record_id: 2daf8b3e-f83d-8117-8118-f89ad89869aa
created_time: 2025-12-31T18:35:00.000Z
title: 12-22 Analysis of Audiobook Excerpts and Incidental Dialogue
source_url: /

[TRANSCRIPTION]
Speaker 1 00:00:32
By the way, sometimes I'm not good. Just saying. It's still going to fit though. Because then you have this whole area right here for the vacuum, right? You can't fit the vacuum because this is here. But I always kept it in the back of my head that it was going to go in the front seat. Not the front seat, but my bench comes up. Oh, okay. I might actually be able to fit it once I put this up.
Speaker 2 00:03:30
Thanks for watching!
Speaker 2 00:07:32
Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:09:06
You all good. 
Speaker 2 00:09:09
Cool.
Speaker 2 00:11:53
Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:13:42
Hey Wren. Okay. I uh, so when do we start aqua blocking? You there? Fred?
Speaker 2 00:16:21
Thank you. Let's go.
Speaker 1 00:18:19
Oh, it's in the garage. Okay, cool. Can I leave you? Javi. 
Speaker 3 00:18:24
Can I leave you? Yeah, yeah. You're good. 
Speaker 2 00:18:26
Yeah, I'm all done.
Speaker 3 00:18:28
Do you want me to take that, or is that yours. 
Speaker 2 00:18:30
No, that one's yours, guys. I could probably find something for you.
Speaker 3 00:18:35
Okay. Yeah, sounds good. I'm going to hit the head and jet. It's just this one. Okay. Can we turn this guy over. 
Speaker 4 00:18:47
What was that. 
Speaker 3 00:18:47
Can we turn this guy over. 
Speaker 4 00:18:50
Yeah, the truck's coming.
Speaker 3 00:18:51
Yeah. Cool. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:18:53
Yes, sir.
Speaker 2 00:21:27
Thank you.
Speaker 3 00:23:32
Thank you, you do the same.
Speaker 2 00:28:31
and angle them to cut each other's kites out of the sky.
Speaker 5 00:29:05
till there's only one left. Why? What's more human than competition? Thousands of losers and one winner. That's so sad. I snort. Sounds like something Volga would say. Volga? I realise my mistake. A friend of mine, I say, she snorts. You have friends besides me? I know her. Really? I'd love to meet her. Volga. That's an obsidian maze, isn't it? He looked apprehensive at the idea. Lamentably, she is no longer with me.
Speaker 5 00:29:37
And as I say it, I feel like I'm not with him. Not tethered to any of the people around me. All these lies to this girl, and for what? Money? My life? I settle back against a tree to close my eyes, hoping Miriam forgets the name. How's her telemark family coping with the people? She's caught off guard. I've never asked about them before. They think Caraval is playing both sides, and that dancer can't control the box like he thinks he can. Interesting. Something's happened, but he's quick. Something bad.
Speaker 5 00:30:07
I'm not sure of what, but he was on Earth. They've been sealed up in the Sovereign's wing for days. Hmm. I'll let the subject die, lest she become suspicious. Despite everything, it feels good to lie down and ease the ache between my shoulder blades. I've not been sleeping well in my apartment. I never do when it's a bright month. Up all bright night, pacing back and forth in front of the smoke glass, racing through burners, and watching that gold bitch kill Trigg again and again on my holocube. The two of them are doing their little dance across my grey matter, and the reaper watches, huddling with holiday as Trigg dies and dies and dies for me. For them, a sight. What would Trigg.
Speaker 5 00:30:41
think of how this had all turned out? Seven years ago, Luna was a war zone, choking on dust and debris, her skies rolling with bombers. But today, there are children laughing, children born who've never seen those bombers or the mechanised legions that once prowled the cityscape. The sky is warm and friendly, the air cool, the girl beside me breathing shallowly, and I feel, despite myself, at ease enough to drift to sleep. I've been thinking about what you told me. The girl says suddenly. I look over at her from under my shades. She's on her back, her eyes closed,
Speaker 5 00:31:12
shirt sleeves rolled up so the autumn sunlight can warm her dark forearms. Oh dear, whatever did I prattle on about now? I ask. About seeing myself before others see me. Oh, that. Forgive the proselytization. I was quite well sorted. You weren't that drunk. Her eyes are open now, and watching the kites. I've never really been alone before. I mean, I have my nephew, Liam, here. But he's so done up in the Citadel School that I hardly see him. And when I do, it hurts both of us. Reminds us of who isn't here.
Speaker 5 00:31:42
I turn on my back and look over at her, propping myself up with an elbow. So, when you said I have to see myself before anyone else does, I look, and I... Well, I look, and I don't see anything. This is hard. But she steals herself and goes forward. I find myself admiring the resoluteness in her face. The Zolodon must be fading on account of the food in my gut. In Lagalos, I was always minding my family, watching my little brothers so mum could sleep, stitching the big brothers' clothes together with my sister, patching boots. Then they sent me to school to learn how to work a silk hoodie.
Speaker 5 00:32:12
Didn't much change after the rising. Kept on minding my job, my family. And when we got out to the camp, it was the same. Only my brothers left, and soon I was minding my father and my jobs and my sister's little ones. I wish she would stop telling me. I can tell she's kept this pain locked in a dark little chest of time, just like I did. But I'm not the good person she is. I want her to be a little nasty creature. I want to see the ugliness I know everyone's got inside, and seething out of her eyes, spewing out of her mouth. But all that comes are little tears. We're not alike. I hoard my pain, because no one will understand it.
Speaker 5 00:32:45
She's just been looking for someone she can trust, someone to share it with. Not me, but she keeps going. And I feel heavier and blacker on the grass, wishing I took more Zolidon. When the red hand came, I thought I'd be braver. You know, get a gun like they do in the flicks. But everything felt so fast, and I felt so small. All I wanted to do was sink in the mud. She wipes her eyes and returns her arms to guard her chest. And you feel guilty for being here when they're not? I ask quietly. Yeah, I hesitate. Don't you think they're waiting for you in the veil?
Speaker 5 00:33:17
I don't know. I hope so. And if they were watching you, would they be proud? She considers, looking up at me with glassy eyes. I hope so. We linger in the park till our ice cream has melted. I walk with her back to the tram depot, so she can return to the Citadel. We hug, farewell. And as I planned, I take off my necklace and fix my face with compassion. For the words don't come as smoothly as intended. They stick in my throat. Billy, I want you to have this. I push the locket into her hands.
Speaker 5 00:33:47
You'll wear it. It's always brought me strength. I can't take that. Your fiancée gave it to me so I'd remember. Wherever I went, I had him with me. But I don't need attendance for that. But you should be reminded that wherever you go, you're not alone. We're friends, aren't we? I think you're my only friend. And what do friends do? Friends help each other. You carry my shadows. I carry yours. I take an imaginary necklace from her neck and put it on myself and buckle my knees like it's a great way to laugh.
Speaker 5 00:34:19
Maybe then we'll both be a bit lighter when next week. Do you think he's watching you? Your feet. Your husband. Not from the bale, of course. I know you lot don't believe, but from somewhere. He stares up at me from under her mop of red hair. I think you're wrong. I think he's watching you. And I think he's smiling and got a twinkle in his eye. He bundles her coat and heads to the depot, but turns around and runs back to me to give me a small kiss on the cheek. You're not alone either, Philippe.
Speaker 5 00:34:50
Sweet little rubbish, if only that were true.
Speaker 6 00:34:56
Chapter 32. Lysander, the Rending. Sungrave, the greatest city of Io, surges up out of a white, frozen plain, riven with fissures, venting heat from the subterranean magma. We fly toward it, looking out the four windows of one of Dido's chimeras. Carved into Io's highest mountain, the 18-kilometer-high Vosule, Sungrave is a city of blackstone, obelisks, and spires that rides the shoulders of the mountain plain. Centuries ago, after the use of lovelock engines was deemed inefficient for Io, great mirrored lasers carved much of the mountain and part of its attending 540-kilometer-long range into a city of jagged towers.
Speaker 6 00:35:26
The builders followed the draconic predilections of their great progenitor, Okari, bringing creatures of childhood fables and ancient campfire stories to life in the stone. A necropolis of animalistic spires flecked with topaz, zircon, and myriad niso-silicate rocks looms above us, blocking the sky like the petrified remains of a great dragon host. They perch rank upon rank along the Bossule's crest, some of them encompassing whole peaks, legs straddling frosted valleys, their wide wings buttressing their great heights as they crane their stone necks up as if to drink the gases of marbled Jupiter. Duroglass windows glitter with internal light, like scales, and deeper in the heart of the mountain, where long ago red drill crews dug out.
Speaker 6 00:35:57
the interior, lies the city itself. The city, like all the other mountain cities of Io, draws its energy from the tidal heating caused by the war of Jupiter's gravity on Io against the gravitational pull of Europa and Ganymede. The cities of Ra need no Helium-3 to survive or power the pulse fields that shield them from radiation and Io's poisonous air. That is why they survived my grandmother's siege ten years ago. Their shields could resist bombardment longer than the Helium-3 power generators of the Sword Armada's ships could keep them in orbit. Still, I expected Io to be a desolate backwater beset by rationing and scant starship flight, but the ship that captured the Archimedes was brand new. As are many of the trade and war vessels that flow into Sungrave's high.
Speaker 6 00:36:28
stone docks like Itinerant and Nats. I look over at Cassius and feel his unease. How are those ships built? On what dock? New Olympic Knights, new ships, a new generation. The Rim has not been sleeping, and now, if they gain Seraphina's evidence, they will awaken. The scent of foreign incense fills my nose as the steam from the caldarium walls filters soundlessly up from the hypochrome. Two sets of hands knead the knots of tension from my shoulders and legs. The bruises inflicted by Pandora's men are now faded pools, the colour of sulphur on my shoulders and jaw. Somewhere in the steam, Cassius bathes alone in the sodium, a large pool sunken into the rough cut stone.
Speaker 6 00:37:00
Since Dido's wafer, time has passed like a dream, my body flushed again with the life of orphaned food which Dido's men gave us in the flight to Sunraven. As a child, I surrendered to the disappointing reality that I would never see fabled Sunraven in person. It would be too great a risk to send the heir to a place where he might be captured and held for ransom. But I am heir no longer, and my eyes are greedy for all Sunrave sights, to see her depths, her botanical complexes, her great mountain systems filled with European war. It is so different here from my home on Luna, not just the acrid air and the dim sky, but the unforgiving stone, the Spartan decor, empty rooms, no chairs, and an incredible adherence to cleanliness and martial virtue.
Speaker 6 00:37:31
seraphina gave me an all-too-brief tour after we arrived and i was taken to my quarters but in her presence i noted less the city than i would like my eyes would drift to the back of her proud neck as she led me through her childhood corridors like she was a black hole pulling all light all attention into her not just from me but from the servants from the guards she is much loved, little hawk they call her affectionately barely 20. not a praetor or a legate those titles must be earned just a woman of worth and promise yet despite her mother's consolations the guilt of her actions against her father seems to weigh heavily on her she said little before depositing me in my quarters and disappearing before the door had closed when the pinks have finished their massage they scraped the oil and dead skin from my body with strigils flattened bronze hooks.
Speaker 6 00:38:04
which they put into a clay pot for some recycled use nothing here goes to waste one offers me a pipe of dried phasal root paired already woozy from the steam i decline mild hallucinogen, then the slaves asked me how i would like to take them.
Speaker 7 00:38:20
hey how's it going um so they leave here at four so i i just have one question where do i leave the do i leave the aqua block outside like next to the table or do you want to leave it inside the house.
Speaker 3 00:38:32
well what what's uh where do we stand because brian brandon told me you guys only got one coat.
Speaker 7 00:38:39
on right now he's going for the second coat on walls um and uh i just did the the first coat inside the spot so the second coat will be done for the walls and for the pool okay um and are you guys doing the water as well yeah water sir oh the water yeah oh yeah yeah okay yeah we're gonna have the water so my only question is do i leave the aqua black outside or should i put it.
Speaker 3 00:39:10
inside um i mean it's sealed but i'd probably so we're gonna have to come back there tomorrow and finish the floor in right is that what you're doing right.
Speaker 7 00:39:20
Right, okay.
Speaker 3 00:39:24
Then, You know, I'd probably put something over it. But yeah, I did put it in a garage just in case. Okay. I Just hate for a minute. It's probably fine. But so good to be safe and sorry, right? Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, okay, Okay, yeah, that's pretty much it okay cool how long do you think it'll take you guys tomorrow.
Speaker 3 00:40:10
Okay, so do we think we can finish early in the morning.
Speaker 7 00:40:15
Brandy, yeah, it should be possible, right? Yeah. Finish it early in the morning. 
Speaker 3 00:40:18
Yes. Yeah. 
Speaker 7 00:40:20
Yeah, it should be possible.
Speaker 3 00:40:21
Okay. So we'll finish that and then go to Rocky Point. That's kind of what I'm thinking.
Speaker 7 00:40:26
Okay.
Speaker 3 00:40:27
So. Cool. Alrighty. All right, man. Thank you.
Speaker 6 00:40:30
All right.
Speaker 1 00:40:31
Bye-bye. All right.
Speaker 6 00:40:35
Their legs are eerily long from the low gravity of their home. Their skin, unblemished by the sun, is burnished and smooth and without hair. The hair of their heads is thick. The male's silver, the female's a black so deep it shines blue in the lamps. She's older than he is, with quartz eyes and the frailness of a small bird, but her mouth is truculent. Her eyes not so empty as they should be. They startle me when they meet mine, and the spell, the warmth, and their hand's cast is broken. She sees me. A deep revulsion, physical and intellectual, twists the lust into a knotted, blackened thing. I can't look at them as my ancestors did, as consumable treats. One could argue for the necessary industry of reds or the cult-like military religion instilled in greys,
Speaker 6 00:41:05
or the efficiency and neutered emotions in coppers. For this, pinks were not needed to make my grandmother's world function. They were built for lechery, subjected to centuries of systematic breeding, abuse, psychological and sexual domination. Chemically neutered and twisted in size so that their suicide rate is eleven times higher than that of any other colour. Gold is to blame for that. Gold lost its way. And now this pink woman looks at me with eyes too ancient for her face. What's your name, I ask her. This one's name is Auri, she says. I gently take the pink's hand from my thigh. That will be enough, Auri. The male pink looks awash with shame, thinking himself not beautiful enough. But in the woman I see a small tell, a spasm of relief at the corners of her eyes.
Speaker 6 00:41:38
Then she feigns shame at the other one. Strange. We shouldn't insult them, Cassius says from the pool. Come, join me. There's enough room for the two of you. The pinks rise to obey. Like the brother's wrath, are we now, I ask. He sighs and motions for the pinks to leave. They do. My eyes follow Auri out the door. I ponder her relief. When they've left, Cassius casually taps his ear to show that we're no doubt being listened to. Of course I know that. Does he forget where I grew up? I think we deserve a little fun, Castor. Water torture, enduring that family squabbling, the beatings, you know. Besides, they're slaves, and you're not their saviour. Romantic as you find the notion to be. You know, not everything you say to me has to be a lesson, I say.
Speaker 6 00:42:09
If you didn't need them, I wouldn't teach them. Anyway, looks like Pyther owes me fifty credits. He sighs contentedly to himself, and leans his broad shoulders back in the bath. What for, I ask, unable to not take the bait. Friendly wager, she couldn't possibly believe you were still a virgin. What? A virgin? It's when a man or woman has not... I hardly think that's any of your concern. I'm not as it is. He closes his eyes against the steam. Then why turn them away? You sure it's not because you're afraid she's watching? Of course not, I say sharply. Is Seraphine watching? He chuckles. See? Pens up sexual aggression. Just because I believe in actual romance instead of plundering the virtue from merchants' daughters.
Speaker 6 00:42:40
and buggering everything that moves like a gory damn gall does not mean that I should be shamed. Like a gory damn ghoul. My good man, you curse like you're mighty. And you're a hypocritical fornicator. God, you really haven't been laid, brother. Will you stop talking? I throw one of the stridules at him. He ducks into the water before pulling himself out to join me on the tile bench. He nudges me with his shoulder after a spell to lighten the mood. Difficult considering we both know we're analyzing this now. Attempting to peel back our story to see if this flies. Neither one of us is convinced the brotherly spat is just for show, though that might be our excuse. Serafina told me Prytha was alive, I say, trying to change the subject. My guards said the same to me, but don't get tall.
Speaker 6 00:43:11
We're not guests here. When the coup is over, our heads will likely roll. You don't think it will succeed? Tell me you didn't see the doubt in the daughter. I nod. I didn't think that was the reason for it. He laughs. Don't be so easily impressed by a rogue sentry of Peerless. Dido's sharp, but she's Venusian. The Rim won't forget that. The minor lords of Io will be coming from all over the moon loyal to Romulus. And if they don't finish her off, the lords of Europa and Ganymede, likely even Callisto, will do it. Not to mention the Far Rim. They like their Romulus out there. And what about their evidence? Did you see her bring back anything? No? Well then, either she hid it well or it was a bluff. I know without him saying it that he blames me for our current predicament, but it was his decision to investigate the Vindabona, his decision to take away everything I had as a boy and then act like he was my saviour.
Speaker 6 00:43:46
He lives in a fiction, espousing a moral code to justify killing his sovereign, turning his back on our society, but I know why he really did it. Because she let the jackal kill his family. The sanctimonious morality came along afterwards. This noble morning knight is built on a foundation of self-interest, and now because he trusts no golds, he decides we will anger our hosts in hopes they will want our services, when instead he should swallow his pride and see if their hospitality is genuine as I do. He has little faith in our colour. I am losing all mine in him. I feel a despicable little creature, thinking all this of Cassius. Whatever his motives, I know his love for me is genuine. The nights of listening to music in the rec room of the Archimedes as he falls asleep holding his drink can't be washed away.
Speaker 6 00:44:17
Neither can the protective warmth I felt all those times when Pyther and I helped him back to his bunk when he was so drunk he could not even stand, but he could murmur Virginia's name. I miss home, I say in an attempt to find some common ground to ease the tension that has grown between us these last months, before the Vindabona even. Mars, he asks, and I know he means Luma. But I do miss that place, the libraries, the Esquiline Gardens, the warmth of Asia, the approval of my grandmother, stark and sparse though it was, the love of my parents. But most of all, I miss sitting in the sun, eyes closed, listening to the peckle bell in the trees. That was peace for me. That is where I feel safe. But I was thinking of Aki. I'd never had to miss her before. Two days on Ceres, three on Lacrimosa.
Speaker 6 00:44:48
She's a good ship, he says. I'd give two years' haul to be on the way in the rec room with a tumbler of whiskey right now and a good concerto on the hollow. Playing chess? Karachi. We played chess all last year. More like I taught you to play all last year. He rolls his eyes. He wins five in a row and suddenly he's a rustic in the flesh. It was seven, my good man, but I'll relent and let you play Karachi even though it's a game entirely devoid of reason and mathematical skill. It's called reading people, Caster. Intuition. I make a face. My only condition is we listen to Vivaldi and not Barton. My good man, are you trying to kill me? You know I abhor Vivaldi, he laughs. Not that it matters. Won't be able to hear a note over the sound of Piper whining about immersion games.
Speaker 6 00:45:20
or how it's not her turn to cook. We grimace each other, indulging the fantasy that once seemed so commonplace but now so nostalgic and impossible. Oh, don't look so maudlin, he says. We'll return to the Archi with Pythor and Surlyto. We'll be sharing a whiskey and burning black matter once this is sorted. We both know it as a promise he cannot keep. I see by the melancholy look in his eyes that we are united in understanding that something between us is breaking, and neither one of us knows how to stop it. Even if we leave Io behind, we can never go back to the way things were, to the private world we shared. I have outgrown him. I have even outgrown him. Chapter 33. Lysander. Alien.
Speaker 6 00:46:21
Sleep in the room I slept in when I was a boy where all lunas have slept since the children of Selenius. A deep anger fills me, but I push it into the void. All is silent in the room. Not the busy silence of space, where air purifies hum and engines tremble through the metal. It is the silence of stone and the silence of darkness that stretches into an unseen, unending, frozen landscape. A cavernous, alien silence. These crew members on the Vindabona will be dead by now. It's the only mercy I know to hope for. How long did they last? Two lonely lights glide across the plane in the distance, too low to be aircraft. Other bikes? Where are those two souls going? What errand do they attend? Are they lovers? Friends. 
Speaker 8 00:46:54
Corey said, I just called, and the answering machine said they closed at three. Best bet is that I can call them at seven a.m. Then a score of lights burns out of the.
Speaker 6 00:47:05
blackness behind them, chasing them across the expanse. I lean forward in excitement as bright orange tongues of flame lick out from the pursuers, and the two leading lights vanish in blossoms of light fire. Two more fall to the coup. It seems it is not as peaceful as Dido would like us to believe. Cassius is right, yet again. All across the city men will be dying, silent squads will arrest loyal members of Romulus's faction, the cells will fill, guns may rattle, razors drip with blood, all balanced and gambled on the promise of the evidence Serafina brought back. I know coups, and I'm little impressed by them, they're more common than weddings in my family, these rim rustics hold their noses at gold to the interior, and my family and the bitch on Luna, but they're little better.
Speaker 6 00:47:36
Then I remember Serafina, how she stood before her father, and the sadness I saw upon her face when she realized his intent. Torn between the love of her people and mother, and the love of her father, what choice would I make? I see my own father in my mind's eye, and try again in vain to summon my mother. I reach for her, but my fingers rate nothing but shadow, but I feel in no small way that her absence is my fault. I did not study her enough, did not love her enough, and so she will never hold me in her arms, never kiss me upon the brow, as if she never existed. My thoughts are interrupted when a jammer activates with a static pop behind me. I swing around to see a pair of amber eyes staring at me from the shadows of the sitting room. Joke in hell. I flip on the glow lights to reveal a woman sitting on my sleeping mat.
Speaker 6 00:48:08
She watches intently as I scramble to put my robe back on. Serafina? She's at home now, her prisoner jumpsuit gone, and wears the garb of the eye up. A grey wool cloak held together with a charcoal sash. She peers up at me amused. Joke in hell. do all Martians have such dreadful hearing? Her eyes rove as I pulled tight my robe. She wears rubber salt slippers and two heavy rings, on her left middle finger, a dragon eating a lightning bolt, on her right a simple iron institute ring of House Diana's stags antlers. I should have guessed she'd be a hunter. Are all moonies as rude as you? I look at the door, and though it made no sound, and more impressively, neither did she, must have come through the walls then. A secret door. Are you lost? She frowns. Lost? Well,
Speaker 6 00:48:41
you do seem to be in my room. Your room? Her sudden laugh is surprisingly girlish. Then the draw comes back. You are in my city, Garsha, on my moon. There are cameras in the stone. What does it matter that I watch you through the camera or here? This is more honest, no? Well, it is entirely eerie either way, I say with a smile, most inhospitable. If I remember correctly, you are a watcher too. I saw you looking at me on the table. You were injured, I say. I was checking your tits, your wound, the one on your breasts, stomach. You're clearly still insensate. Took a knock on the head, turned a bit mad. Order your kind or talk like gutterborns. I have manners, she says with a smile. The dust is a hard teacher.
Speaker 6 00:49:11
She hurls a package at my face as she stands. I barely catch it. Clothing. Yours was soiled from the journey. Charitable, are you? I open the package to don the clothes. Our pilot, I say. You said she's alive and well. I want to see her. No. No negotiation. Very well. I thumb the clothing she brought. She doesn't turn away or leave. Do you mind? Mind? Yes, I'd like to change now. She cocks her head in challenge. I've seen naked men before. Unlike her own, mine was a solitary upbringing. A sovereign is an island, my grandmother would say. It's just carbon. Are you ashamed of your body, she asks? Or perhaps you're embarrassed you do not know how to use it. So that's why you sent the pinks.
Speaker 6 00:49:41
So you could watch. I find myself unusually pleased by the revelation. Why so curious? Her brow wrinkles. Were you injured? Is that why you turned them away? Does your manhood not work? It's absolutely none of your concern. Thank you for your interest, however. It works just fine. I'm sorry, she said. I did not mean to offend you. Well, you're quite accomplished at it. Compliments to whoever taught you. Would you be at ease if I were naked again, too? Even under the folds of her loose tunic, I see the subtle rise of her breasts, the length of her muscled legs, and I cough and shake my head. She waits patiently till I have a small, annoying epiphany. Do you always toy with your guests? Sometimes, she smokes.
Speaker 6 00:50:11
You do look a little like a toy. All that hair and those dandy little limbs. Dandy? Dandy. And your nose has only been broken recently. Are your eyes real? She leans in. You didn't have them carved like a Coorish pixie, did you? I don't dignify the question with an answer. You're not going to leave, are you? Why would I? Everyone is busy preparing for supper. I'm bored. You're entertaining. Very well, then. I drop my robe to the floor, intending to embarrass her. She doesn't look away. She scrutinizes. You have more scars than most pixies, he says after a moment. Because I'm not a pixie. She surprises me with a laugh and counts my scars, till she finds one curious. It's a long, thin scar, like a necklace around my neck.
Speaker 6 00:50:44
Who gave you this one? Her pale fingers brush against the scar, and possibly I hear the howling of the wind outside my window. And in the darkness there and in my mind, he lurks, the Reaper's Beast, the demon of my childhood. Instinctively, I put my robe back on and sit on the ground. She looks suddenly apologetic. A man gave it to me when I was young, I say, chastising myself for losing control of the memory. Some demons never leave. Grandmother wanted to laser the scar off. I convinced her to let me keep it. She joins me on the floor. A lover? No. Did you kill him for it? For hurting you? I shake my head. Why not? Like I said, I was young. He was not. Did you find him and kill him later? You're a man now.
Speaker 6 00:51:15
No. Why not? If he hurts you and remains alive, then he is your master. That is why I slayed the obsidian warchief who beat me on the Vindabona. It's in the past. The past doesn't define you. I repeat Cassius's words like they were my own. How many times did he tell me this? How many times have I failed to believe him? She could be out of it. She taps my forehead. Nothing is past. Everything that was, is. That scar is the story of your subjugation. You slayed a man who gave you that, and it becomes the story of your liberation. Did your father teach you that? I say, angry that she would preach to me. Her eyes turn cold and flinty, sensing the accusation. I'm suddenly achingly aware of the difference between us. She might be the child of a sovereign like me, but she is a soldier.
Speaker 6 00:51:47
She was raised in gladiatorial academies among the sin-weak killers on a moon that breaks down your DNA if you step outside with at least three centimeters of high-grade radiation shielding. She has a scar from the Io Institute. There is none more brutal. The students don't kill as much as Martians or rape as much as Venusians, but the games can last for years in temperatures that freeze your blood before it drips from your wound. What have I done but read and run all my life? I don't know. I suddenly feel indicted by my own banter, like I'm a dog barking at a wolf who knows very well that I'm not from the wild, but lets me bark because it entertains us, I say carefully. Forgive him, she replied. Yes, my father taught me that scars are why our ancestors were able to shake the world.
Speaker 6 00:52:18
As gulls, we were born as perfect as man can be. It is our duty to embrace the scars our choices give us, to embrace and remember our mistakes, whilst we live believing our own myth. She smiles to herself. He says a man who believes his own myth is like a drunk thinking he can dance barefoot on a razor's edge. The smile disappears as she perhaps remembers her father's face when he was led away by her brother. But I see clear as day the true war that rages inside the girl. It softens me to her, because it feels a reflection of the same war inside of me. I fight back the urge to touch her hand. You think me wicked, she says quietly, her eyes fixed on the window, betraying my own father. Why does she care? Families are complicated.
Speaker 6 00:52:49
Yes, they are. A silence grows between us, and in it we share an understanding that goes beyond words. You are strange, she says finally. Your friend is a killer, but you, you are gentle. not gentle. I'm suddenly conscious of how close she is, how aware of her body I am. The space between us vibrates and trembles with something raw, newly woken and terrifying to me. I feel the heat in her breath, the cold petals of her pale lips, and the lonely fire in her dark eyes that would pull me into her and consume me. I would let it, and that frightens me more than her family, more even than the death that awaits me if she learns my family name. She feels the same tension between us and breaks it by turning away. Marius says you're a spy, that it was not by chance that.
Speaker 6 00:53:20
you found me. You don't seem to put much trust in what Marius thinks. He is a reptile, but not a fool. I care more about what you think, she considers. Anything gentle that lives long hides its sting well. She turns to the wall to make an example. Why did you take my razor? I say, feeling a sudden flash of anger at her. All those people died because I couldn't get them. I know, she says, well, but that is the horror of the state. That's not good enough. I did it for the greater good. You will understand. Your mother doesn't know you're here, does she? I ask her, nodding to the gentleman. Why did you really come? She hesitates, as if she doesn't even know. You saved my life. I wanted to see if yours was worth saving.
Speaker 6 00:53:54
I've not decided. She looks at me with strange pity. You play with things you don't understand. Your mother made me a guest. I'm protected by old law. My mother is not my father, she pauses. Give her what she wants, for your own sake. What does she want, I ask. But the wall has already parted, and Seraphine has slipped into its shadows. Cassius was right. We are not guests here. We are prey.
Speaker 9 00:54:14
Chapter 34. Daryl. Apollonius Alvaliae Rai. I finish my morning laps in the pool on the fourth deck of the Nessus in the early morning. The swimming is part of the physical therapy to recover from the razor through the arm I suffered in the fight with the Republic Wardens. My body is a history of aches and pains. Not even in my mid-thirties, I've already had three cartilage replacements I've raised for my knees alone. The swimming makes the arm ache like hell, but also helps displace the feeling of claustrophobia that has crept in during our second week in deep sleep in our push towards society territory.
Speaker 9 00:54:46
That, and razor training with Alexander, help keep my mind from my family. After dressing in my state uniform. I find Severo in his quarters. He's lying on his bed watching a video of Electra when she was a baby. The little girl floats in the air above him, silent and dour, even as an infant, as Victor dresses her in a high-collared vest. Sophocles' tail swishes in the air, blocking the camera's view. I hear Kavak's laugh in the background. It's been two weeks without communication to the outside world. It's eating at Severo. You're still not out of bed, lazy bastard. He swings over at me, eyes still swollen with sleep.
Speaker 9 00:55:19
What's the rush? Apollonius. We agreed to talk to him this morning. Oh, that. He looks one last time at his daughter and turns off the holopad. Sure we can't keep him on ice a few weeks longer? I wish. We'll be in gold territory in five days. Time to see if he's on board. And if he's not, then you get to space him, and we burn for mercury. Pebble finds us in the hall on our way to the chute down to the fourth deck. She looks tense. We have a problem. We find Callaway hovering over a holo-display in the sensor room on the second deck.
Speaker 9 00:55:50
Clown stands behind him, with his arms crossed, foot nervously tapping. What's going on? I ask. Tell him what you told me, Pebble says. Callaway rubs his temples. For as much sleep as the man gets lazing around on the recreation room's couch and playing immersion games, he looks exhausted. So, you know this ship has an internal monitoring system that detects our thermal signatures? Sure. He brings up the blueprint of the ship. Human-shaped figures glow red amongst me. I see Winkle's cool signature on the bridge. Thraxa's hot signature. She trains endlessly.
Speaker 9 00:56:22
Severo chuckles and points to two thermal signatures side by side in one of the state rooms. Looks like someone's going to Bone City. Who is that? There's twenty-four of us. Callaway continues, counting off the figures one by one. Many are still in their bunks. Ten golds in the cells. Then, what's the problem? Severo asks. We've got shit to do. Last night I couldn't sleep. You mean, you were perving on me? So I sinked into the ship and I saw this. He rewinds the blueprint. Count them. There's twenty-five.
Speaker 9 00:56:53
Several squints. Shit! How did you just notice this? There's no reason for me to sink when we're on autopilot. It's a waste of my time, Callaway says in annoyance. It looks like they're masking their signature, staying near the engines, or wearing a thermal blanket. They could have been on the ship before it was stolen, Pebble says. Could be a dock worker, or one of Crick's servants. If it's a docker, then they could sabotage our life support systems, or melt down the helium core, Callaway says. That would be, and I say this as understatement, cataclysm. A gory damn grandma in the comm center would be as dangerous as a stained, Clown says.
Speaker 9 00:57:25
If they transmit on our comms, the whole gory system will know where we are, society and republic. We're slagged. They'll find us, obliterate us, and our molecules will drift through space for ten million years. I turn to Clown. You're done. Not really. You're done. Get Alexander and Thraxa and meet me in the armory. Ten minutes later, Clown, Alexander, Thraxa, Servo, and I shoulder our multi-rifles. I toss them green clips of ammunition. Spider only, I say. I want the stowaway alive. By eliminating the known thermal signatures one at a time, Callaway manages to track the signature of the intruder back from the galley to the engine room.
Speaker 9 00:57:57
The open room spans all four decks at the back of the ship. Metal walkways switch back down from the top and extend out amongst the machinery. The lights won't turn on. The Raxxon Clown guard the bottom exit while the rest of us come down from the top, searching level by level. Our helmet floodlamps chase the shutters away as we...
Speaker 8 00:58:17
From Corey, does that mean they did the bush hammering on the small wall first. 
Speaker 9 00:58:23
Home through the machinery. Severo signals me as he kneels. He shows me a wrapper for a Venusian noodle bowl. There's more litter in an alcove on the third level, along with a hollow visor and a bundle of blankets. There's a pattern of feet on the level below. Rat, Severo says with a grin. Go, I say. Severo and Alexander jump off the side of the metal walkway and land on the one below. There's a thump. Alas. Taro, you'd better come down here, Severo calls out. It's definitely a rat. A bloody damn big one with freckles, Alexander adds.
Speaker 9 00:58:53
I take the stairs and find Alexander and Severo standing over a small woman who sits on her own. Her face is illuminated by that bloodlust. Rona, I sputter. My niece grins up at me. Sorry, uncle. Got lost on the way to the shuttle. Is this new Sparta? What the hell are you doing here? Stowing away, she says. Can I stand or are you going to shoot me? She looks in annoyance at Alexander's rifle. Unlike Severo, he still points at her. She stands. Severo chuckles. Got some big iron balls on you, don't you?
Speaker 9 00:59:24
That's the general idea. I gave you an order, I say, trying to calm myself down as Traxor joins us. You can put me in the brig if you want, but I think the cells are all filled up. Or you can let me do my job. If Sir Pucallot here can have your back, so can I. Alexander glowers in embarrassment. By my count, we're two weeks in. No way to turn back now, uncle. You're stuck with me. She is right. You think this is about me? I ask. You just broke your father's heart. Her jaw tightens. It's my life. Now, can I join the rest of the crew and get to-
Speaker 9 00:59:55
Alexander! Shoot the dumbass! Severo says. Alexander grins. With pleasure. Her eyes widen. No. Not him. Anyone but- Alexander grins, and fires his spider poison round into her thigh. She spins down, grunting in pain, her fingers curl as the paralytic spreads. Ouch! Leave her! Severo says, and Fraxer tries to pick her up. You'll be able to move by tonight, shithead. Clean up your filth and find a bunk. Tomorrow you scrub the latrines in every bathroom, starting with mine. Real shame for you, because curry is on the menu tonight.
Speaker 9 01:00:25
He bends down. You sigh because you ain't with a Drachenjager squad? A Mechman? Please. We eat those little bitches for breakfast. You're lucky to be in our glorious presence. He leans in even closer. You want respect? Earn it. She is right. The nerve of her, I mutter as we head out into the hallway. At least she didn't come through the viewports. Poor Ciaran. You should have seen him ask me to leave her behind. Was a bit harsh, don't you think? Fraxer says, catching up to us. Severo grins. Listen, Fraxer, kids are like dogs.
Speaker 9 01:00:57
Some whimper, some bark, some growl. You've just got to find the right language and then speak it back at them. Alexander smirks. You can speak to dogs. I'll talk to you, Danter. Min Min lounges in the brig guard post, forward of the cell block, with her rifle leaning against the wall, when Severo and I arrive to talk with Athelonius. Her bandy metal legs are up on the console, a coffee cup balanced precariously on her hydraulic joint, as she watches a horror comedy about a red moving in with a violet and grey in Hyperion City. Hijinks ensue. She scratches the coarse whiskers on her neck and looks back at us.
Speaker 9 01:01:28
Lol, bosses. How are the little devils today? I ask. Quiet as mice. Min Min keeps one eye on the projection and laughs as the red tries to reach the top cabinet in their apartment's kitchen to get the whiskey the others hid from him. That's some racist shit, she says. We're not all alcoholics. The smell of whiskey wafts up from her coffee. Tonglis is on his conjugal visit again. I look down the hall to see the old obsidian sitting cross-legged, looking into one of the cells. How many is that? Comes every day. Our collection of escaped prisoners is a motley assortment of devils.
Speaker 9 01:02:02
Half are men and women the Howlers laboured to capture personally over the last ten years. All ten are Venusian. It seems a blasphemy that we've been the ones to free them. I feel the silent anger in the Howlers at mess. In the ship's gymnasium, even when they pass in the hall. Not anger toward me or our mission, but as though this is some grand joke that existence plays on us. We circle around again to see the same faces, the same ships, the same battles. Again and again. Around and around. It's the very reason I need to kill the man at the axis of the cycle,
Speaker 9 01:02:32
around which this all spins. Thunglus sits on the floor of the hall, the warden's dog asleep in his lap, watching Apollonius play his phantom violin through the one-way glass. The old obsidian has cut his hair short and trimmed his beard to a fine goatee. He looks an altogether different man, sophisticated even in the military fatigues. His dog wakes and growls to be approached, quieting only when Thunglus strokes him behind the ears. Apollonius is naked from the dim light of his cell, his clothing folded neatly on the floor. It disturbs me, watching him rocking there, playing his phantom, his golden hair pouring down his shoulders,
Speaker 9 01:03:07
eyes closed, face a monk-like mask of concentration. A bandage is affixed to his head over a shaved patch from winkle surgery. I want him dead, gone from the worlds. He's taken two people I love and tormented another as a boy. The thought of setting him loose again makes me sick. Do you fancy the evil violinist, Thunglus? Severo asks. The obsidian looks up at us with his dark eyes and shakes his head. He makes a motion of the violin and points to one of the tattoos on his arm of an old man with a long beard and a harp in his hands. It is the Norse god of music.
Speaker 9 01:03:38
Braggy. Is he that good? I ask. Chungus nods. He taps his ear and then his heart, as if to say he wishes he could hear him play again. Not happening, Severo says. Chungus nods, accepting that, and stands to leave us alone with Apollonius. I watch him go and wonder what he'd say had he had tongued. He is unique amongst the obsidians I've met. The way he moves is elegant, cultured, like he's accustomed to finer things. He's quickly become a new favourite in my pack, owing to his craft in the kitchen. Men don't ask questions if you feed them well,
Speaker 9 01:04:09
but I'm beginning to suspect there's more to the story about how he ended up in an omega cell than simply getting on the wrong side of the warden's temper. Why does he always have to get naked every time? Severo mutters, drawing me back to Apollonius. Go on, let's get it over with. I deactivate the op. 
Speaker 8 01:04:28
From Ben McCleesh, should we start running without you. 
Speaker 9 01:04:32
Pass it to you on Apollonius' side of the glass, so that he can see us in the dimly lit hall. He's nearing the end of his song, rocking and thrashing out a crescendo, then a slow, silent denouement. And when he has finished, he leans back to look at us, an amused smile on his lips. Did you like my sonata? he asks, not waiting for us to answer. Much approbation is granted Paganini as the great violin virtuoso of the pentadactyl period. Well before the coming of Virenda, of course, but for sheer Orphean transcendental rigor, I've long maintained a true master must attempt Ernst's variations on the last rose of summer.
Speaker 9 01:05:05
The fingered harmonics and left-hand pizzicato are facile enough, but the arpeggios are a Herculean labor. I don't know what any of that means, Sepposet. A pity for you to have such narrow concern. You were dying to tell us when you first played it, aren't you? I know you folks can't resist a little brag, several mutters. Well, go on. Impress us, Roth. I mastered it when I was twelve. Twelve? No. Severo claps his hands. What genius! Weep? Did you know that we had a psychotic virtuoso aboard?
Speaker 9 01:05:36
I had no idea. The mastery of music is its own reward, Apollonius says. The process by which one's heart is entwined with masters of old. You do not know the toil, nor could you suffer it, and so you will never know the reward of understanding it. He leans forward with slit eyes. But by all means, dismiss it if you cannot comprehend. Art survived the Mongols. I wager it will survive you. You're hardly a patron of the arts from what I've heard, I say. You broke Tactus's violin when he was a child. Not very inclusive of you.
Speaker 9 01:06:07
So full of nuance, families. Would I understand your relationship with your brother? He gently plucks out several strands of hair and uses them to tie the wild of his mane into a ponytail. Have you pulled me from my cage just to put me in another? Seems a cruel irony for a man who prides himself on breaking chain. I hardly think your suite on Deepgrave was a cage, I say. Did well for yourself. Not so stark as your prison was, I admit. The chapel was a bizarre creature, pregnant with pain, wasn't it?
Speaker 9 01:06:37
Much like his sister. You're lucky we haven't spaced you, after what you've done. Several sneers. But talk about Virginia again. Go on. We'll see how good your violin sounds in vacuum. Apollonius sighs. My good man, enemies we may be, but let us not pretend we are bands of troglodytes warring over fire. We are sophisticated creatures who met in conflict under the agreed-upon terms of total war. You're not sophisticated. You're a monster wearing a man suit, Severo says. You boiled men alive. My brother boiled men alive.
Speaker 9 01:07:08
I am a warrior, not a torturer. Your brother? You? What's the difference? Severo looks at Apollonius and reduces him to a gestalt of awe.
Speaker 4 01:08:12
Is anyone paying by card? What's that? Are you paying by card. 
Speaker 1 01:08:18
Yes.
Speaker 4 01:08:19
We can do some check-out.
Speaker 1 01:08:20
Well, I'm actually, sorry, I'm picking it up. Oh, give us one second. Sure.
Speaker 4 01:08:34
All right, thank you. Here to pick up is your business.
Speaker 8 01:08:45
For that, are you doing a call? It's an hour. Oh, no worries.
Speaker 2 01:09:09
No, I don't think it is.
Speaker 4 01:09:59
Did you need it back today? Zero it out. If it got to the account, it will send it back to you. Have a great one. Have a happy holiday.
Speaker 2 01:10:28
Thank you.
Speaker 9 01:11:21
Yes, he has suffered the likes of Apollonius his entire life. He forgave Cassius for me, once, because he knew the hope of our rebellion balanced on the fragile notion that a man could change. I suspect he is worried that I believe the same for the man before us. The goblin stands close to me now, as if to protect me from the prisoner, despite the sheet of duroglass. But the deep-spined truth is that he's really trying to protect me from myself. That's why he came. You need not worry. I will never trust this man. Cassius was a man who lived for an ideal. Apollonius is too bright, too narcissistic to live for anything but himself.
Speaker 9 01:11:53
But even that can be useful. Apollonius sighs. Please don't insult me by claiming you still labor under the notion that you alone in history are an innocent army. War summons the demons from angels. I've seen gold scalps hanging from obsidian battle armor. City blocks naught but powder and meat. Or would you have me forget the atrocities you wrought on Luna, on Earth and Mars? Hypocrisy is not becoming of either master or hound. Especially ones who ally themselves with obsidians.
Speaker 9 01:12:25
The men who did that were punished, I say, knowing that it isn't true. It was two whole tribes that sacked Luna after Octavia's death and ravaged its citizens, low and high color alike. Too many to prosecute without losing safety. Compromises were made. Always compromises. I was an agent of war, like you. Apollonius continues. We played the same game. I lost. I was caught. Punished. And I used the devices nature and nurture provided me to lessen the blunt impact of incarceration. The great hilarity is that, in many ways, I owe you a debt of thanks.
Speaker 9 01:12:59
Several grunts at that. Solitude can be the best society. You see, I encountered a perilous choice when I faced your tribunal and received the terms of my sentence. A choice that helped me define myself. After life imprisonment was handed down with clean white gloves, a syringe was left for me in my cell, by which I was to erase myself from existence.
Speaker 3 01:13:41
I got it. Period. Should be home around six.
Speaker 9 01:14:00
A great fully rigged man of war. Four masts, great bulwarks of oak and five score cannon. All my life I've sailed smooth seas and waters that parted for me by virtue of my own splendor. Never tested, never riled. A tragic existence, if ever there was one. But at long last, a storm. And when I met it, I found my hull rotten, my planks leaking brine, my cannon brittle, powder wet. I foundered upon the storm, upon you, Darrow of Lycos.
Speaker 9 01:14:30
He sighs. And it was my own fault. I wore between wanting to punch him in the mouth and surrendering into my curiosity by letting him continue. He's a strange man with a seductive presence. Even as an enemy, his flamboyance fascinated me. Purple capes in battle, a horned minotaur helmet, trumpets blaring to signal his advance, as if welcoming all challengers. He can broadcast opera as his men bombarded cities. After so much isolation, he's delighting in imposing his narrative upon us. My peril is thus. I am, and always have been, a man of great tastes.
Speaker 9 01:15:03
In a world replete with temptation, I found my spirit wayward and easy to distract. The idea of prison, that naked metal world, crushed me. The first year, I was tormented. But then I remembered the voice of a fallen angel. the mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven i sought to make the deep not just my heaven but my womb of reba i dissected the underlying mistakes which led to my incarceration and set upon an internal odyssey to remake myself but and you would know.
Speaker 9 01:15:36
this long is the road up out of hell i made arrangements for supplies i toiled 20 hours a day i reread the books of youth with the gravity of age i perfected my body my mind planks were replaced new banks of cannon wrought in the fires of solitude all for the next storm now i see it is upon me and i sail before you the paragon of apollonius and i ask one question what, further pulled me from the deep bloody hell did you memorize that several months.
Speaker 9 01:16:10
the man before me is not the man i saw before the tribunal all those years ago his vanity has remained but now it is a hardened sharpened sword once he was a vulture of the society instigating duels for fun throwing orgies that would last for days he and carlos obelona were even long-time drinking companions he'd been looking for a reason to exist to escape the nihilism of tedium then war came you say you have dissected your mistakes i say let's put that to the test i welcome all tests gory hell do you have a shut up several asked just let us get a verb in apollonius folds his hands in his.
Speaker 9 01:16:44
lap waiting patiently tell me if you can how you found yourself in deep grave i say the man who fought himself a king discovered he was but a pawn i angered the wrong man magnus augurimus the ash lord but you know that don't you i was curious if you do he smiles to himself, I was the first Martian to fire at Lilith Al-Faran's ship over Luna, you know. I helped save Luna from nuclear holocaust. And I brought him ships, legions, and, along with the other great Martian houses,
Speaker 9 01:17:15
political capital to offset House Saud on Venus. But he resented me because I would not bend the knee like those pixie Carthiae. I was his ally, not his servant. I never saw the knife coming. When he proposed a mission to cut off the head of the Rising, I volunteered eagerly. He let me lead a division of my knights, one sentry of ten that were to penetrate the Citadel and kill you and your family. With the Carthiae, we were to be a thousand airless guards. What a sight it would have been. Not had such a pure force been assembled for a single mission since the Battle of Sephiria.
Speaker 9 01:17:49
It was to be a coordinated attack. My sentry infiltrated Luna, but it wasn't until we were pressing through the Citadel that I realized we were alone. No other sentry was on the grounds, let alone the Moon. We'd been played as fools by the Ash Lord, by the Cardiai. Our support did not answer on the call, but the Ash Lord's voice cleared us. It was a pre-recorded message. He pauses, modulates his voice to a baritone rumble. The seed of Valiai Wrath will die with you and your brother.
Speaker 9 01:18:20
You will be forgotten, lost to the stars. Farewell, Minotaur. I knew, so I made the effort to do so in glory by taking your head.
Speaker 9 01:18:50
Along his shrugs, while you knew much of this, you interrogated me, my men. Again, I asked, why liberate me? Is it not obvious by now to your supreme intellect, I ask? There is only one thing you and I share. A common devil. I've pulled you from your prison to offer you the most precious thing I can offer a man like you. Revenge. Revenge? Do tell. Like you, I seek the head of the Ash Lord. The difficulty is parting it from his body.
Speaker 9 01:19:20
In that, I require your assistance. He's suspicious. I have no army, no weapons, nothing left to give but blood and bone. How can I benefit you, Darrow? It's not what you have. It was what was stolen from you. My smile is cold and hard. Part of what I told you in the cell was true. The Ash Lord did not kill your brother. Tharsis is alive. Apollonius is stunned. How? You know the answer. You've wondered if it was possible. Tharsis sold your life for your title of Pater Familius of House Vali-Irad.
Speaker 9 01:19:54
For your monies, your men, your ships. I see. The charm of the man vanishes. If I agree to help you, what trust can there be between devils? This isn't about trust. It's about leverage. That bandage on the back of your head is from a particular procedure involving a cranial drill. There's a quarter ounce of high-grade explosive embedded in your grey matter, as well as a neural chip to stimulate your ocular nerve. I activate the detonator timer on my datapad. Numerals appear on my datapad, but also in Apollonius' vision, via Winkle's biomod.
Speaker 9 01:20:24
A ten, then a nine, then an eight. You have seven seconds to give me an answer. Yes or no. Six, Kevro grins. Four, Apollonius stares blankly. Two, I back away from the glass. Very well, Apollonius smiles, though his anger has not abated. I accept your proposal, but I have demands. Thirty minutes later, we watch Apollonius devour a two-kilogram steak in the Nessus' officer's dining room with the patience and manners of a well-bred crocodile. Each bite-sized piece is dipped into the jus and chewed laboriously before being washed down with a thick Bordeaux from our stores.
Speaker 9 01:21:01
When he is finished, he leaves several ounces of the steak unattended, as well as a thumb of the red wine, and is only a spoonful of the iced lemon dessert that he requested made for him by Congress. He leans back in his chair and blesses my lieutenants with an expansive smile as Alexander takes his plate away. Apollonius levels his gaze at Alexander. Alexander, you're a pure-blood looking boy. What is your name? Alexander. Apollonius eyes him with interest, and then gestures to Severo and Culloway. Does it not rankle you to serve such genetic inferiors, Alexander?
Speaker 9 01:21:31
I've now seen sharks fly and lions bark. Alexander laughs. A lecture over genes from a valley I wrath? He leans forward, Apollonius' plate still in his hands. It would have been a severe pleasure to see my grandfather educate you on the merit of your genes. And whom do you call kin, Alexander? Apollonius asks. Lorn, our archers. Well now, a griffon in the flesh. Apollonius is impressed. Blood of the conqueror still in your veins makes you an endangered species. You must have been there when my baby brother was gutted by your grandfather on Europa.
Speaker 9 01:22:02
You would have been in the seed of youth. Eight, nine. Tell me, did the violence excite you? It educated me on how to kill Vali-I-Ra. In that, it proved most. One could say we have a blood feud between us young men. And, clearly, Alexander says with another laugh, I wouldn't give your lowly house the dignity of my attention. The insult finds its mark. Severo shoos him out of the room with a paternal slap on the backside. Apollonius. I say quietly, if you insist on provoking my men, we will have a problem.
Speaker 9 01:22:33
Provocation is the nature of predators like us, Dallor. He looks around. What a call. Where are my manners? Apologies for offending you. He waves his hand to the walls. This is not your moonbreaker, nor a dreadnought, or a destroyer. The officer's mess is much too small. A thought ship, perhaps, smaller, is a sharp one. It's a frigate, Zephos-class. So they're finally deployed. What a curious ship for a warlord. And custom tables, a curious exodus from deep grave.
Speaker 9 01:23:04
If one didn't know better, a sagacious intellect might suspect that something is foul in the state of the Republic. This is a black ops mission, I say, the less he knows, the better. The Morning Star is a little less than discreet. Indeed, indeed, he says. Now, I think it is time to tell you about my brother, and what is to fall in my house in my absence. Zephos smiles. I'm going to enjoy this. Your house is a shadow, I say. Your brother may have fought his life, but it was at a steep price. He is a political puppet. Your destroyers and thought ships have been given to your enemies.
Speaker 9 01:23:36
The Carthaei of Venus. Your coffers have been drained into the Ash Lord's own pocket. Many of your legions have been disbanded. The men conscripted to serve the Ash Lord. Your house is small, yet again. Everything you built on the profit of war is gone. Except my name. The great darkness has built me. Give it a year, Severus said. And forget. How did you know? Apollonius asked. One of your family lawyers defected several years ago. And where is he now? Slipped in the shower, Severus said.
Speaker 9 01:24:06
Our people found him in thirty-four pieces. Atlantia likes their assassins to make a statement. Apollonius smiles pleasantly. And what of my brother? As he sat idle as the house of my mother and father was pillaged by that loony's brute. The lawyer said Tharsis has given himself over to vice, I say. Oh, how typical of you. He picks at his nails. If my house has fallen to disgrace, what is my utility to you? In six years, I imagine the defenses for Venus have quite changed. I have neither information nor means.
Speaker 9 01:24:38
No, but your brother does. i throw a hollow venus into the air above the table the verdant planet with two polar ice caps is ringed with metal and military ships a great dark spot mars the center of one of venus's oceans star hall thinks that is where the ash lord resides but his confidants are far more discreet than those of this is the latest image of venus from our spy telescopes i say unlike luna she is self-sustaining farmland teeming oceans and vast mine works the rigors of war are demanding all production is geared toward the war effort there is no trade that means no ships in or out there is.
Speaker 9 01:25:13
trade for mercury no longer mercury skies are mine i say apollonius's eyebrows float upward, indeed respect how did you bypass the defense platforms with an iron rain several cents what, a price you must have paid what a problem he looks around the table is that why you must risk life and limb for this desperate gambit because you shattered your army, i ignore him as you can see there is an extreme military presence on venus the engines of this ship and the stealth capabilities could conceivably run the blockade to escape venus if we need to.
Speaker 9 01:25:45
but not to land there we need you to help us land as i said your brother may have tamed his spirit to survive he may have bent a knee to the ash lord but what is one thing that a brother wrath cannot tame several looks at apollonius's plate his appetite the rigors of war have forced even the wealthy to ration but your brother has plunged himself into debt with his taste for black market goods and his appetite has not declined several he pulls up his starter pad 99 boxes of earth wine 200 bottles of biji 200 bottles of brandy he grimaces and says in a small voice 137.
Speaker 9 01:26:20
bottles of earth whiskey four bottles from mars i look back at him noting the low count of marsh whiskey several remains assiduously looking down at the starter pad, 200 bottles of Arak, 200 bottles of Shochu, 2,000 kilograms of beef, 500 kilograms of lamb, 400 snails, 3 kilograms of hummingbird tongues, 3 kilograms of caviar, and 20 imaginary pinks of Quicksilver's personal stock. Slowly, Apollonius begins to clap. Yeah. Yes. Now that is the reaper I remember.
Speaker 9 01:26:52
Barsus will not be able to resist. Avarice is his nature. He will have a broker beyond Venus, likely Bastion Station. I suppose that destination may prove inconvenient. I nod. Then I will need a facial construct to alter my features, and a comm station with access to the main antenna array to contact the broker. When landing on Venus does not kill the Ash Lord, he lives in a fortress. I point at the dark spot on the map. Republic Intelligence's working theory is that he hangs his crown in the dark zone. can you confirm there was talk of a clothing device to absorb the radio and light waves.
Speaker 9 01:27:23
apollonia says i see our engineers have made progress that is the location of gorgon isle this fortress it is 400 kilometers from my island but you will need an army to reach his defenses he looks again at the narrow lines of the room and something tells me you have no army but you still do i say the ash lord couldn't have taken all of your men and i wonder what do you think will happen when we land on your island and your legionnaires see that apollonius the mad minotaur himself has come home he does not return as a prisoner of the rising.
Speaker 9 01:27:56
but with a platoon of loyal commander i take his minotaur helm from a bag and slam it on a table, i am not mad he growls the indomitable minotaur several tries better he strokes his helm, you would put me at the head of a legion no several says dangling the bait apollonius, Think bigger, Ra. Cool, Apollonia says suspiciously. Varsus will give us the information we need. Then your legion and my men will launch a joint attack on the Ash Lord's fortress.
Speaker 9 01:28:29
When he dies, Carthiae and the Saud will scramble to take his throne for themselves. His lips curl at the mention of his Carthiae enemies. But to the Conqueror, Dildo spoils. Your praetors will return to fight for you. Your men will defect en masse when they hear you are alive. And in these cells, beside you, are ten blood family members of Houses Saud and Carthiae. Five from each. You will use them as bargaining chips in the ensuing struggle. We will leave Venus, but you will stay. And once you have consolidated control and crowned yourself tyrant in the Ash Lord's stead, you will contact the Sovereign of the Republic and issue a conditional surrender.
Speaker 9 01:28:60
And what do you believe the terms of this surrender will be? You agree to end the war, to give us your rivals, including Atlantia or Grimace, to be tried in Republic courts for war crimes. You give orders for the legions on Mercury to surrender. You rule Venus for the rest of your life, as you see fit. And what would stop the Republic from killing me when it's all over? Me. And you can hold your own people hostage with the South Atomic Arsenal. Well, this is magnificent for you, isn't it? A coup with minimal Republic loss. Enemy gutted from the inside, and the only cost is that I betray my species.
Speaker 9 01:29:34
Species, I ask. You're one of a kind, Babylonian. The gold betrayed you, Babylon. The Carthii helped the Ash Lord put you to rot. And because of that, the man's army. I'm offering you a chance of revenge against those who sent you to. A chance to dwarf the Ash Lord and make you human. We both know you don't care about it. So let me help make you the last legend of a crumbling age. The Minotaur of Mars.
Speaker 9 01:30:04
And Venus, he says with a smile, picking up his war helm. Sero and I linger in the conference room after Apollonius is escorted back to his cell. Do you think he knows that they'll never unite behind him? Sero asks. No. He's insane. The girls all know it. Sard and Carthia might have bent a knee to the Ash Lord, but they'll never surrender their homeland to a Martian brute. But if we set him loose, he'll tear Venus apart from the inside. We will descend on a fractured Venus. The Ash Lord wanted to give us a civil war. Fine. I'll give the bastard one right back.
Speaker 9 01:30:35
I take a sip of the wine he left behind. And if, somehow, Apollonius is able to unite them, we release the video of this little conference, and his own men might just kill him for working with me. Severo grimaces. Pops would be proud of this one. At the mention of his father, I touch Pax's key under my shirt. What's that? Severo asks. I take it out. Pax gave it to me. What's it for? A grouse bike he made. When I said goodbye, he told me I wouldn't be coming back. I look over at him.
Speaker 9 01:31:06
I know I should have put words to my regrets sooner. I'm sorry I made you leave your girls. About Wolfgall. You didn't make me do a damn thing. He pats my leg. Let's just make sure all this is worth the price we're paying. It is. I tell myself. It has to be.
Speaker 10 01:31:25
Chapter 35. Teardrop in the door. Banquet. Ye gods, it's amazing. Better than a rose, sir. Alvin, the second valet to Kavik, says as a slender human-shaped robot massages his back with 15 translucent fingers sprouting from four hands. The robot's face and body are opaque white plastic. Beneath, a blue light pulses like it's got a mechanical heart beating beneath its assembly line shell. Is this what replaced my da in the mines? The personal travelling staff of Houses Talamanis and Augustus lounge in a sitting room in Regulus Ogsun's tower.
Speaker 10 01:31:59
Electronics and consumer goods litter the room. Basket gifts for all the staff, even me. He's the only man I've ever heard of who gives gifts to everyone else on his birthday. So what does Quicksilver want for this basket? I turn the attached card over in my hands. Lyria of Luggaloft reads in flowery gold cursive. For your unsung service to the Republic, August wishes, Regulus Oxon. Rhyme or not, I cherish the card and rub my finger over the embossed winged heel. As if you've ever gotten a message from a rose, one of Niobe's ballots says.
Speaker 10 01:32:29
I did one time, you know, didn't even have to pay. Liar. You've silver dripping out of your ears. Don't I know? Oh, gods, yes, robot, that is the spot. Harder, sir, the robot asks in a hollow human voice. Always, always, ow, ow, not that hard, are you trying to kill me? Impossible, sir, the first law of robotics states. I know what it states, you toaster. I sip my ginger tea, wishing Philippe were here to lend his wry opinion. My own is not needed among the servants. I'm still an outsider to this little club of valets.
Speaker 10 01:33:00
Most, except Alvin, are in their forties or fifties and have served since they were younger than I am. Their parents served, and their parents before them, just like Garla and the Docker Reds. Everything in Quicksilver's tower is shiny and sparse and silver and white, except the racing ships that roar out sound from a holographic projector on the far side of the room. Some valets and political staff sit there in tuxedos, smoking or tapping away, importantly, at their datapads. Bethalia enters from the hall, speaking with Quicksilver's steward and the Sovereigns. A happy, plump man with quick fingers. Looks a bit like a giddy pig surprised to find himself in a tuxedo.
Speaker 10 01:33:33
We're here for Quicksilver's birthday. It was a sight as our caravan taxied in through the air to his skyscraper dock. Spotlights carved the November dark cycle sky. Onlookers with cameras filled dirigibles and rooftops. I watched out a staff compartment window from one of our armoured ships as the stars shone. The Sovereign and her son exited onto the silver carpet with the telemanners. For a moment, I felt like I was back with my family, watching the H.C. from half a billion kilometers away. The Augustans looked mighty fine, but I resented them all the same. This is their life, galas and parties.
Speaker 10 01:34:04
I feel guilty for that resentment. I owe so much to Kha'Zix. The guilt dissipates when I remember the feel of mud, the sounds of the flies on my sister's body. They'll never hear that sound. None of these serious, pompous servants have heard that sound. I think of Philippe, feel the weight of his back as pendant, and take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone. My datapad vibrates on my wrist. I hesitantly approach Vithalia and wait till she notices me so I don't interrupt her conversation. Yes, Lyria. Kha'Zix pinged me. Should I go into the banquet?
Speaker 10 01:34:35
She adjusts my collar absently. Unlike the men, the women don't wear a tie. Our collars are stiff and high and without undershirts. Yes, but they're not at the main party. Cedric, could one of yours guide her? The other servants watch me jealously. As I leave the room, I grin back at them for a little fun. One of Quicksilver's security captains, a tall, dead-eyed grey, guides me through the halls past Lion Guards. The woman has no interest in talking with me, so I return the favour. We divert to a small lift and take it down to a quieter level that's more darkly lit by lights that run along the ceiling.
Speaker 10 01:35:07
Water sweeps under the glass floor. Strange shapes swim through it. I try to stop and get a better look, but the valet tucks at me, so I hurry along behind her. She leads me into a large ivory door, where several serious greys in tuxedos with Augustus line pins on their chests loiter outside, weapons bolting.
Speaker 3 01:35:23
Car on the side of the road.
Speaker 8 01:35:31
Stopped vehicle reported.
Speaker 10 01:35:35
Under suit, jacket. Two obsidian men watch me from the shadows. I eye them warily, still terrified around their kind. They scarcely seem human. She's here for the box, the valet says. You class too, citizen? The grey at the door makes me show him my ID. Another pushes open the door for me. Kavix's voice is the first I hear. Come now, Victra. Dancer is not so bad a creature. He's a pompous, churlish, three-inch backstabbing rat, the woman draws. A little, rust-livered rat that has half the Senate eating out of his germ-infested hands.
Speaker 10 01:36:08
You do not have to defame the man's honour, Kavix says. He's still our friend, you big idiot. Socialists don't have honour, they have psychosis. The woman speaking is half-naked. A pregnant gold with jagged white blonde hair, and a profoundly scandalous black dress with green spikes on the shoulders, and a neckline that plunges almost to her navel. Trying not to look at her is like trying not to look at a burning house. A dozen people join with her in intense conversation in a sitting room with a glass-domed ceiling. Several servants bring them coffee and liquor. I spy sophocles and pat my leg.
Speaker 10 01:36:40
He looks blankly at me, comfortable on Kavix's lap. Here he is. A hair, a rotund bald man says through his jowls. He holds whiskey in his fist and has a ring with a gold eyeball in it, quicksilver in the flesh. A picturesque pink man sits at his side, gently holding the stem of a wine glass. Sadly, the diagnosis is terminal for that lot. Does he really have six blocks? Kavix's wife, Niobe, asks a grandmotherly pink. The coppers have not yet decided, the old pink says, glancing at another woman who stands with her back to the room, looking out the window at the glowing city.
Speaker 10 01:37:12
So we have six blocks, and they have six, and the Obsidian still won't talk. Who would have thought the war and peace comes down to copper? Havoc's rumbles. I warned you of this, democracy. He spits the word. Caraval told me in my office this morning that Dancer promised him a bill on low-colour and mid-colour reparations, the old pink says. Reparations? The pregnant woman says with a laugh. It was a fine republic, a bold republic, until it went bankrupt in its eleventh year because of socialist lunacy. They take the Senate, they'll gut the war effort to pay for their agenda. Or they'll raise taxes. Or, the old pink says with a smile, they'll do both.
Speaker 10 01:37:49
I'm already being taxed into oblivion, Quicksilver says. How much more blood do they think they can draw from this stone? I think you're doing quite well enough, Daxo says from behind his brandy. Well enough? Quicksilver asks hotly. Who the hell made you, Arbiter? Not enough you're blocking my acquisition of Ventress Communications and curtailing the mechanisms of mines. Now you want to define when a man who built a business and a resistance army with his own two hands has done well enough. I had less trouble making Tinos than getting a bill through your squibbling Senate. Monopolies are bad for the people.
Speaker 10 01:38:19
Government is bad for the people. Quicksilver makes a disgusted sound. More regulations are bad for the people. You raise taxes, I have to raise prices. Little people get crushed. Regulus, our son, defier of tyranny, guardian of little people, Niobe says, how noble you are. I pull out a bit of duck liver that I carry with me as a lure for Sophocles. He stares on at me and lowers his head willfully to drink out of Kavix's mug. Damn fox. He'd best not make me come get him. I'll die if they notice me. Some already have. I've been too long in the room.
Speaker 10 01:38:49
I say we kill, dancer, the pregnant woman says. I've ten men that can make it look like an accident. Ten thousand that can make it look like an example. The old pink looks at the servants bringing them drinks. Really, Victor, some digression. I'll buy a hollow billboard above Hero Center. Denter, I don't care. And don't act like they aren't your creatures. You don't mean that, Victor, Nayobi says. Why not? Because it's murder, and he's a hero of the Republic, akin to Darrow and Ragnar, she grimaces. Maybe more so these days. You can't kill him. He's the voice of Red.
Speaker 10 01:39:22
If he's murdered, the mob will storm the Citadel. We'll have an uprising, and not just here. Mars would disintegrate. The Ash Lord would have a laugh at that, Tavik says. Father is right. Might be his intention, Daxo adds. Darrow certainly thought so. Ridiculous, the pregnant woman says. I've just realized who she is. Victra Albarca. Politics is such a bore without a little murder. Honestly, I don't know how you people sit in the Senate listening to blowhard softbodies yammer on about universal welfare. At a time of war, I'd cut my gory damn ears off.
Speaker 10 01:39:52
Dancer is going to take the Senate, the woman at the window says. My heart skips a beat. I know the voice. Virginia, the Lionheart, turns around. My heart rushes under my sternum. Years of anger, resentment, now compromised by the subtle beauty of her, by the rolling power of her calm voice. The music. Magnetism strikes me dumb. Even as I realize she is barefoot. He will take the Senate when we vote next week, she repeats. It's not a matter of if. It's only a matter of when. Caraval will fold.
Speaker 10 01:40:24
He's just drawing this out to get a deal for his people. And the Obsidians? Niobe asks. Sephi will not meet with me. What does that mean? Victra asks. I don't know. But we must assume it means we don't have their votes. So Danza will have the majority needed to ratify the peace accord. Seven blocks to six. Then I'll veto it. No Senator will sit across the negotiating table with that balona. It will pit the Executive against the Legislative. I'm afraid Dara was right. This is a ploy by the Ash Lord to distract us.
Speaker 10 01:40:55
But Danza will have to keep his flock of Senators from straying. Well, I just have to mind myself. Who do you think will cave first? Me? Or a few Senators? His momentum will run upon the Mountain and Founder. Danza is smart enough to know this. So the question that keeps me up at night is, where's the twist? How will he break the impasse? Her eyes settle on me, and I feel their massive weight, knowing I look like I'm eavesdropping. The others follow her gaze, and suddenly all are staring at me.
Speaker 10 01:41:25
Lyria, Kavik says, rising. He brings me Sophocles, who claws as he's handed over. This little man needs to go, Peddly. Go on now, lass. My cheeks are aflame. The most powerful of people in the Republic, staring down our roster of Lagolos. Now can we please talk about who the hell stole my ship? Quicksilver rumbles. I finally let out the breath I'd been holding. I grab Sophocles by the collar and rush out of the room. My blood is pumping so loud in my ears, I can hear no more of the conversation. The door shuts behind me, directed by the valet. I follow a trail of golden footprints that appear on the floor toward the garden.
Speaker 10 01:41:57
and mull over what I heard. Sophocles suddenly growls, his hackles rising as a small chrome globe, no larger than my fists held together, floats towards us in the centre of the quiet hall. One of Quicksilver's drone sentries. I heard the valet's talking about how he has no human guards anymore. Sophocles snarls at it as it draws closer. The drone floats politely upward to wait for me to pass. Good day, Lyria of Logolos, it says. Good day, I reply with a laugh. Sophocles sniffs the air, less impressed, and then squats and takes a piss right in the centre of the floor. A light on the drone glows red through its silver carapace.
Speaker 10 01:42:30
Bad, it says, and shoots a thin line of rancid liquid onto Sophocles. He yelps and darts down the hall. I'm pulled right along with him. Have a splendid day, citizen, the drone says. Damn robot, I curse, as I catch up to Sophocles. In the garden, I free the fox. He sniffs under the bushes, searching for the perfect spot. I sit down, still thinking of the Sovereign. I've seen her from afar, but never been seen by her. Under her gaze, I felt she could hear all my evil thoughts, all my anger toward her and the Republic. She may have been larger than life on the H.C.
Speaker 10 01:43:00
Brilliant, perfect, but never once did I think about her as flesh and bone. She was tall, beautiful, but that's not the impression she left on me. No, the Sovereign is tired. What would it be like, I begin to wonder, to be responsible for so many lives? Is that what you felt when your children ran with you? Who are you? A voice asks. I jump, and look to see a boy in a tuxedo sitting on a rock amidst the garden's tree. A hollow plays in his irises. I recognize his strange eyes and his dusty gold hair, and for a moment I think I'm looking at the Reaper himself, but he's a child, one I've only ever seen on the HC, and from a distance, I look at the ground.
Speaker 10 01:43:39
There he is, sir. The Foxwalker. I'm surprised he knows me. I'm Pax. I know, sir. It's a false humility introducing himself. He's the most famous boy in the solar system. The bloody damn first child. Heads as bare of sigils as his father's. He wrinkles his nose. Don't start with that. I bend awkwardly at the waist, forgetting I should bow even though he's a boy. Or that. Sorry. Can't be helped, it seems. Were you lot watching the race? The race, I ask. He taps the corner of his eye.
Speaker 10 01:44:09
No, I mean the other square. Don't know a slag about races. Really? Well, time for an education, I think. I really should just... Oh, Uncle Kavix can stand a moment without the beast. He smiles sincerely. Please, it'd be nice to talk about anything but politics. Mother makes me sit in on those little council's affairs. Had to listen to Senator Caraval for two hours yesterday. That man can bloody damn talk. I flinch. This is not his word. He taps the bench beside him. I awkwardly join, fearing what the value would say if she walked in, but I can't very well say no.
Speaker 10 01:44:39
He switches the feet from his eye back to his peter pad, and then into the air. Ships suddenly fill the garden. The Cherry Racer is still out in front, darting between three star constellations suspended above the Hyperion cityscape. A pack of other ships follow in a tight line. The Circada Maxima, he says over the roar. I begged Mother to let me go, but she said it would be bad form to miss Quick's birthday, and a security risk, he points at the Cherry Racer. That's Alexia, the Rex, best pilot. In the solar system, I thought Holloway's D-Chair was the best. The warlock? Your brainwashed already? Pity.
Speaker 10 01:45:12
He examines me with a wide smile. I heard Char has 126 kills. If we're counting kills as skill, sure, he's good. Class to himself. But he's a gunslinger. Rex is a ballerina. Both outliers. Both artists. But, here, here, watch this turn. Moe still ease up on the accelerator so they don't crash into the wall. But they lose speed. She'll cut her rear engines, shunt power to a starboard buster, and then pump the energy back to the rear, all without stalling or blacking out. Watch. I watch him. Him. He's not like any boy I've ever known. He's aware of himself. Who he is. Who his parents are.
Speaker 10 01:45:43
I think he knows how nervous I am. So he goes out of his way to be kind, cheery. But if he really was so chummy with servants all the time, he'd be watching in the break room, not skulking here in the garden. But in the race, he loses the self-consciousness, and the boyish energy bursts out, reminding me of my brothers. We watch as the Cherry Racer speeds toward a huge white pylon. Behind the pylon is a floating wall on the edge of the racecourse. All the other ships slow to take the pylon turn, but Rex's banks around the pylon, arcing like a kite on a tight line, and then rockets back the way it came, rounding the obstacle in a blink.
Speaker 10 01:46:13
Ho, ho, ho! Pax cheers. That's flying! His enthusiasm is infectious, and I find myself cheering with him as the Cherry Racer speeds across the finish line several minutes later, the rest of the pack trailing far behind. So? he asks. She's good, I admit, but I still like Char. Because he's handsome? No, but he is. Maybe you think he is. Funny. And why? My brothers are in the Legion. Infantry. Anyone who takes society rippers out of the sky has got my love. That's a damn good reason, he winces. Sorry, not supposed to care. Don't tell Mother. It's not genteel.
Speaker 10 01:46:46
I'd be terrified to tell your mother anything, I say, trying to hide my bitterness with a smile. She can be a fright, can't she? She's really the kindest person you're likely to meet. She's the kindest person you're likely to meet. Sophocles has done his business and is staring at me impatiently. I reckon I should get Sophocles back. That's right. Kavix might start weeping from separation anxiety. Kavix is a great man. He looks horrified. No, of course he is. He's my godfather. Well, co-godfather. I think him and Uncle Severo arm-wrestled for it. There was cheating. Anyway, I was just japping. Where are your brothers stationed? he asks, joining me on my walk back.
Speaker 10 01:47:18
They're in the Eighth, I say. They were on Mercury. Harness his own, he says knowingly. He's Arch Leggett, a Red General. They're in the Dune Cities doing aid work, I think. He said it was classified, he nods. Our secret? You haven't talked to them? Most of the satellites are down. Too expensive. Because most were blasted out of the sky. He says it like it just happened naturally. Not like his father led ten million men in warships down onto the planet. I wanted to hate him. I have hated him. I hated him when he walked by his mother's side on a silver carpet, and when I saw him on the news with all the photographers and journalists swarming.
Speaker 10 01:47:50
But it feels wrong now to have hated him. He's not so different than Liam. Just a boy with circles under his eyes. He misses his father, and has to hide in a garden to find a moment's peace. May I ask you something, Liria? He asks awkwardly. I don't know how to ask. Then don't. I know where you're from, and I've always wondered, because my grandmother and father won't tell me much. What's it like? Like? The mines? There it is. I keep walking. How did you know I was in the mines? Father says it's important to know everyone's name and something about them. Not like a fact or something to memorize, but something real.
Speaker 10 01:48:23
I go over the new staff members so I can better understand them. And Kavix mentioned you offhand the other day, that you saved his life. So I looked up your dossier, my dossier, your history. I stop walking. Then he knows about my family. Suddenly the attention makes sense. It's guilt, pity. All over again I feel sick and viciously angry at him in his perfect tuxedo, with his white teeth and parted hair. There was this little spoiled brat who tried to bring my grief back to the light of day, just so he can live like a peeping neighbor through my pain. My family didn't die so he could learn a lesson or satisfy his curiosity.
Speaker 10 01:48:54
What was it like? I murmur, turning on him and feeling the anger coming. Temper, temper, Ava would say. Yes, they keep me in a bubble here. I want to understand. Understand? He steps back for me and my cruel eyes. Little Goad wants to hear about the nasty shit. The cancer? The pit vipers? Maybe you want to go on about how they forced us to marry at first. Or our team so we can get to breeding. Or how mind guards rape us for... Meds. They did that, you know. Boys and girls. Don't show that on the HC for all you high colours. I'm not a high colour, he says. I'm a red too. White anger flashes. The fuck you.
Speaker 10 01:49:27
are. You're just as gold as your da is. His face falls, and it feels good to see it. To know I can hurt too. I turn away from him, pulling Sophocles along on the leash. They all want a part of it. A part of pain that's not theirs. Nod their heads. Wrinkle their foreheads. Now they want to pity it. Gorge on my pain. And when they're done, or bored, or too sad, they whisk themselves away to stare at a screen, or stuff their fat faces thinking, how lucky I am to be me. And then they forget the pain, and say we should be good citizens. Get a job. Assimilate. Maybe the Vox are right. They planted us in stones,
Speaker 10 01:50:03
watered us with pain, and now marvel we had thorns. Slag them. Slag the lot of them. Stewing mad, I return Sophocles to the guards outside the conference room door, too sick in the stomach to face the hypocrites, and go back to the break room. I get so nauseous from all these low-colors buying the snakeshit myths that they matter, pretending they're important because they shine shoes and carry cakes and clone bloody damn foxes. In moments, I am back outside smoking burners on a balcony, touching Philippe's pendant and trying not to cry. I watch the cold, ancient light of the stars.
Speaker 10 01:50:33
and wonder which of them are already dead out there in the blackness. I miss my sister, my family, and though I speak to them still, all I want in all the world is for them to speak, to answer, some proof that the veil is real, that they are not simply gone into the dark. But they do not speak to me. When the Augustuses and Telemannuses have finally had their fill of partying and conspiring, we depart. I slump along with the procession with my head down, crushed with guilt.
Speaker 10 01:51:03
Not just because of how cruel I was, but because I know a little prince with his feelings hurt will go and tell his mother, and I'll be sacked within the day. I feel Bethalia's eyes on me, and know she knows. I'm just as the other servants pegged me, a rusty bitch with mine manners, and no place in their fine company. The valets carry the gifts Quicksilver's given to our masters into the shuttle's staff entrance. I follow behind with Sophocles' kit and my own basket, now almost forgotten, in my arms. I see Pax, and a mean-looking girl about the same age, saying farewell to their important mothers.
Speaker 10 01:51:37
Both the Sovereign and Lady Bartha are going back to the Citadel, along with most of the staff for more meetings, and I'm bound for Lake Selene with the Telemannises, Sophocles, and the children for the week. I wonder if they'll sack me now, or wait till we reach the manor. Probably wait. These ghouls hate causing a scene. Pax sullenly says farewell to his mother. She bends to ask him something. He shakes his head and leaves abruptly. On the passenger ramp to our shuttle, his eyes meet mine, and he looks down and turns away. In my seat in the staff cabin, I look back over the frantic rant I typed to Felique while smoking on the balcony.
Speaker 10 01:52:12
He hasn't yet replied. Odd for him to take so long. Did I scare him off with my ranting? Bloody fool. He's sick of you already. I want to send a message apologising, but that would look even more desperate. I glance down the aisle up to the passenger cabin. Sophocles sits in Kavix's lap. Pax takes a seat across from the man. Where will I go when they cut me? What will I do? Will Kavix send me back to Mars? Pull Liam from a school he's beginning to love, from friends he cares about? The thought of disappointing him crushes me.
Speaker 10 01:52:43
I should have just kept my mouth shut. I look back at the window as our ship rises up, signals its lights in a salute to the Sovereign's more heavily guarded caravan, and banks off to slither through Hyperion's skyscrapers, heading north to Lake Selene. The buildings burn with lights and are as dense as the trees of the jungle outside 121. Water slithers along the ship window, distorting the lights and making the night seem like it's bleeding blue and green. Our escort's own lights blink rhythmically to the right of our ship. A strange red light blinks beyond them against the skyscrapers.
Speaker 10 01:53:13
It goes on, off, on. I squint, and then discover it is not outside the shuttle. It's a reflection. I look down, and through my suit's jacket a red light drops. Sad, one of the valets asks, leaning to get a look from across the aisle. Lyria? I pull Philippe's necklace out from the neck of my jacket. Bacchus's silver face stares up at me, his gentle mouth pulling upward into a laugh, his face split in a grin, the eyes themselves blink red. The face of Bacchus begins to shudder and tremble like an animal is inside.
Speaker 10 01:53:44
Startled, I drop it, and the silver splits in half along a tiny seam. From the seam, out of a hidden compartment, a dull metal disc the size of three thumbnails spins up into the air, inches from my face. It hisses, then darts away from me, down the aisle, fast as a bullet. It reaches the front compartment before I even know what happened. No one noticed but the servant. BAM! She shouts. The cabin bursts into chaos, servants ducking, spilling drinks. The sally arising from her seat, Lion Guard standing to protect the passenger cabin. I try to stand, but my legs are ghosts of themselves. They won't work.
Speaker 10 01:54:14
They crumple under me, and I fall down into the aisle, head angled toward the front of the ship. Other servants collapse along with me till bodies litter the floor. Gas! Someone behind me gurgles. My own voice won't work. Lion Guard start falling as they rush to the passenger cabin. Lights flash in the ship. Gas masks fall out of the overhead compartments. But everyone has breathed it in already. Bodies are falling in the aisle, slumping in chairs. I've lost all feeling. Cavic swings wildly at me. the disk, smashing apart the walls in a frenzy to destroy it. But he's slowing, growing lethargic.
Speaker 10 01:54:45
before he becomes the last to fall to the ground. Then there's a high-pitched scream from the device and a pulse like air being sucked in. The lights go out. Filtration units silence. Engines tremble no more. The drone falls to the floor and we plummet from the sky. Buildings and lights and moving advertisement screens and avenues of ships flash past out the window. Our dead vessel spins sideways. Limp bodies flop and fly around the cabin. I slam against the sidewall, nose to the window, and see us passing through a layer of smog. We tilt again and I'm thrown back into the aisle.
Speaker 10 01:55:18
Glasses and data pads and gift baskets swirl around the cabin. Then the ship jerks to a stop and gravity reverses. Debris and people float through the ship. There's buildings outside the windows, half-constructed and missing their facades. My body hovers upward along with cracked data pads and the gift baskets. Then the suspension of gravity vanishes. Everything slams back. The ship jerks downward again and crashes.
Speaker 6 01:56:01
Chapter 36 Dinner with Dragons Guests. Dinner with Dragons is a terrifying affair. We arrive after the Ra family has been seated around the low-lying table in a warm stone room that looks out through a glass wall over the plains and an escarpment of uncarved mountain. Oxygen-making ivy creeps along the walls and the domed ceiling, emitting a pale luminescence from white floral bulbs. More than a dozen Ra are in attendance. Rangy and austere even in their own home, they wear handmade rough fabrics of earth tones and sit rigidly on thin cushions around an ovular stone table,
Speaker 6 01:56:32
at the center of which is a single floating wall. The table is the only furniture in the room and the ivy the only decoration. Cassius and I join, both wearing dark Ionian kimonos and cloth slippers. There were no mirrors in my room to see how the clothing hangs. Ionian golds believe mirrors promote vanity and obsession with the self. It's a crime for even a low-colour to possess one. Of course, they don't want mirrors, Archer would say. I've dogs handsomer than those rim dust-eaters. To be fair, the Ra family is not beautiful by loon standards. Their faces are too long in the jaw, as though someone took the clay of their visages and pressed them between their eyes. Except for Dido, their skin is incredibly pale. Their eyes slightly larger than desirable, their hair darker.
Speaker 6 01:57:05
On Luna, they would seem dour, cold creatures without proper refinement. But Seraphina's words ring true. With the absence of courtly behaviour and affectation, it has a brutal purity to it. Grandmother despised most of the foxes, and while I know she was not fond of rimmed golds, she did respect their stubborn fidelity to the old ways. It is the reason why she had my godfather obliterate Rhea. The hardest iron cannot be bent. The serenity in the Ra's movement and the dignity in their conversation are more impressive to me than all the carbon-enhanced visages and pompous exchanges of Luna's aggression. The family is not eviscerated by a new artist or lampooning a socialite for some faux pas. Instead, as we join, a quiet conversation debating the moral high ground.
Speaker 6 01:57:36
between the Cyclops Polyphemus and the warrior Odysseus is underway. Poor Polyphemus, says a young girl with wispy hair and dark-winged eyes. All he wanted to do was to eat his supper, but Odysseus had to come in and put out his one eye. He didn't even have one to spare, like father. To be fair, Polyphemus did eat two of Odysseus's mints, Polyphemus says, bearing a smile from his eyes. He's a lesson on how not to be a bad host. There's an empty space, the table beside her, where a silver flower rests in place at the table setting, probably for her sister, eleven years dead but still remembered every dinner. It is not the only empty seat. Though their patriarch is missing, we're joined by the rest of Romulus and introduced to them. Young Paleron, a thirteen-year-old silent boy, his laughing delight of a sister Thalia,
Speaker 6 01:58:09
the Polyphemus sympathiser who can't be more than nine, and is utterly besotted with the colour of his eyes. And Romulus's mother Gaia, a desiccated old harridan with lava-pale skin, who drinks heavily and smokes bitter-smelling weed from a long pipe, which she clutches with spider-leg fingers. She does not touch her food and speaks only to her children in a wandering, frivolous voice. The rest of the table is filled out by Seraphina's cousins, including Bellerophon the Bold and his wife, a slender woman with large eyes and a trident diadem of House Norvo of Tycho. The well-married man stares at us with pale eyes set in a sullen crawl. His long body is hunched like a praying mantis swinging somewhere. Despite the early violence, Diomedes is also in attendance.
Speaker 6 01:58:40
He sits serenely at his mother's side and seems the favourite object of the children's adoration. The heroes of the hour, Dido says with a smile to her power. May I introduce Castor Arjanus and Regulus Arjanus? The men responsible for bringing our Seraphina back to us. Two bowls are handed to us. Arjanus, Dido stands, takes two pinches of rice from her own bowl and drops one into Cassius' bowl. Her family follows the same custom, each walking over to us to share from their own bowls. Even Bellerophon conflicts the rice with boorish contempt. His wife smiles apologetically. Last in line, Seraphina reads my gaze as she honors the bite and returns to her seat. I wonder if her mother knows she's visited my room, or if her claim of her mother's ignorance was a deception in itself.
Speaker 6 01:59:13
I didn't tell Cassius. He would think it some devious manipulation. Perhaps it is. I've not stopped replaying the exchange in my head. With rice before us, the meal is delayed as per ancient custom to demonstrate that the golds are not slaves to the winds of that underworld. my stomach rumbles, but I dare not touch my mice. A violet with short cropped hair enters the room carrying a slender harp. He plays a gentle melody and is joined by one of the pinks from earlier, the woman with the ancient eyes and truculent mouth, Auri. She sings A Memory of Ash, a quiet, famous dirge written after my grandfather burned the rebel war of Rhea in the First Moon Lord's Rebellion. No one ever accused the Moon Lords of having short memories. Without the buzz of the cosmopolitan cities at the core, it must be hard to forget. When the violet and pink have.
Speaker 6 01:59:45
finished, they depart the room into lighter pools. Diomedes' eyes follow Auri in a way that he should hope no one in his family notices. I fire it away for later. The main course of the meal is served without further delay by minute browns and dusky grey livery. Their eyes never rise higher than the knee of any gold, but they are treated with politeness by their masters, thanked for their services and addressed by name. It's a civility I've seen in the halls and hangers and bathhouses amongst the colours from the top down, each colour within their sphere. There is no undue rudeness, coarseness or cruelty from grey to brown and gold to grey. I find it uniquely admirable, especially when I notice the children are not served by the browns, but must get up and fetch their food from the cart at the far side of the room.
Speaker 6 02:00:16
servants reigned with a peerless scar in their blood. The browns skipped Cassius and me, as well, until Dido merchants them into service. We'll forget to guess their naked faces for now. A small bowl of floured water sits beside each place sitting along with a white linen towel. Recalling my lessons from my grandmother's steward, Cedric, I dip my fingers and dry them on the towel. The fare itself is as simple as the clothes, roasted fish from Europa with hearty seasonings of salt to mask the lack of pepper at the table, flatbreads, hummus, plain rice, and roasted vegetables steamed in unadorned bowls which are passed around and served without utensils. The rice is in abundance, but the cuts of meat are meagre in size. Regulus, the Archimedes is your ship, yes? Dido asks. She is. A sleek.
Speaker 6 02:00:49
flyer who has seen more than a few years. Older than Gaia, even. Hmm? Gaia, aren't they pretty dishevelled by now? I said his ship is almost as old as you. You'll remember the line, I'm sure. A GD-17 Whisper-class frigate? Who is whispering, Gaia? No whispering at the table. It's rude. She goes back to her pipe and stares up at us, suspiciously to a bramble of eyebrows, as if we mean to do her great harm. I've seen enough of intelligence to know how hard it is to hide. The woman does a fine enough effort for this backwater, but her guise wouldn't last. The dancing faces worn there are the best in the world. Deception, the language of life. But it seems Gaia has everyone at this table convinced she is female. Interesting woman.
Speaker 6 02:01:23
Your ship is a rare craft for civil merchants, Bellerophon says coolly. He traces a few. The man's a brutish clod of the petulance of a child. Devoid of mystery, the man must have dignity. I find the lack of either boorish. Hard to see how it would be come by legally. I'm not sure I like your tone, my good man, Cassius says. The pressure on your mood has befuddled my ears. Perhaps you might clarify so you might have no misunderstandings. Again with the antagonism. Bellerophon scowls at him. The rest of the Ra family look on with a fake amusement and people far too comfortable with violence. They don't care much about their little repousses. Seraphina raises an eyebrow and eats her fish. He means nothing to her, Devoid says smoothly. Do you have nothing at all? He stares on at Cassius.
Speaker 6 02:01:56
I won her in a bet six years back from a new money silver who couldn't hold his amber. He hands her a smile. She was liberated from rising sympathizers. Diomedes gracefully removes the bones from his fish with a seagull and shows Palloran how to do the same. "'Regulus, you said you served,' he says without looking up. "'I did. I was a centurion within the Augustan legions "'during the Martian civil war,' the Imedes looks up. "'Then you fell in the lion's reign,' the spectre fills his voice. "'The rest of the table listens rapidly. "'Mention a battle, and their ears perk up "'like a kennel of dogs hearing a can open. "'I did. What was it like, Sophie asks, Cassius says, "'disappointing them with his answer.
Speaker 6 02:02:26
"'He might not have fallen in the week of his reign, "'but it cost him his entire family, save his mother. "'It's a clever game, Cassius is playing. "'By saying he's an Augustan man, he's one of the only Corgolds "'with the same sense of betrayal the Rim must have felt "'after the bloody triumph and the failure of their rebellion. "'A dangerous gambit. "'You might claim to know the same people, "'and some of them might have sought refuge here. "'Did you know the Reaper?' Diomedes asks Cassius. "'I don't mind being relegated to the background,' "'grandmother thought, talkative men, the most hilarious of creatures, "'so busy projecting that they never notice anything "'until the jaws of the trap close around their legs. "'The key to learning, to power, to having the final say in everything "'is observation. By all means, be a storm inside, "'but save your movement and wind till you know your purpose.
Speaker 6 02:02:57
"'It's a pity Dara and Fitchner-Albaca were better students "'than the last generation of girls.'" I did not know him personally, no. He was Augustus' lancer, Cassius answers. Peerless don't socialise with men like me, he taps his scarlet face. Then you've come up in the world, Valeriphan says. Did you ever see him fight, Diomedes asks? Once. They say he slayed the storm knight of earth and defeated Apollonius Alvaliairath in single combat. They say he is a true blademaster, the heir of Arcus. That not even Arja Algrimus could stand against him now. The dark spirit in me bucks against that claim. I almost break my silence. They say many things, Cassius replies. What was your measure of him?
Speaker 6 02:03:27
Cassius shrugs. Overrated. Diomedes blooms a laugh. Diomedes is the sword of Io, a blademaster, Seraphina says proudly. One of six left in the rim. He also studied with the Arcus on Europa. Became a storm son. I feel a spike of envy. Lorne taught me how to fish with Alexandra and Drusilla, Diomedes corrects. His last student misused his gifts. The understatement of Marlenium. He had no desire to make better warriors, only better men. In that he succeeded, Seraphina smiles at her rather. One day Diomedes will test the people for himself. Bellerophon watches as Diomedes' humble returns his attention to his younger siblings. I smile at his jealousy and watch Diomedes with great respect.
Speaker 6 02:03:57
We eat in silence for a time. I nurse the small fish on my plate. Cassius is already finished with his. Always a man of appetites. I'm more practiced than he in the art of self-deprivation. It doesn't feel so long ago that I was a knobby-kneed boy sitting at my grandmother's dinner table when she turned her long neck to me and peered down that peregrine nose, and in a kindly manner, inquired if I intended to sleep outside in the gutter, because by virtue of the fact that I'd eaten three whole tarts, I'd clearly abdicated being a man in favour of being a little pig. It was two days after my parents had died. I seldom eat sweets at home. Cassius makes a show of looking around for more food. Powerful portions, I know, sirs.
Speaker 6 02:04:29
They're more conservative than you're accustomed to, I'm sure. We're in the midst of a ration cycle. Thought you were sitting on a bread basket here. And Europa is just one big sea. Or did you already eat all the fish, Cassius asks. I wait in trepidation. This line of inquiry is dangerous. An innocent observation that will lead inexorably to a casual inquiry about the new ships we've seen and the state of their docks and their stores of helium-3. I fear I'm asking that question. Dido smiles obligingly. On the contrary, the fisheries and Latifundia have never been more productive. Then a lack of ships, I warrant. Many were destroyed by the Sword Armada, Dido admits. And there were... lenience. But no, not a lack of ships or helium-3. In fact, it was disruption of agriculture on Titan last month.
Speaker 6 02:05:01
that forced us to park with more of our bounty than anticipated. It isn't natural for her to tell us so much. A daughter of Venus must have found this place... strange, I say. They didn't matter to me. Cassius away from his obvious enemy. Ah, so you know my lineage. Aren't you a well-studied man? You're rather famous, I reply, plainly overwhelmed youth. I spare a glance at Valerian, who has not stopped watching Cassius turn the table. Something is wrong here. I can sense the shark's bleak surface. Even on Mars we know of Dido Al-Salmah. I doubt my father would let me still claim his name, she leans forward. Tell me, am I as famous as my husband? Seraphina tenses at mention of her father.
Speaker 6 02:05:31
She's barely touched her food and looks uncomfortable. Furthermore, few are as famous as your husband, I say. That man pinches. How diplomatic. But on Mars, Romulus and Dido is still a fairy tale. If only, she smiled at me. When I came here for the first time, I saw a foolish little sun creature raised in the court of Iran. A gaja, through and through. I fell in love with the pale wrist of the light and thought our life would be a poem. But once I arrived here, I felt the darkness and the cold well above the water. I missed the sun and hated this place. Hated my husband's austerity. He would fret over water left in my glass. A crust of bread uneaten.
Speaker 6 02:06:02
But then I learned one of Io's many lessons. Here, by darkness, by radiation, by hunger, by thirst, by war, we're always at siege. It is not like the world of my birth, where life grows on every rock and men eat until they vomit. On Io, scarcity makes us strong. It makes us value what we do have. She looks around at her family with a warm smile. Serafina clarifies. Father said a decree three months ago that rations are in effect until reserves are back to appropriate levels. No gold may eat more, as measured by weight ratio, than the agricultural reds do. I'm startled. You mean to say even you followed the ration limit? Why wouldn't we? Serafina asks, confused. It is law. Qualis rex, talis grex, Ido says.
Speaker 6 02:06:33
As the king, so the people. But you have power, I say, intensely curious. You can do what you like. Cassius shoots me a not-so-subtle look. He wants me to shut up and eat my food, leave the games to him. But my curiosity gets the better of me. My tutors called the moon lords impractical isolationists, but there seems little here but practicality. An errant claim, Romulus and I believe it important to teach our children to be more than just powerful. Dido slowly picks the meat on the bones of her fish with her fingers. Dole was meant to be an ideal to inspire, don't you agree? How did she bait me? Cassius's eyes tell me to be careful, and so does Seraphina's. I'm just a merchant, I say with a humble shrug. My family wasn't like yours.
Speaker 6 02:07:03
Oh, please, don't be pompous, boy. Peerless aren't the only ones with opinions. Pray tell, do you agree? Speak plainly, or don't speak at all. Were we meant to be more than just force? Weren't we meant to inspire? Yes, but then we forgot it. See? An opinion. She looks over at Cassius. You really should let him have a mind of his own, my good man. Sighing like that when he speaks his mind. Not good to quash the naturally inquisitive. She turns back to me. Now, Caster, it's been ten years since we purged the sons of Ares from our moons and eliminated the last of the slave king's terrorists. Out of curiosity, how many rebellions and terrorist attacks do you think Ilium's had in the last year? 43, I say instinctively, based on the 10-year annual average of reported incidents before the fall.
Speaker 6 02:07:36
Seraphine's eyes narrow at the precise number. Two, Dido replies. Just two, Cassius asks in surprise. A shooting and a bomb. The hierarchy has not changed. Do you know what inspires this loyalty to the compact from all colors? Honoring work, honoring morality, honoring principle and family. Our rules are harsh, but we obey them from gold to red. Romulus eliminated the rigged quotas in Mayans and the Latifundia, has begun to phase out the obsidian gods, and makes each man understand he is part of the same body. He has replaced subjugation with participation, given a reason to sacrifice for the betterment of all. And it starts with us at this table. The head of the body. Each man will be given liberty to pursue achievements.
Speaker 6 02:08:06
with the best of his virtue and abilities, and rise within the station to which his flesh was made, a sacrifice of the self for the preservation of all. I remember the words of the compact-like scripture. Admirable. Yes, Seraphine says. Her eyes warmer to me than ever before. Why did you not carry on the fight? Why become traders? Diomedes has been nursing the question, waiting for a pause in the conversation. The timing is awkward. You mean fight for the Ash Lord, Cassius asks, sipping his wine. I think not. His daughter murdered my friends, Triumph. What of you, Castor? Dido asks. Don't you want revenge for your family? I feel Cassius' gaze on me, the weight of expectation as I regurgitate his lessons, his maxims.
Speaker 6 02:08:37
What good will it do? I answer loyally. Is that your answer? Dido answers to Cassius. Or his. How many times have I lain in my bunk on the Archimedes, lonely, fantasizing of strength, of revenge, of sailing home and taking back my grandmother's scepter, her chair, and putting Darrow and his rabid wolves in chains? I always thought it a fantasy, something that could never be. But now that I see how much strength is left in gold, how much of the old virtues, it grows harder to see it as the vain, idle fantasy of little boy any longer. Gold is not dead. Is that why you want war, Cassius asks? For revenge? In part, yes, Dido replies. To avenge the wrongs the slave king has done us, but also to heal the chaos that he has made. His republic has had ten years to create peace. They failed.
Speaker 6 02:09:09
The time is right for the society to be rebuilt. We have the will, the might, but we need the spark. That is why I sent my daughter to the Gulf, to retrieve that spark. Thanks in no small part to you, she brought it home. She pauses a moment to smile with no kindness in her eyes. But now I fear it is missing, finally the twist, the reason behind all these innuendos and games. Is that an accusation, Cassius asks warily? Oh yes, my good man. That's why you went back into the Vindabona, I say to Serafina. But you didn't bring anything back with you. I brought your razor, she says. My heart sinks in my chest. I missed it. I've walked straight into their trap. They've been toying with us, with me, and here I was admiring their civilization like a gory damn anthropologist.
Speaker 6 02:09:41
And where is your razor, Dido asks. We're dying to know. It was lost, I say. Our hull was punctured and the razor pushed into space before the cellular armor could close the breach, Cassius explains. Is that so, Regulus? Dido leans back. The fish has left a foul taste in my mouth. I think it's time for dessert. She motions to the servants, and the door to the room opens. Two obsidians with bulging pale arms enter carrying a load between them, which they set in the center of the table. It is our safe. Chapter 37. Lysander. Bulging pale arms enter carrying a load. So, Regulus.
Speaker 6 02:10:12
Dido leans back. The fish has left a foul taste in my mouth. I think it's time for dessert. She motions to the servants, and the door to the room opens. Two obsidians with bulging pale arms enter carrying a load between them, which they set in the center of the table. It is our safe. Chapter 37. Lysander. Prey.
Speaker 6 02:10:60
Of course you know that, or you would have already opened it. Indeed, Ida says. Personally, I would very much like my daughter's efforts not to have been spent in vain. She holds up a finger as I'm about to reply, and I would be wary if I were you at further insulting my intelligence by claiming your razor is not in sightless safe. I bear insults poorly. Then her lips slide into an enigmatic grin. But open it for me, and we can be friends again. I'm a most generous friend. I glance at Serafina. Is that the only reason we're alive? I feel foolish for letting her lower my guard. A strain of grandmother's malice pulses into me, despising her attempts at manipulation. "'Caster, let the adult speak,' Cassius says slowly, his eyes fixed on Dido.
Speaker 6 02:11:31
"'The safe can be opened for a price.' "'A price?' Serafina laughs in appreciation of his boldness. "'We are merchants after all,' Cassius replies. "'What is your price?' Dido asks. "'For the key to your war, I offer a bargain. "'Give us our ship, give us our pilots, and any surviving crew members of the Vindabona. "'Give us our freedom, and once we reach safe distance from Io, we will send you the combination.' Dido wags a finger at him. "'Are you trying to make a fool of me? "'Caster left out a feature of the Holson 7, didn't he? "'Clever boy. A secondary detonation code. "'One that can be given in place of the real code. "'One you can supply me with when you're cruising toward the belt.' "'And why would I want to destroy what's inside?' Cassius asks. "'We take no issue with your war, only your value of our lives.'
Speaker 6 02:12:03
"'Yes, you have the fee.' "'Why, indeed.' The silence grows to terrible lengths. "'On my honour, I'll send the proper combination,' Cassius lies. "'He'd rather die than let them have their war.'" Your Honor, Bellerophon laughs at a private joke. Be thankful we do not peel you like a tank shrimp. They are guests, Diomedes says sternly. They have eaten our bread and supped at our table. No guest in the history of our house has been violated. Not even the Fabii and the Reaper. Not even the Ash Lord after the burning of Rhea. Do not disrespect your ancestors. Bellerophon rolls his eyes at his cousin and turns to his aunt. Aunt Dido, we don't have time for this. Vela is already rallying legions at Carrow. If Vela escaped, then Cassius is right again.
Speaker 6 02:12:35
The coup is not concluded. The Kodavan will be coming too. Our allies are nervous. Some would stand by us if Vela attacks. We need the evidence. Dido opens her hands to us. You see my predicament. There is no time for your proposal. One option remains, and that is to trust me. Have I not been a good host? Have I not shown honor? Does she think we're so stupid? Cassius smiles. You have my terms. Seraphine looks to me. Castor, no harm will come to you. My brother speaks for the both of us, I reply. Dido leans back in her chair and nods to a brown by the door. Tell Polybius to bring in his pet. Have you a new creature for the children? Old Gaia asks in delight. Her wrinkled neck cranes in anticipation as an old violet with a black mustache limps into the room.
Speaker 6 02:13:39
tangled petals drift free, one by one, to settle on the barren bones of her fish. The story of their life ends, all those dreams gone, and you begin to forget them. You begin to loathe yourself for time ill-spent with them, for your grief, stealing the joy their life brought, as their memory begins to fade. More obsidians enter the room and stand behind us. My daughter, my Thessalia, was not made in my image, or Romulus's, Dido whispers. She was a birth of air, a sweet girl, a vessel of all my joy. Eleven years ago, Thessalia went with her grandfather, Rebus, to see Mars and attend Augustus's summit. She wanted to see the Valles Marineris, the Olympus Mons. Eleven years ago, she watched her grandfather die and felt fear as her head was caved in by a Martian boot.
Speaker 6 02:14:12
My joy vanished that day, and as a family, we swore vengeance upon all those responsible. Rock al-Fabii, Lilith al-Faran, Asia al-Grimus, Adrius Augustus, Antonia al-Severus Julii, Octavia al-Luna, Dido's lips curl, and Cassius al-Dalena. Chapter 38. Lysander. Gruisly. Cassius bursts from his seat, diving across the table to try to reach the access pad on the safe. The obsidians grab him and wrench him back. I lunge for one of the knives on their belts, but Bellerophon stands and in one fluid movement whips his razor diagonally across the table.
Speaker 6 02:14:43
The thin black metal snaps around my arm. He jerks me sideways and I spill down, set upon by obsidians. Bellerophon's fingers move over the hilt of his razor to recall the whipped, rigid form. He'll take my arm. Bellerophon! Serafina snaps. Not that one! He says nothing but flicks his whip free of my arm, and recalls it back across the table. It slithers like a snake across plates and spilled rice. The obsidians shove me into my seat. They wrestled Cassius back to his. If you hurt him, I won't give you the combination. I... Quickly. Seraphina, he saved your life. You're in his debt, and he's under your... ...hospitality. Void because of your lie, Dido says. Diomedes, who has sat like some paragon statue this whole time, watching the drama unfold,
Speaker 6 02:15:14
now frowns. Mother, I know the face of Bologna, as well as any man. That is not him. Oh, but it is, she says. The razor of a Bologna isn't that safe, concealed under a shell of titanium. I look to Seraphina, hiding my horror as I realize what gave us away. When she opened the razor to hide her evidence inside it, she must have discovered the false cover, and seen the eagles on the handle underneath. She knew all along. Did you think we did not know the technology of our enemies? Dido asks Cassius, gesturing at her own face. You may keep your silver-spawned enlightenment. Here we have masters of the old ways, of flesh and bone. She gestures to the violet in his jar. You may begin. The violet shuffles up to the table, and with a pair of tongs reaches into his jar.
Speaker 6 02:15:46
From the yellow liquid he draws a tiny horror. A hideous, spider-legged slug with corpse-pale skin, and a belly riddled with small, hungry apertures. This is a grizzly, Zylia says. The creature squeals like a burning worm and writhes in the air over Cassius's face. He flinches away. From its apertures, thin tentacles push past layers of pallid flesh toward his face. The grizzly eats masks, you see. You're not the first spy to preach, Gulf. The violet lowers the creature onto Cassius's face. Black stingers spurt from the tentacles into his skin. It wraps its leg around his head and sucks, shuddering with an orgiastic sigh as my friend gurgles beneath its flesh.
Speaker 6 02:16:17
I watch in cold terror as the creature feeds till it is engorged and lethargic, and the violet pulls it back up with tongs to reveal under a mess of puncture wounds and thin trails of blood the swollen face of my handsome friend. He blinks through the layer of grime up at Dido as the obsidians haul him up to face our houses. Blood and milky fluid drip into his beard. The truth at last, Dido says. Cassius laughs and rebelliously spits blood from his mouth. Cassius Albalona, at your service. I look to Seraphina for help, but there's no ally left in the room. She loathes Cassius as much as the rest of them. You didn't just take my daughter, you took my brother, Dido says. Marcus, Cassius says. The joy night.
Speaker 6 02:16:47
Your sworn brother, your fellow Olympian, you cut him down before you killed Octavia. He was a bastard. Yes, but he was my blood, she whispers. I will give you one last chance to open the safe, Cassius grunts. So you can have a war that will send mankind back to the Dark Ages? Funny, you don't look stupid. These are the Dark Ages, Serafina says. We will bring order back, says the little girl. Have you ever seen a city after orbital bombardment? I saw Ganymede after the docks fell from orbit, she replies bitterly. I've seen horror, starvation, the whole city frozen. You haven't seen war? His heavy eyes strafe the rest of the morale. You all think you're the chosen people, the keepers of the flame.
Speaker 6 02:17:17
You know how many have thought that? You're just like the rest, too vain to realize the flame has gone out. The dream of gold was dead before any of us was ever born. You want a war because you think the Rising is vulnerable? Because they still battle the Core? You don't know Darrow. You don't know his people. If you attack, you lose everything. The Slave King has already fallen, Dido says, smiling at Cassius' confusion. Of course, how could you know? He has become an outlaw. His own mentor and wife have turned their backs on him. The Obsidian Horde is thinned. They remain disturbed with discontent. Their Senate devours itself and debates peace with the pixies of the Core. They are flailing, scattered, and weak. The Ash Lord has sought peace, I ask. It seems war has softened his resolve.
Speaker 6 02:17:48
He is craven, and will be dealt with once we have retaken Mars and Luna. Rhea will be repaid in full. Dido turns her eyes to me. They say your family is cursed, Cassius. How lucky you are to have a brother survive the Jackal's purge. Which one is he? Theseus? Daedalus? They would be his age by now. She looks back to Cassius. It doesn't matter. If you do not give me the combination, I will let our dragons suck the marrow from his blasted bones. Cassius looks over at me with love and sorrow in his eyes. He has been searching for this for the past ten years. A chance at redemption. Denying her war is that chance. It crushes him now to know the price it will cost. But he will pay it, I realize, even if that price is my life.
Speaker 6 02:18:19
I swore to protect the people. That is what I will do, no matter the cost. And do you share your brother's insanity? Daedalus asks me. Cassius would have stayed to free the prisoners on the Vindabona. He wouldn't have run at the first sound of obsidians like I did, because he is a hero and I am not. Whatever hate I have for Darrow, whatever hope these gold have kindled in me, I cannot betray Cassius now. I love the man too much, but it breaks my heart to know that the masses he would die for would have his head on a spike if they could. He speaks for the both of us, I say again. Daedalus makes a small noise of disgust. She leans back, realizing the impasse, quick eyes searching for a way around it. Diomedes, a blood feud needs resolution. Will you do the honors?
Speaker 6 02:18:50
No, Stoic Max replies. She turns on him in confusion. What? Valor asks, caught off guard. You heard me, Mother. He killed your sister. They are our guests. You're joking. You blathering idiot, Valeriphan hisses. They're enemies of our blood. They are our guests. If you want blood, draw it yourself. Let him alone, Seraphina says, Stanley. It is his right to refuse. I will do the grief. No, Dido says, he finishes. You doubt I can? Yes. Sit down. She ignores Seraphina's wounded expression and looks down the table. Valeriphan, do what your cousin will not. Not with pleasure. The man uncoils to his feet, long legs taking him around the table,
Speaker 6 02:19:21
till he stands looking down his crooked nose at Cassius. Beware, help me. I'm a student of Aja Algrimus, and I am the son of Atlas Alra, sixth shade of the Shadowfall, slayer of Petro Albreta. Valeriphan's eyes glitter with delight as he gathers phlegm and spits it on Cassius's face. It drips down Cassius's cheek, running diagonal with his pierced scar. The blood of my grandfather and my cousin is upon your hands. Hear me now, you wretched worm. We are devils to one another. In the name of House Ra, I, Bellerophon Al-Ra, challenge you to single combat in the bleeding place till one heart beats no more.
Speaker 6 02:19:51
Very well, my good man. Cassius replies with a brilliant smile. I am delighted to accept.
Speaker 5 02:19:58
Chapter 39. Lion's Den. It sounds like the damned world is ending. Clustered outside the domed gold shuttle, in the centre of our trap, Volga, Dano and I look up and feel the fear. Two escorts rip wings chase after the damned Augustan ship. The blast door above us locks closed as the first round of gunfire. Help. 
Speaker 8 02:20:20
Rob said, any luck. 
Speaker 5 02:20:22
It's reinforced surface. The shuttle plummeted a kilometre through the city, drawn downward faster than the speed of gravity by the fleet grid.
Speaker 3 02:20:28
I just picked one up. Period. We'll likely have him up and running in the next hour to hour and a half.
Speaker 5 02:21:22
All that haul lies in a broken bone and metal soup around the shuttle in the garage of R-Complete in Lower West Hyperion. Dano kicked one of the shattered hoverbiker helmets away from the breach we burned into the shuttle's hatch.
Speaker 3 02:21:38
And I'm heading home.
Speaker 8 02:21:56
Rob liked your message.
Speaker 5 02:22:42
I didn't take the Zolidon tonight, afraid that the stomach cramps would not be flat. I'm already feeling too much. The blast door shudders the bullets as the escorts pour more munitions into it. Soon, they will buckle. We have four minutes before a rapid response team of Hyperion's counter-terrorism watchmen deploy from the 12th Cohort Headquarters. Already, there will be armoured bodyguards jumping from the escorts, searching for some other way into my metal trap. I stir into the mirage of heat as our breaching device burns a hole in the hall. The vulgar, armoured in a military-grade chestplate and helmet,
Speaker 5 02:23:12
pulls the breacher off and slams the steel and lead battering ram into the metal. It caves inwards on her. She tosses the ram aside and moves into the ship. The green magazine globe of her plasma rifle's barrel blows as she primes her generator. Dano, I follow with the omnibore in my trembling hands. If even one of the nasty bastards inside didn't get knocked flat by the aniseine gas, this could turn into a bloodbath. Trig run through on Gold's razor, men crumpling like cans to power hammers. Ozone and burning flesh as the Gold skins my team alive.
Speaker 5 02:23:43
my hands shake harder the ship is upside down and black inside it looks like a party gone wild all the revelers having drunk themselves to incensions right where they stood bodies still bottled in their crash webbing hang upside down in chairs from a ceiling that was once the floor others are sprawled atop each other in a living carpet with eyes that shine like fountain coins up with me we pick our way through the arms of servants and leather-faced killers in tuxedos the anacene 17 has made the muscles in their bodies including their eyelids unresponsive only their lungs and allowing them breath so shallow they look there's no movement my heart slams away we push.
Speaker 5 02:24:19
the forward passenger compartment as dano bounces around the ship as a gymnast skis vulgar and i climb over the body of a titanic gold with a red beard and almost step on a fox's side of a large child it lurches up to snarling i shout in surprise and kick it as it lunges it flies down the aisle and onto dano's leg as he hangs with one hand from one of the upside down passenger headrests he screams and falls down get off me get it off, He flails, falling to his back, and points his gun at the animal's skull, ready to blow his head off. Volga pushes the weapon aside and pries the fox's jaw open to free Dano's leg.
Speaker 5 02:24:50
I'm gonna kill it! Volga ignores him and grabs the flailing fox by the scruff of its ring. We hear it slamming against the door as I hold. The hell was that? Dano shouts at his gun. Shut up. Work. Amidst a thick human shield of bodyguards and golems. He's here, Dano says triumphantly. A little shit is bloody well here. He says it like he doubted it. He's not the only one. The intelligence was too good, the plan too big, the stakes too high.
Speaker 5 02:25:23
Players, fart, yet it's all slick and clean. Even I smile when I see it. The boy hangs suspended upside down, paralyzed and wrapped to his seat in crush wemming. Blood leaks into his hairline from a long gash in it. He's smaller than I expected. No giant like his father, but still, at ten, he's almost Dano's size. He's dressed in a tuxedo with a gold lion clasp instead of a tie. His eyes stare at us in terror, limping and muttering curses to himself. Dano roughly cuts the clasp off, pockets it for a trophy,
Speaker 5 02:25:54
and then starts cutting the crash webbing as Volga keeps her gun from paralyzed bodyguards. We pull the boy from the seat. Dano hoists him over his shoulder and carries him out of the ship, as Volga and I find the second trip's three seats up. The slender, gold girl is a deep-setter. Unlike the boy, she shows no fear, just absolute unmitigated. She's promising me a slow death, cut the bleeding sunroof. I can't resist patting her. Volga puts her under the shore.
Speaker 5 02:26:27
I stand alone in the dark vessel, listening to the thunder of Black Dwarf. Littered around me are the powerful and mighty who thought themselves... thought themselves gods. A dark, unexpected thrill shoots through me. I step atop the giant room of a fucking massive man with a big iron on his head. A razor, just like Ajax. My boots smudge dirt and biker blood. Telemannis. I turn to regard them, wishing they could see my face and note the lowly grin.
Speaker 5 02:27:02
Read what you sold, I say in a thick, red Martian accent. Give my regards to your masters. With a deep and courtly bow, paying all homage to gold manners, I hop off the Telemannis and dip my gloved hand in a pool of blood gathered around the head of a wounded bodyguard. I press the hand into the wall, bleeding and blood-red. Blame placed for the passenger. Time for the father. I find Lyria lying amongst three other servants who have the misfortune of being unbuckled.
Speaker 5 02:27:34
One has a broken neck. Lyria stares up at me. To her, I'll be a masked shadow, unrecognisable, with a glint of metal in my eye, but I feel as if she and she alone can see through me. She'll know that, though she'll tell me. I can't help them piecing it all together, my life with you. I point the omnibus, I have shades. Sweat trickles into my eyes inside the human. She looks up at me, blankly. I point the omnibus, she'll know that, though it is true, and she'll tell me. I can't help them piecing it all together, my life with you. I point the omnibus, I have shades. Sweat trickles into my eyes inside the human.
Speaker 5 02:28:19
She looks up at me, even in the darkness, she can see the dawn. There's no wild fear in her eyes, just silence. Resignation was wrong. I killed many people, I was all perfected.
Speaker 8 02:28:37
Ben sent a screentime request to you and Aislinn.
Speaker 5 02:29:24
Shoot her! Shoot her! I can't. Not twice. I holster the omnivore and turn to leave. I'm halfway out the door when I stop. I'm a bastard to leave her here alive. It's worse than shooting her. The Lionheart will peel Lyria apart. They'll think she's a traitor. What are you doing, eh? What are you doing? I watch myself from a distance as I rush back toward her. She's light as a charm. I carry her out of the ship and join my friends at the bottom of the ramp, where our junker Hobbikar waits. Dano sits on the hood with a pistol in her. What the hell is that? He says.
Speaker 5 02:29:55
He blocks my way. This isn't part of the plan. Shut up and get in the car. What the hell's your damage, you old flitter? Lose your stones? Dano reaches for his... I'll do it for you. Wait in the car like a good little... I level the omnivore at him. I will shoot you. Get in the car. He steps up. No, Ruster. What? Dano steps back in terror, but not at me. I turn to see a hulking mass emerge from the hole in the ship. All shoulders and thighs. The Telemannus with the red beard slumps there. Held up by his hands on the door,
Speaker 5 02:30:25
his legs butter from the aniseine. His eyes filled with... I drop Lyria and raise my pistol. The Anacene slows the man. He fumbles for his razor before giving up and lunging forward like a drunk bear. He hits me in the sternum so hard, my vision flickers black. My gun flies from my hand and I'm lifted off my feet. I slam down into the floor, skidding into a wrecked flyer. From the concrete, I watch as Dano pulls up his gun and shoots the monster twice in the chest. The bullet goes through his tuxedo and slaps into the ship. It doesn't stop him. Stumbling, the gold reaches Dano. He grabs the top lip of Dano's chest armour, holding him still as the red claws desperately cascade.
Speaker 5 02:30:57
Then the gold swings a lazy punch. It hooks in from the right casually, almost like an afterthought. The reinforced knuckles cave in the side of Dano's. His head lolls, ear touching the opposite shoulder. The white root of spinal cord juts upright. Wrenched in Dano's blood, the giant hurls Dano's corpse to the side and turns his horrible bulk into me. He takes an awkward step and is blasted sideways as Volga fires through the windshield of the aircar. The plasma stream hits the gold in his side, melting through his arm and hurling him off his feet into the shits hole.
Speaker 5 02:31:28
Volga rushes to me as I try to stand. There's a dent the size of a grapefruit in the centre of my chest arm. Several broken ribs scream as Volga hauls me to my feet and drives me into the car. Torch the body! Get the gold! I say through gritting. Volga stands over Dano's body and holds down the trigger on her rifle. Concentrated energy melts through Dano's corpse, leaving a steaming heap of crackling tissue and oozing bones. She rushes back to Lyria. The red girl issues horrible moans from her paralysed throat toward the big gold man on the ground. Volga throws her in the trunk. She grabs my gun from the ground as I stare out the windshield as the gold impossibly pushes himself up to his knees.
Speaker 5 02:32:03
The flesh of his right side melts off the bones. Anacin pumps in his blood. But he's still trying to stand. Perks! He roars. The room vibrates as ships try to pound their way in through the roof. Drive! I shout at Volga. Drive! She jumps into the driver's seat and slams on the pedal. As we shoot away into the darkness of our escape route, we hear the door finally give and crash down into the garage. Volga drives at breakneck speeds through the half-constructed hospital, faster than Dano did in our practice runs. We weave between support beams and equipment as I stare out from the back of the car,
Speaker 5 02:32:34
watching in terror, pursuing as we hold my chest and weave, caved in. After a kilometre of switchbacks and vertical elevator shafts leading to connecting buildings, we reach the staging ground in the abandoned canning warehouse and pull up in front of a makeshift clean room, metal frame pipes with plastic sheets and closings. I half expected a dozen syndicate pawns to be waiting for us with heavy weapons and Gorgo up their head, but they want to stay as far away from this shitshow as possible. Our headlights illuminate Syrah,
Speaker 5 02:33:05
standing nervously with the two needle-thin contractors I met two nights ago. They wear operating smocks, one a violet, the other a yellow. Where's Dano? Syrah asks as she comes to greet us from her mobile station. A dozen holograms from cameras she placed fill the air around it. On the hollows, the hospital is swarming with soldiers come for the boy. The cameras inside the garage have gone black. Dead, I say. How? Gold. Shit, shit, shit, Syrah says under her breath, as Volga drags the children out of the back of the vehicle straight into the clean room,
Speaker 5 02:33:36
where she loads each onto a table. Inside, the syndicate technicians move with haste. They slice open the children's clothing till they're naked. No, not children. They're killers in training. I know what they'll become. Goals that pop heads like eggs. Without even thinking, I pull out my dispenser and pop several Zolodon in my mouth and crush them between my teeth. They fizz, and I feel the cool fire spread against my tongue and the inside of my cheek, radiating into my blood vessels and carrying the warmth down into my body, sending chemicals to my brain to kill the fear and the pain in my ribs. I exhale a calm breath and look back at the car where Lyria lies inert.
Speaker 5 02:34:11
I turn my attention to the technicians. We're on schedule, but the schedule doesn't feel fast enough anymore. I shouldn't have wasted time in the ship getting Lyria. Dano's neck breaks again. I grimace and glance at the holograms. A flight of armed soldiers is landing around the hospital, just four buildings from where we stand. Hurry up, Syrah says to the syndicate men. Don't distract them, I say. Recheck the detonators, then get out of here. I don't have to tell her twice. Syrah's hoverbike winds as it departs through the escape tunnel. Only when I'm sure she's gone do I go back to the junker. I haul Lyria out and move her into the back seat of our clean car,
Speaker 5 02:34:43
a ten-seat taxi that sits next to the other rides. I take out our bags and dump our change of clothes onto the floor, then lean back in to speak with Lyria. Her big red eyes stare up at me. You've been drugged with anisine-17. It will last another hour. I consider the telemanners. He was four times her body weight, maybe less. We're going to meet some very bad people. When the drug wears off, do not speak, do not move. If you do, they'll kill you. Afterwards, if you behave, I'll take you wherever you want to go and give you enough money to start a new life. On the Zolodon, my voice sounds like a robot.
Speaker 5 02:35:13
It's a lie, I'm telling her. She'll be haunted forever, but I'll still give her a running start. She deserves that, at least. Do you understand? She can't blink or move. It's all she can manage. Good. I stack a bag on her face and cover the rest of her body. Even beneath the Zolodon, I know I will hate myself later. I know the look in her eyes is one I'll never forget. Add it to the pile. I strip my gear and toss it into a metal barrel, and dress in one of my black quarter-bound suits. Vulgar, strip and burn, I say when she emerges from the clean room. She dumps corrosive acid into the barrel after she's stripped her gear.
Speaker 5 02:35:44
Found it? The yellow where the metal sniffer nose says inside the clean room. Right shoulder blade? The violet, this one with multi-hued chimeras tattooed onto either side of his neck, finds the mark. And soon, two wicked-looking drills whir to life. Metal burrows into skin. The children whimper through numb mouths as the syndicate contractors dig out the in-bed tracking devices with forceps. Tears tumble out of the children's paralyzed guts. The men toss the bloody little chips into a container. They're baby-naked and ready to roll. Violet says. Double check for radiation stains, I say, gingerly feeling my ribs.
Speaker 5 02:36:15
Don't be sloppy. After they've finished, the two operators shove the children into plastic smocks and then drag them out of the clean room. The knights on the hologram jump into the garage through the hole punched by the ships. The operators leave the children with us and depart in their own vehicle, taking it through a subterranean tunnel that links with abandoned tramways. Volga takes both children from Mosem into the back of the taxi, laying them parallel to the seats as gentle as a moth, tucking her kids in for a nap. She lingers there, looking down. Um, Volga. She jerks her head up to glare at me and slams the taxi door hard enough to rattle.
Speaker 5 02:36:48
You too, I say calmly. I leave her to go activate the timer on the explosive charges outside the clean room. Thirty seconds starts ticking down. I activate the charges in the junker car, toss another next to the barrel for good measure, and hop in the driver's seat of the taxi as Volga tosses one of her charges into the clean room too. I follow the path of the syndicate operators down into the tunnel. If you've got to leave the field, do it in style. Soon as the old drill instructor's words are out of my mouth, the concussion of the charges going off shapes the tunnel. A second set of charges goes off a minute later at the tunnel's entrance, collapsing it behind us.
Speaker 5 02:37:19
We drive in silence, Volga pinched in the seat next to me. The high of the heist died with Dano. Neither Volga nor I expected to survive this. And now that we have, the weight of living comes crashing down on the big girl. She rolls down her window and closes her eyes, sticking her hand out into the wind like it's a dolphin riding the wave. She sits six inches from me, but we might as well be worlds apart. Cold, fetid air from the tunnels rolls through the car. We pass ramps going down deeper into the undergrid of the city. The tension works its way out of my jaw, but the sight of Dano's blood on the fists of the gold oozes through my skull.
Speaker 5 02:37:54
Volga links her datapad with the taxi, and turns on Rido Verci. As his piano plays a gentle melody, and we carve our way through the darkness, tears stream from her, but not.
Speaker 6 02:38:10
Part 3. Dust. From House Ra. Pobis et umbrus sumus. We are but dust and shadow. Chapter 40. Lysander, the Bleeding Place. Cassius is lost in thought. Staring up at a dragon carved into the stone of the antechamber, its snout is long, its greedy maw open and lined with uneven teeth. The bold knight that faced down the Ra family has departed, leaving behind the tormented, reflective soul I know. The wounds where the grusley pierced his face are swollen and red, but he's shaved his beard and looks younger than he has in years. Only his eyes are old.
Speaker 6 02:38:41
What are you thinking, I ask? He does not seem to hear me. The distant voices from a hundred throats whisper from behind two black doors down a set of stone stairs just beneath the dragon's gaze. Our grey guards give us space, allowing us to speak. Cassius. It was a flower, he says quietly. A flower? I realise he is far from here. A white Edelweiss. That was the last thing father— Our Grey Guards give us space, alas— What are you thinking, I ask? And he has departed, leaving behind the tormented, reflective thought. Staring up at a dragon carved into the stone of the antechamber, its snout is long, its greedy maw open and lined with uneven teeth.
Speaker 6 02:39:11
The bold knight that faced down the Ra family has departed, leaving behind the tormented, reflective soul I know. The wounds where the grusli pierced his face are swollen and red, but he's shaved his beard and looks younger than he has in years. Only his eyes are old. What are you thinking, I ask? He does not seem to hear me. The distant voices from a hundred throats whisper from behind two black doors down a set of stone stairs just beneath the dragon's gaze. Our Grey Guards give us space, allowing us to speak. Cassius. It was a flower, he says quietly. A flower? I realize he is far from here. A white Edelweiss. That was the last thing father gave me before he died.
Speaker 6 02:39:42
He pauses, eyes still fixed on the dragon. He rarely speaks of his family. It was a proud day, he says slowly. He spares a look at the guards. You were too young then. Mother kept you at eagle rest, but the rest of us were in a geo on the citadel steps where Augustus used to give the perennial address. The sovereign summoned us there for a council of war. Augustus's ships were two days from Deimos. The sun was high in the sky. You could feel the energy of a storm in the air. Wind had already come. Rain was following. I remember smelling the flowering Judas trees from the steps. And, for once, our silver eagle flew from the flagpoles of the citadel, where all my life I'd only seen lions. It was to be the end of a corrupt Mars, and the beginning of our era.
Speaker 6 02:40:12
We had the numbers. We had the right. And once we defeated Augustus, we would have Mars. Something father never coveted, so I knew he would treat her well. But I was ashamed. After I lost the deal to Darrow, my father told me he was disappointed. Not that I had lost. He was ashamed of my selfishness. He grimaces. My petty pride. The carvers mended me, and I put myself to one purpose. Redemption in his eyes. I begged the sovereign to let me lead the legions sent to trap Augustus in the dockyards of Ganymede after Pliny gave us the intel. She sent Barker along to ensure I did not fail. I didn't. I returned to Aegea, dragging Augustus behind us in chains. I found redemption in her eyes. But I didn't have fathers till we stood on those steps.
Speaker 6 02:40:43
He saw how I'd changed. He was to meet the Augustans at Warwick with our cousins and sisters. I was given the rest of our family forces to defend the Gia. You've never known pride like it, Custer. The shining faces, the laughter, the hair and penance kicking in the wind as two full generations of Bologna strolled out from the summit in armour. He turned to me at the foot of the stairs and told me he loved me. He'd done it a thousand times before, but it was different. The boy has fled, he said. In his place, I see a man. It was the first time I felt I deserved his love, to be his son. I realised how lucky I was, how blessed I was to have a father like him. In a world of terrible men, he was patient, kind, noble in the way the stories told us to be his boys.
Speaker 6 02:41:18
Their faces from the bridge of the nose down a cupboard with duroplastic breathing units. The flinty eyes that peer out from beneath the grey hoods give nothing away. He took an edelweiss from a pouch in his armour and pressed it into my hands and told me to remember home. To remember the Olympus Mons, to remember why we fight. Not for family, or for pride, but for life. The flower had grown near his favourite bench on the ridgeline there, just beyond the outbuildings of the West. He'd climb to that ridgeline every day before the sun set to find peace amongst children. He smiled. Sometimes, if I was very lucky and quiet, he would let me walk with him. We'd talk or just sit and watch the eagles visit their nests and brook. It was the only time I remember being truly happy.
Speaker 6 02:41:48
Not craving something new. Julian was Mother's favourite, but Father didn't play that game. He smiles. I know he was not happy with the veiled creature I became in the years before the Institute, or the bitter one thereafter. But there on the steps, when he pressed the flower into my hands, I knew I'd finally become the man he always hoped I would be. There were tears in his eyes. What happened to the flower? I asked jokingly. He wanted to break the spell. I lost it in the mud. He looks back to me in shame. I didn't think it would be the last time I would ever see him. He's quiet, wrestling with something larger than the fear of coming to you. All of them are dead. All those shining faces, dimmed. Their laughter. Just silence. I wanted to see them again.
Speaker 6 02:42:19
He almost says my name before catching himself. He looks to the door. Feel Father's hands on my head. But I won't. Not even when I die. The void is all that will greet me. You won't die today, Cassius. You can beat him, I say, knowing that even if he wins, our lives are likely forfeit. You are the Morning Knight. You are still that good man as our Father saw. And you were not meant to be the last Paloma. My brother. He smiles and rests a hand on my shoulder. Sometimes I forget how young you are. I'm not afraid that I won't beat him. He looks up at the dragon past her teeth and into the hungry darkness of her throat. I'm afraid because this world is all that is. Karnus was right. He smiles in a private joke.
Speaker 6 02:42:50
But who knows, perhaps the darkness will be kinder than the light. He looks down at the black doors and listens to the voices beyond them. No matter what fate waits beyond those doors, do not acquiesce. If they have their evidence, they have their war. It is our duty, even if it is our last, to prevent them, to protect the people. It is not our republic to protect, I say. That's Octavia speaking, not you. Of course it is our to protect. Why? It's a broken place that betrayed us. The people you wanted to save are being ground into the dirt. Dido is right. The Reaper has failed. Choices were made, I say slowly, choosing my words with care so he does not feel insulted. Though I may not agree, I understand why you made them.
Speaker 6 02:43:21
The Sovereign let the Jackal massacre our family. She was a tyrant, I know that. The society was corrupt. But look what's replaced it. The people on that ship. I see them every night and I think what I could have done better. But they didn't die because I chose to help the Dold first. They died because of Darrow. You opened Pandora's box. Now you've spent those years trying to justify the choices you made. I lower my voice. Guarding the orphan you created, patrolling the trade lanes you endangered. Maybe this is your chance, our chance, to put things back together. Not by hunting pirates out in the middle of nowhere, but by restoring order. You want to give them their evidence, their war? I do. He steps very close to me, so only I can hear.
Speaker 6 02:43:51
You open that safe. You're dead, too. You won't have a chance to fix anything as soon as they find out who you really are. That's a chance I'm willing to take. Stop thinking with your cover. Seraphina doesn't give half a shit about you. She's bait that Dido is dangling like a piece of meat. I snort. It's not about her, Cassius. No, it's about revenge, isn't it? Your revenge. You took yours, I say quietly. I watched him stand over my grandmother as she bled to death. I watched him kill Aja, the woman who was like a mother to me. You don't sleep, you drink, you preach and hunt pirates. We've never been in one place longer than a month. You think that is because you're protecting me? You think it's because you have a sacred duty to save merchants who chose to risk the belt to lie in their own pockets?
Speaker 6 02:44:22
Stop lying to yourself for one gory damn moment and admit that you made a mistake. You let the wolves through the door. Being a good man won't fix what you've done, neither will suspending yourself in a state of constant motion. There is no atonement except killing the wolves, shutting the door and re-establishing order. That is how we make things better than they are now. It's how we can fix the world. Even though I know the intransigence of my friend, I hold out some boyish hope that my words will arouse some sense inside him. Instead, inexorably, his eyes harden. Our world darkens and I know our fellowship has ended. I had you for ten years. She had you for a breath. Is her spell so complete? I feel pity as I see him realize he has failed, not to protect me, but to convince me that he was right.
Speaker 6 02:44:53
That the pain he caused me was just. If he could convince me, me of all people, then perhaps he thought he would convince himself, and know beyond all doubt that what he did was good. I have robbed him of that hope and any chance for his heart to be at peace. Ten years of brotherhood evaporate in a breath. We stare at one another and see strangers. He snaps his fingers at the guards. We're done here. They come forward and I step aside so they can lead him away down the stairs to his death. At the bottom of the steps he stops. This duel isn't for me, it's for you. If you love me at all, you will let me die. Beyond the black doors, down a narrow chasm of grey rock, lies the Bleeding Place. It is a circular amphitheatre carved into the stone of the mountain.
Speaker 6 02:45:26
Amongst sculpted lotus flowers, stone dragons, slick and pearly with condensation, hang down from the dark ceilings if to drink the blood, centuries of wrath spilled here to satisfy quarrels. Servants finish scraping yellow and green moss from a section of tiered benches carved into the rock. The benches encircle a white marble floor. At the centre of the floor, the sigil of gold has been emblazoned onto the pale stone. Hundreds of gold stand to watch from the stone as the brilliant son of Mars goes to meet their pale champion. Many are Ionian, but I see a cord of armed crest, a norvo, a felix and scores more. A dozen moons are represented, and not just Jupiters. I'm guided to a bench in the third row where the Ra family sit more than thirty strong,
Speaker 6 02:45:57
despite the gaps in their ranks from those imprisoned along with Romulus and the dust cells. The rim obeys the old customs. I look anywhere but at Cassius as a chance. A young girl of the white cast carrying a white bag leads a justice, an old blind woman with milky eyes and translucent hair, onto the fighting floor. One day the little girl...
Speaker 8 02:46:13
Eshleon liked your message.
Speaker 6 02:46:16
...will grow old, and if she reaches a state of transcendence, she will summon the courage to chemically blind herself and become a justice herself. It is the ultimate honor of this hierophant race. Raised in monastic sanctuaries, they endeavor to divorce themselves from their humanity and embody the spirit of justice. Though many whites in my grandmother's society aspired to more worldly and profitable heights. The dualists bend to their knees as the frail hierophant whispers blessings to them and touches her sacerdotal iron rod and laurel branch on each of their shoulders. Cassius stares at the floor, maybe still in that day on Mars with his father. When the justice has finished her benediction, she is led to her bone chair at the edge of the marble by white agents. Chance pulls the string from the bag and litters white sand onto the floor until a large unbroken circle is formed around the two men.
Speaker 6 02:46:51
I remember seeing the blood fill the white sand when I would go to the bleeding place as a boy to watch young peerless fillet one another with the perceived slights. Seems just yesterday I saw Cassius, bold and young, cutting his way up through the dualists of Luna. I always thought the practice stupid, a vain exercise of pride. I'm numb to it now, replaying my conversation with Cassius over in my head, torn between honouring him and honouring my own conscience. Someone slides into the empty place on the stone next to me. I turn to see Serafina. Her eyes surprise me with their sympathy. Is Cassius right? Would that sympathy vanish if the safe opened and she knew who I was? Would she let me die? Of course. Our ancestors have loathed one another for centuries.
Speaker 6 02:47:22
I'm sorry you must watch this, she says. If you were, you would have stopped it, I reply. It wasn't just me who saved your life. But of course, I assume you think gratitude a coward's conceit. I said I was sorry you must watch, not that he must die. You didn't kill your sister or your grandfather, no matter how absurdly you wished to twist it. He arrived after the massacre, and he was following orders from the sovereign. He partook, blood is on his hands, and so his will be on yours. I tire of looking at her. The slight imperfections, the heavy eyes, the sullen mouth, which I found so alluring, are now ugly as sand. She stares on at me. The Reaper took your family when you were a boy, Bologna. Can you forget? Can you forgive? I remain silent, because I don't know the answer. There's Cassius on the floor from amongst her family.
Speaker 6 02:47:54
Farther down, ancient Gaia sits, smoking her pipe, still playing the fool. And past her, separate from the family, Diomedes sits with a clutch of Olympic knights. They wear all black. Peerless steel glances at him, each with their own judgment of his honor for not being the one to challenge Cassius. He is the only Ra here who retains any of my respect. The knights alone have not taken a side in the coup, as ordered by Helios Aulox, Archknight of Eru. The Olympics sit in the gulf between a divided room. I discovered from eavesdropping that half of the powerful gulls in here were called to sungrave from their own mountain cities or moons before the coup began, under the false auspices of an emergency summons sent out by Dido under Romulus's warrant. They have been disarmed and held prisoner by Dido's men since they arrived.
Speaker 6 02:48:26
No armed obsidians or greys, low colours are not allowed in this place. Duels are sacrosanct, propriety and manners imperative in the audience. We'll see how long that lasts. Dido stands and raises her hand for silence. Her allies quiet respectfully, but as an insult her husband's allies speak on with one another and turn their backs to express their antipathy. It infuriates Dido. You know the face, her words are drowned out. You know the face of... Romulus's men speak even louder. At her side Seraphina watches with faint amusement. Diomedes does not help his mother, nor does the archknight Helios. Bellerophon looks to Dido for instruction. She flicks her hand to him to begin and sits down with her jaw set in anger.
Speaker 6 02:48:59
The knight slams his razor on the ground, once, twice, till the room is silent. Cassius Abelona, I see you. Bellerophon stalks around the ring, his razor trailing behind. You wretched buzzard. You spineless cur. You conspired to kill my grandfather and liege. You sought to kill my cousin and the flower of her life. You betrayed the compact of society and aided the slave king of Mars. You came here in disguise, intent on mischief, he smiles. For these insults you shall whimper and bleed. Even Romulus's men are silent and stare down at Cassius. All know how he betrayed the sovereign, even if they did not claim her as their own. Coincidence, bringing Cassius into the rim, beggars belief. So they require little to convince them that Darius sent him here for some nefarious purpose.
Speaker 6 02:49:30
Cassius knows this, and so does Dido. So, absent her evidence, she uses this to quell the dissent over her coup. I came of my own accord, Cassius says to deaf ears. I have no affiliation with the Republic. Bellerophon laughs. Liar. Bring evidence if you think me a liar and try me. No? Then you have no evidence and you resort to blood feuds for justice. An absurdity in itself. But what can one expect from Roman rustics? No one ever taught you manners, he chuckles. As for the blood feud, it I do not dispute. The peerless meet the concession with hungry silence. The blood of children and many more is on my hands. I expect no mercy. I ask only that if I fall, honour my bones and send them to the sun. Bellerophon spits boorishly on the ground.
Speaker 6 02:50:02
You will have no honor. Your corpse I will feed to my hounds so they might shit Bellona. But your eyes I will put in a jar so they might watch as I feed your brother to the dust. Seraphina makes a disgusted sound. Amongst the Olympic knights and much of the room, the proclamation is met with sharp disapproval. Helios makes a motion to Diomedes, who booms out an affirmation. You will be so honored in your way, Bellona. This maddens his cousin, and Bellerophon almost flies into the crowd to strike at Diomedes to finish their earlier affair. I feel Dido's eyes on me, and I know Cassius was right, again. Of course, this is all for me. They think I am the weak link. That's to spare Cassius's life. I will give them what Cassius will not. Fools. They see my slender hands and naked face and believe me weak.
Speaker 6 02:50:34
Dangerous game, judging a blade by its scabbard. I stay seated, silent, watching as Bellerophon shouts at Chance and gestures to the bit of elm she holds in her hand. Break the damn stick, girl, before I do it for you. Startled, Chance bends the elm, and as it snaps, the duel begins. The men do not lash into one another, but pace in a circle, measuring. Seldom have the forms of the core and the rim met in duels, at least after Revis forbade any Ionians from dueling on Luna. Most of the rim houses followed his lead. As is old custom, neither duelist wears armor, though Cassius is allowed an aegis. A small shield generator embedded in a metal vambrace on the back of his left forearm. In his right hand, he carries a coiled razor.
Speaker 6 02:51:04
They could have given him their unfamiliar, longer hasta, but instead gave him a razor of the interior. Bellerophon's hasta slithers on the ground behind him like an oiled snake, nearly three meters long in whip and two meters in lance. In a scabbard on his left hip, he carries the short Qatari thrusting sword. Hardening his razor into its lance form, Bellerophon raises the wicked black blade. Hands above his head, the weapon pointed toward Cassius so that Bellerophon looks like some strange, pale scorpion with its long stinger wagging in the air. It is the shadowful stance of the rim's razor masters. He's a shade, I ask Seraphina. She does not answer. Her eyes devour the scene with excitement. Cassius observes the alien stance warily. He holds his blade rigid and is aside with one hand in the summer hold of the willow way.
Speaker 6 02:51:37
His aegis he holds tight to his chest, ready to activate the shield. I blink, and by the time my lid pulls back from my pupil, Bellerophon's blade has spun in his hands, changed to whip form, and now slashes at Cassius's face. Cassius bends back, too slow. The whip slices a chunk of scalp off the front of his forehead. Blood sheets down his face. Bellerophon uses his momentum to spin with his whip forward, lashing it into another strike toward Cassius's leg. His attack relies on the length of the harster and his height to send the black blade, falling down in a frenzy of incredibly swift blows. It reminds me more of Darrow than Argel or Cassius. Blinking the blood out of his eyes, Cassius falls back under the onslaught, bending and circling and deflecting as the ground sparks from the metal whip.
Speaker 6 02:52:08
His own whip is useless against the longer reach of Bellerophon's, so he uses it in rigid form for defense and relies on his aegis to turn away most blows. Time and again he tries to close the distance, but while Cassius is stronger, Bellerophon is the quicker of the two, more accustomed to the gravity here. He shuffles his feet instead of lifting them. Each time Cassius attempts to close, Bellerophon slides back, calls his razor to rigid form, and nearly spears him through the stomach. The two men part, their world tiny and furious. Their bodies tell them to flee the metal and break out of the horrible confines of the circle, but their minds tether them together, and again they lash out. It has been years since Cassius has faced a man like this. I'm not sure he has ever faced Shadowclaw in an actual duel.
Speaker 6 02:52:39
Each is a master of their craft, using their litany of tricks hard learned over the years. Each probing, testing, then locking into a furious space of exchanges. Arms are blinding flurry, the whip's nothing but blurred movement. Blood sprays across the white marble and into the sands where it spatters the face of a young child three rows back. I can't even tell which man is wounded until Cassius stumbles away. A flap of skin and muscle folding over a long laceration all the way to the bone of his left shoulder. Blood pours out. Bellerophon ceases the moment and presses his attack. You can stop this, Dido says past Seraphina. Give me the code and he lives. He doesn't need my help. Despite my words, I watch in fear as Cassius falls back before Bellerophon,
Speaker 6 02:53:10
and the momentum tips in the Rimknight's favor. I thought Cassius invincible, part of a story that could never exist without him in it. They can't see the grandness of him. They can't see the warmth, the pain, the regret, the love. All they see is a vessel for their hate. They stare down at him pitilessly, thinking his death, their right, even those adversaries who despise Dido's coup. In the circle, Cassius can barely see for the blood in his eyes. He has no time to wipe them clean, he's losing too much from his shoulder, and now is pressed against the edge of the circle. His heels scrape the sand. Bellerophon lashes at him, maintaining his distance, but Cassius continues to turn away the whip with his aegis. The metal cracks into the small energy shield and bounces back, sending blue sparks hissing through the air,
Speaker 6 02:53:40
as Cassius activates it milliseconds before each blow lands, to prevent the shield from overheating. Smoke already rises from the battery pack. Bellerophon batters Cassius down, blow after blow, till Cassius is on a knee, the whip raining down on his smoking shield. Bellerophon's whip arcs in a high overhead strike. Cassius raises his arm, yet again to deflect. But then as aegis winks out, the whip slashes down onto Cassius's raised left arm, and coils tight around it. Bellerophon could rip off Cassius' arm from the elbow down, but he's caught in the middle of his acrobatics, expecting to meet the aegis again and for the whip to bounce back. He loses half a second. Now Cassius attacks. He uses the snapping branch gambit. Springing forward with his thick legs just as he jerks on the whip with his arm, he pulls.
Speaker 6 02:54:12
Bellerophon off balance toward him. With his left hand, Bellerophon desperately brings his Qatari up to block Cassius, but Cassius bats the small blade to the side with his razor, and then cuts diagonally at Bellerophon's right arm which holds the harster. His diamond-hard blade cleaves through the bone of the man's arm like it's pudding. An open artery sprays a single spurt of blood two meters long. Cassius spins with his momentum and cuts in the other direction. The metal severs Bellerophon's remaining arm at the forearm. Both limbs spin to the floor. Bellerophon totters, looking at the weeping red stumps and the pale bone poking out from the meat, mouth opening and closing like a stunned dog's. I almost surge to my feet in a joyful shout as Cassius sets his hand on Bellerophon's shoulder and guides him gently to his knees.
Speaker 6 02:54:42
He looks up at Dido. Prime show, my friend. Damn prime show. Do not waste a man like this, Cassius says. He bled for you. He doesn't have to die. Release me and mine, agree to our terms, and his life will be spared. Dido glowers down at him. Not for a moment does she entertain the idea of sparing her nephew. A cold heart beats in that chest. But Eryphon, she asks, your fate is yours. Polvis et umbra sumus, he shivers. Akari bear witness. Anna calls him to the dark. What a waste of a man. But there is something beautiful in it all the same. His body shakes and I marvel at the life's worth of discipline that goes to keeping himself erect on his knees.
Speaker 6 02:55:13
The pale Ra knight looks to his family, his slender Norvo wife, and up to the dragons of his ancestors on the ceiling. Cassius hacks his head off at the spine. Beside me, anger roils from Seraphina as her cousin dies. This is your fault, my son, Dido says to Diomedes. Amidst his knights watching his cousin die in his stead, he looks stunned and stricken with guilt almost as immense as my relief. Bleeding from his forehead and shoulder, drenched in sweat, Cassius manages to smile at me, knowing that I could have given in to Dido, but did not. He raises his chin and lifts his voice for all to hear. I am Cassius Albalona, son of Tiberius, son of Julia, morning knight, and my honor remains. It is over.
Speaker 6 02:55:44
He is won. The matter is settled, though I don't know what shape the. 
Speaker 3 02:56:28
Hey, Rowan's dad has already reached out to ask if you have fixed your iPad yet.
Speaker 1 02:56:51
Get it charged up. That's a camera.
Speaker 2 02:56:59
I said I meant, I meant. That's all right. Oh, I need to charge it for you.
Speaker 3 02:57:08
Does your mom want to call. 
Speaker 1 02:57:34
You know what? Let's do this, okay? Before you do that, well...
Speaker 2 02:57:41
That's how they break. I know you're excited, but let's do this right, okay?

[AI_SUMMARY]
The narrative explores complex political intrigue and character-driven conflicts within a science-fiction universe, focusing on themes of revenge, loyalty, and the consequences of choices. Key arcs include Cassius's duel with Bellerophon, highlighting the tension between personal honor and political duty, and Darrow's strategic manipulation of Apollonius for revenge against the Ash Lord. Interspersed are real-world conversations about logistical tasks, underscoring the contrast between the intense narrative and mundane life.