Mother Death

10

The Families held a private gathering in lieu of their usual public new year celebration.

With their ancient estates obliterated, and the Earth itself a bright white world encased in steam and oceans of irradiated magma, the gathering was held on Mars. It was a sober, prolonged affair. One popular subject was the plan for future estates: The Nuyens had graciously donated one of their intersolar worlds. Over the next few thousand years, the cold body would be eased into the Kuiper belt, then terraformed, and each Family would receive its share of the new land and water.

It was a good, sensible change, many argued. A bittersweet blessing. Having normal citizens living beside the Families was always an unreasonable risk. If Ord had come to their future homeland, not one person would have died. Except the little bastard himself, naturally. Without fragile souls underfoot, the Families could have responded appropriately. And they could have guarded Alice all the better, too.

Had she died with the Earth? Hopefully, was the general verdict.

The Families had saved billions in the first moments after the Chamberlain used that unthinkable weapon. Nuyens had died during the evacuation, all considered heroes today. There were moments when Xo, reflecting on events, wished that his siblings hadn’t wasted time rescuing him. But it was a reflexive altruism, and fragile. Besides, if he had died then, he would be some flavor of martyr today—a role that disgusted him for more reasons, and emotions, than he seemed able to count.

An ancient sister approached him during the dour festivities. But she insisted on smiling, almost laughing as she told Xo, “I know you did your best for us. For all of humanity. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the first Nuyen who deserves to feel pride.”

Because it was expected, he said, “Thank you.” More than two hundred billion were dead, and their ancestral homeland was a ravaged wasteland. And he was expected to be polite, accepting this graceless, ridiculous praise.

“I’ve just heard,” the sister continued. “Did you? A dark-matter body matching Ord’s configuration raced past one of our Oort stations.”

“Which station?”

She told, then added, “It’s obvious. Ord’s running for the Core now.”

“He believes Alice,” Xo replied.

The sister watched him, saying nothing in a certain way.

Xo prompted her, asking, “Don’t you believe Alice?”

“That someone managed to make their way into this other universe? Perhaps I do, perhaps I don’t. Whatever’s true, our plans have always left room for that possibility.”

“Nuyens are thorough people,” said Xo.

She went for the bait, saying, “Absolutely,” with a prideful wide smile.

“So what about Ravleen?” He asked it with a careful voice, then added, “That same station might have spotted her, too.”

“Perhaps it did,” the sister allowed. “Twenty minutes later, perhaps.”

Ravleen had escaped in the chaos. She would still be wearing manacles, but not all of them, and given time and ample freedom, they were temporary constraints. And nobody could doubt what the Sanchex wanted.

Xo’s doubts lay closer than space. With the help of simple charm, he mentioned to his companion, “Twenty minutes is a long gap. It’s a shame, really, that Ravleen couldn’t have started her chase sooner.”

The sister nodded, smiling in a distracted fashion.

Using his most powerful talents, Xo reached inside her mind, trying to coax out the secrets, hiding in its bloody corners.

The smile vanished abruptly, and she set a powerful hand to his shoulder. “What do you think you know, brother?”

“With her talents, it should have taken Ravleen two moments to leave the Earth. Not twenty damned minutes.” He didn’t care about punishments or sanctions. “But if we disabled her with the implants set in her brain, then captured and interrogated her…”

The woman couldn’t imagine that she was anything but in control. She thought it was her own iron will that told her to admit, “It took us fifteen minutes to make our decision. And we haven’t regretted it for a greasy moment, brother.”

“Who killed the Earth?” he asked.

Calmly, with a dry, simple voice, she told him, “The Chamberlain, of course. And whoever didn’t notice Ravleen cutting one of her own hands into two hands, then hiding half of it. For eons, probably. And there were a few other miscalculations, too. But nothing you did, and don’t confuse yourself by dwelling on it.”

“I won’t,” Xo lied.

“Good,” she replied.

A little while later, using appropriate formality and the stiffest of smiles, Xo left the gathering and his Family, and moments after that, he abandoned Mars, too, using stolen talents to shp out into space, then dipping past the clean white face of the Earth on his way out of the solar system.

It was as beautiful in death as it ever was in life.

He thought.

And the Core was glorious, and hideous, and he steered straight for it while wiping every flavor of tear from every sort of eye.