And All the Stars

Chapter Twenty-Four

A small command group – primarily the Musketeers and the leech Blues – woke Madeleine a third time, returning to the North’s suite for a strategy meeting after the rest of the hotel had been cleared. Of the three hundred and fifty-odd possessed Blues in Sydney, they had now freed a hundred and eight. There were as many Greens in the building, posing such a technical difficulty for the freed Blues that any suggestion of rescuing Blues in other hotels was quickly shut down.

"It will have to wait until after we’ve faced the Core. If the Spire withdraws, the Greens will recover themselves in…" Noi shrugged, her eyes still flat and dark. "The North didn’t know the exact timing. A day or a week – long enough that we’ll be either fighting, avoiding, or have our hands full helping them. The most we can do beforehand is try to limit Green involvement with the initial battle, and then deal with them after, along with any Moths which attack us."

"Any guesses how many will?" Nash asked.

"While the Spire stands, and the Core’s alive, all of them will come. That’s not an option for them. The longer the battle lasts, the more we’ll have to fight." Noi nodded at the television, where an endless series of battles between possessed Blues was being waged. "Less than two hours till dawn, and we’ll want to be in place well before, in case that wraps up early. Let’s get this recording done."

"I’ll wake Fish," Pan said, picking up one of a pair of compact video cameras Fisher had produced from his backpack.

"No, we’ll do the technical sections first." Noi glanced at Madeleine, not Fisher collapsed on the couch opposite. "Everyone should get as much rest as they can."

Drowsy, but no longer numbingly exhausted, Madeleine stayed curled up, watching as Noi explained the process of freeing and reviving Blues, and the best techniques for fighting Moths and their creatures. Then Haron set out the plan to bring down the Spires, in the hopes that if they failed another city would be able to carry it out.

While they talked, Madeleine watched Fisher sleep. The mouth she had kissed, the hands which had touched her. Beneath the jacket and shirt, comets. She squeezed shut her eyes, and when she opened them again he was looking back, and did not shift away. Half the room between them, and identical unhappy expressions.

Haron finished, and Noi grimly checked the time on the television. "Ready to do the history, Fisher?"

He nodded and sat up, pausing to run his fingers through his hair, trying to tame sleep-born excesses.

"You want me to hunt you out a comb?" Pan asked, still determinedly upbeat in defiance of the subdued focus which had settled on everyone else. "A mirror? How about some cucumber slices for the circles under your eyes?"

"Maybe later." Fisher’s gaze was level. "You’ll want to save your primping for yourself – you’ll be doing a closing recording."

"Me? Why?"

"If we bring down the Spires, the Moths will be furious, desperate. Worse, if we fail, and the Moths are alertly on guard, holding the threat of dust over their cities, any free Blues are going to be facing tremendous hurdles. We’ve had the advantage of surprise. Picture trying to work out how to spirit punch, then heading into Moth territory hoping to free a possessed Blue, with the knowledge that the response might be the deaths of thousands of uninfected. We need an Agincourt speech."

"And you expect one from me?" Pan held the camera before him in protest. "You write me something and I’ll perform it, but I’m no good with my own words."

"You always did want to play Henry Fifth," Nash said, clearly entertained.

"Yeah, I’ll tell the world it’s Saint Crispian’s Day, that’ll help. Or yell fuck a few million times, which is about my level of improv. Or–" His gaze settled on Tyler, sitting quietly at the end of Madeleine’s couch. "Or, hey, world famous actor! That would make much more sense."

"But very poor casting." Tyler crossed one leg elegantly over the other, and said, in a smoky, musing voice: "'From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered '. You’d pass that up? You don’t want to make that moment your own? To have aspirant actors, centuries from now, vying to play you?"

Pan was clearly much struck, but shook his head. "Now I really can’t think of anything good enough to say."

"Don’t try for good enough." Noi crossed to take the camera off him. "It’s not the words that matter. It’s the emotion. I’ll film Fisher’s intro, and you can think about how you feel about the Moths."

Pan wavered, then mischief crept into his expression. "I’ll give it a shot for a thimble," he said, presenting his cheek.

"You and your thimbles." Noi leaned forward, but Pan, eyes wide, turned his head so that their lips met, the briefest touch before she started back. Looking close to angry, she shook her head. "You better come up with something good for that."

"I’m sure as hell feeling inspired."

It was the complete lack of imp, of any hint of joking, which brought the blush to her face. Visibly at a loss, but suddenly much more like her normal self, Noi looked down at the camera, then raised it as a shield. "Ready when you are, Fisher."

Fisher, hair almost tame, moved a few steps, waited for Noi’s nod, then spoke.

"We are here because of a Moth." The words were crisp, clear. "The name he chose to use was Théoden, and he died so we could be free."

Fisher had gained the total attention of the dozen people in the suite, but he didn’t react to their surprise, gazing past the camera to Madeleine.

"It is true enough that the En-Mott will leave in two years. A timeframe is useful, the first time they visit a planet, to minimise attacks. It is equally true that they will return. Their driving reason is not their ruling order, but their own survival.

"The En-Mott were once the Mottash, a tired race on a tired world. Not too different from us – warm-blooded, oxygen breathing – facing a depleted future. They were searching for ways to leave their world, and instead they left themselves. The Conversion – a two-step process, the first part of which we have experienced – was considered a triumph. Lack of water, failing crops: what did it matter if the world turned to dust if you could live on light? And the newly created En-Mott would survive centuries.

"Still, they could die, and did. A slow attrition of numbers. Reproduction of a sort was possible, a slow and deliberate division which weakened the parent, hastened death. The En-Mott had set themselves on a path to extinction.

"They turned to the Spires for a solution. One of the planetary travel methods under development before the Conversion, it had matured to the point where it could be used to look for and reach inhabited worlds. A partial conversion of a warm-blooded host gave the En-Mott access to energy reserves, enough to increase in strength, to breed without death. For the first time in centuries their numbers rose."

Fisher glanced toward the master bedroom, where the corpses of a half-dozen Moths had been chivvied out of the way.

"Their solution had trapped them in flesh, since leaving the host was dangerous, often fatal even when energy levels were high. But then a handful discovered a use for faulty conversions – the leech Blues – and the Reborn came to be. Leech Blues lack the ability to produce some of the energies which form the substance of the En-Mott, and cannot be directly possessed. But the Reborn are able to slowly transfer their…selves to them, to complete what is missing. This act, unlike their fission reproduction, increases the strength of the Moth instead of depleting it."

Madeleine sat up, and slid along the couch so she could sit shoulder to shoulder with Tyler. Her cousin, as usual, looked no more than coolly interested in proceedings, but if he had had a fortnight of assaults like the one Madeleine had experienced, what he was demonstrating was his self-control. Nash, Claire and Quan’s expressions were all variations of suppressed revulsion.

"In each clan there are five Reborn. Most of the rest are the offspring of the last cycle of primacy. When the cycle ends, they are ordered to leave their hosts, and, because the Reborn do not give them time to recover strength, with a tiny number of exceptions who are strong enough, they die."

"Why?" The redhead, Claire, was staring in disbelief. "You mean they kill themselves? Why would they not just stay?"

Noi made a query signal whether they should start over, but Fisher shook his head and went on.

"They’re not given a choice. The Moths' reproduction, the splitting off of part of their self, leaves their offspring bound to them – and to their progenitors. Every single Moth is in a direct line of descent from the Cores of the thirty most powerful clans, and subject to their commands. Even the Cores of lesser clans can only partially mitigate the orders of those originals, and some edicts – such as the ban against reviving discarded Blues – are absolute. Every cycle the overall number of En-Mott increases, but the cycle’s pace is dictated by the needs of the Reborn, who sacrifice each generation in turn to increase their own strength.

"The only hope for a member of a new generation is to grow strong enough to survive separation, and the Reborn facilitate this by rewarding the most loyal with exemptions from reproduction, which greatly increases their chances – and can even lead to joining the Reborn. To describe what this does to the En-Mott – born with a potential life-span of centuries, and told to kill themselves within one or two decades, with a vicious competition to gain an exemption, to become one of this privileged class… A whole race driven by a combination of hate and hope. Hatred for the Reborn. Hope that they might join their ranks."

Fisher’s frown had grown heavier with every word, and he stopped to take a deep breath, visibly upset. Looking directly at Madeleine, he forged on.

"Théoden, the Moth who possessed me, loathed the cycles of death. There is very little each new generation can do about their situation, and it was not until the Ul-naa Core was injured by a Blue strong enough to instinctively defend against possession that Théoden saw any way forward. While ostensibly searching for a way for the Core to overcome that instinctive defence, he worked to create an opening, a chance to end the cycles. For his apparent success in finding a way to disarm that Blue, he was rewarded with an exemption by the Core. Perhaps in other circumstances he would have taken it, despite his fury and disgust. He did so very much want to live."

Expression easing, Fisher took a moment to meet the eyes of each of the Musketeers in turn.

"But during the time Théoden spent carrying out the Core’s task he found a source of strength. A cause is a cold thing to die for. To die to protect the people you count as friends, people you have laughed with, and grown to cherish, that is a gift.

"In an hour it will be dawn, and we will try to bring down the Spires. We have recorded separately the methods of fighting. There are countless selfish and obvious reasons for the people of Earth to fight back against the Reborn. But another reason is for that one person who found a way, who put our future above his own. We mattered to him, and so he bought us this chance. Honour him."

Turning abruptly away, Fisher walked back to the opposite couch and sat down, looking as drained as Madeleine felt. Noi lowered the camera, and the room sat absolutely still. Then Emily uncurled from the ball she’d maintained since she’d been freed, and crossed to tuck herself by Madeleine.

Pan broke the silence. "You expect me to follow that?"

Fisher gave him a dry glance. "You’ve never been short of something to say. Why start now?"

"Ha. Hell." Pan scrubbed his hand through his hair. "Okay. Make sure you get my best side, Noi. Nash, stop me if I start ranting."

With a shamefaced grin, he stood, studied his feet, then momentarily was the exact image of the sketch Madeleine had given him: Lee Rickard as Henry the Fifth. The young King. Then just as quickly he was a less grand figure, a boy with the face of an imp, but no smile.

"So we’re about to go try to bring down the Spires, and if we fail, someone else gets to have to do it. Even if we succeed, there’s going to be a lot of fighting ahead. After all the people who have died, all the friends I’ve lost, the last thing I want to do, really, is risk any more. I’m betting most of you feel the same way.

"For the Blues out there: we’ve a lot of advantages you probably won’t have. Strong people, smart people, a team. It makes such a difference when you know someone’s got your back, who’ll try to bring you up when you’re down, or tell you to stop when you’re going the wrong way. There might be hardly any free Blues in your city. You might be alone. But we’re passing on Théoden’s gift. Take the knowledge, make the opportunity. Find your strongest Blue, your tactician, your strategist. Rescue your leeches. And stand together and try. Even if the first attempt fails, even if they take you, don’t lose hope. Someone else will come for you, will bring you back like I was brought back.

"For those of you who aren’t infected, those who are going to say, no, we can’t fight, they’ll release more dust, they’ll attack us, that it’s better to wait it out like a bad storm. Let me remind you: they come back. They’ll take all us Blues, and use us up, and throw us away, and then they’ll have a little breather and start all over again. No-one can think that’s a good idea. This is a war. And they tricked you into not fighting."

He darted a quick look at Fisher, and took a deep breath.

"Moths. Because I’m only talking to you thanks to Théoden, I want to make an offer to others like him, those Moths who don’t want, never wanted this…slaughter. We are going to hunt you down. Those bodies you’re wearing belong to someone else. But if you turn yourself in, if you surrender to us and take that huge risk of dying so that the Blue you’re riding can be free, then we won’t attack if you survive. I don’t know what the hell we’ll do with you after – put you on an island? But…anyway."

His chin jerked up, as if he was still unravelling the implications of his offer. Then his stance shifted, not the king returning, nor Pan, cocksure and defiant, but a cold, angry declaration.

"Finally, for those of you who did this to us, for the Remade. Fuck you. We’ll dance on your graves."