting it. But I doubt we’ll be granted the time such an experiment would require.”

“Indeed,” says Pine Chadwir. Then she pauses, looking apologetic, as though her next words will sound insane. “But one of our agents observed you climbing into such a canister, being fired at the heavens and not returning during the three days of his observation. Is there any truth to this?”