The afternoon was so pleasant after that, Weslan nearly forgot where he was. Hieron’s cheerful conversation, catching him up on Calderan business and gossip, took him back to an old life. Once, he had been successful and popular, and relieving those memories almost made him feel safe. But eventually the pleasantries faded, and the topic of conversation steered back to more serious matters.
“Terrible business, what happened to my daughter.” Hieron said, as his eyes misted over “Such a tragic loss. Nearly killed her mother, poor thing.”
Weslan could only nod, and wait for the questions that would inevitably follow.
“I won’t bother you with the same old rigmarole, dear boy. But you’ve no idea why she was on that transport?”
“I’m so sorry, I’ve no memory at all about the trip.” Weslan tried to smile sympathetically.
“Of course, of course. No matter. But we’d thought she was off at some sort of spy school, or whatever that damn place is. Next thing you know, we hear she’s involved in a military project with old classmates. Back on Caldera and hadn’t even called us. Not like her at all.”
“And not on the contractor’s records either,” Crayland said gently. “Meanwhile the other cardinals swear blind that they have no idea what the Academy is all about. It certainly doesn’t report to the Adjudicate.”
Hieron smiled sadly. “She got in though, didn’t she? Tells you everything you need to know about my darling Rose. Most others failed, but she was the best in the galaxy.”
Crayland squeezed his shoulder, then turned back to Weslan. “Not to get into gruesome detail, but it is somewhat surprising that only one person on the transport was killed, when everyone else returned unharmed. Apart from the amnesia, obviously.”
Weslan nodded keenly. He had many of the same questions himself, but suspected they would never be answered. Then his hair stood on end. The two others had gone silent, as they watched him carefully.
“Did they tell you that an unidentified ship had been detected in an orbit that passed near your crash site?” Crayland said.
“No,” Weslan said, desperate to hear more.
“Vanished without a trace, so the report says. And other satellites detected evidence of ‘explosive events’ in the same area. Dust clouds and seismic readings, and so on.”
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know. But the League is very concerned about the growth of terrorist movements in the frontier clusters. One individual of particular concern was spotted in Rackeye several months before the crash.”
“Who? What are you saying?” Weslan leaned forward, almost shouting the words.
“Allana Rayker. A wanted criminal with… ties to radical separatists, and other groups that threaten to destabilize the region.”
She was lying. Weslan had no idea why, but her tone and body language had changed ever so slightly. Since the accident, the lies of ordinary people had begun to seem more obvious. In Crayland’s case, he wasn’t sure what she was lying about, only that he was going to be a pawn in her agenda.
But he was equally certain of her desire to protect the League and its citizens. And whatever secrets they wanted to uncover would help him understand what had happened to him. Maybe he could even rid himself of the dark lady.
“Every year,” said Hieron, “we hear more and more reports of hostility from the colonists. Sometimes they threaten Helvet citizens, sometimes they attack their businesses. Whatever Rose was doing out there… she was obviously doing it for the League. And, well, from our perch it looks like somebody wanted to stop her. Perhaps you and your fellow scientists were there by accident. Or maybe even used as part of the cover story? We can only guess.”
Crayland looked at him sharply. “Guessing is unacceptable. But the Adjudicate is nearly blind outside of Rackeye. Our people simply don’t have the support or training to work in unfriendly environments.”
Hieron grunted. “That’s what the Sentinels are supposed to do.”
“Yes, but Cardinal Darys is an incompetent and corrupt monster. The service watches his interests alone.”
“I spoke to him after the funeral. He assured me they were doing everything they could to maintain a presence on Caldera, but their resources were limited.
“He assured me,” Crayland said, “that Caldera, as a precarious frontier outpost, was as relevant to him as a Martian rock.”
Hieron’s fists balled.
“Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it,” Weslan blurted out.
Hieron and Crayland both turned and stared at him in surprise.
A week later, Weslan walked into the recruitment office of the Helvetic League’s security service. Known as ‘Sentinels’ they reported directly to the League’s governing central committee, and monitored all colonized space for security threats.
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It wasn’t simply the Cardinal’s concern for Caldera that had earned Weslan’s loyalty, or that she seemed to be the only official with at least some idea of what had happened to him. A fundamental part of the galactic machine that kept them all safe was broken, and that appalled both of them. The League was the only source of order in the galaxy. Without it, the human worlds would cannibalize each other.
And if he couldn’t rid himself of the dark lady, he would at least make sure that others would be protected from her. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore.
The Sentinels were impressed by his resume, and keen desire to serve. His motivation didn’t need explaining—he was Calderan. Their citizens were constantly complaining about the threats from cartels or colonists, or space junk. Weslan found the selection program tough, but he pushed through it. They wanted his total dedication, and he was willing to give it.
After a tough year of training, he graduated as the honor cadet of his class, and was assigned to a senior agent on Barroche. The posting neither pleased him nor displeased him. It was necessary. The desire to return to Caldera was buried beneath his work, and he maintained regular contact with Hieron. Their messages were friendly, mostly keeping each other up to date. Weslan occasionally inserted references to his new office in the form of anecdotes from his school years. Nothing bothered him about the Sentinels he was working with, but he felt he should build up the practice of passing information, and his comfort with the risk. Someday, he would rise through the ranks of the organization, and the stakes would only increase.
But the nightmares never stopped, and even in his new job Weslan could not remember the last time he had slept well.
Purpose, and responsibility kept him going. Despite draining fatigue, he got out of bed before the alarm went off. His joints groaned with pain as he changed into a suit—the heavy gravity of Barroche still took a toll on his body. Then he ate breakfast, and flicked through the news feeds before his shift started.
There was another story about the terrorist attack on Ambrosia. Apparently, the central committee was preparing to name a special investigator. If Crayland had been placed in charge they would already have a list of suspects. However, the senior directors of the security service were politically connected, and their maneuvering and sabotaging had drawn the process out. Now, they were making a song and dance of the whole thing to appease the extremely powerful citizens who frequented the exclusive planet. As much as Weslan believed in the necessity of the League, its corruption infuriated him. But that was the nature of humanity: weakness, ignorance, and frailty.
He grabbed a heavy jacket before stepping out into the frigid cold and feeble light of day. Barroche’s star was much further away than Caldera’s hot sun whose warmth had brought him so many happy summer memories. When he turned down a street towards a park, the sky lit up with a brilliant flash, and he automatically looked down. The planet was also nearly twice the size of Earth, and, apart from two other small rocky planets, alone in the system. Asteroids and comets were frequently drawn into its gravity well, producing spectacular fireballs on a regular basis.
Colonization had been attractive, Weslan had learned, because the planet was so rich in mineral resources. The League had managed the challenging project entirely on its own, establishing a planetwide network of tracking stations and rocket batteries, both terrestrial and orbital, for asteroid defense. Big rocks, larger than a mile in diameter, were deflected decades in advance of a projected collision. Smaller impactors were far too numerous to track or do anything about, until they approached Barroche’s atmosphere. Then, they were met with fusion warheads, capable of destroying the meteors before they fell too low into the atmosphere.
Such spectacular interceptions occurred several times a week, and caused the locals to joke about the hardships of their world. “Where the heavens touch the earth,” was one unofficial motto.
Weslan met Marsella Espher, his senior partner, in the middle of the park, where she liked to enjoyed a bagel, and watch birds gathering around a lake. He contemplated her as he approached, and felt the usual heart stopping sensation. She was very beautiful, almost aristocratic, and with the toned athleticism typical of Barrochian women. There she was, so pure, so representative of everything good about humanity, enjoying a moment of peace while she observed the beauty of nature. The moment left him with a mild headache, as all beautiful things did. The sublime was difficult to process, for one of a diseased consciousness.
She looked around and smiled when she saw him. Weslan felt a small flash of pain, which was logical for a cursed man. He wasn’t attracted to her exactly—she was almost a mentor figure. He wanted her respect, and he was well on his way to gaining it. Marsella was more than other women, and Weslan felt that she should be treated as such, rather than being the object of base desires.
“Are you well, Genny?” she said warmly. “Did you recover from your workout?”
Twice a week, all non-native Sentinels were required to perform a supervised weightlifting routine, to help them adapt to the demands of Barroche’s gravity. Weslan hated it. He would much rather be provided an exoskeleton, as the Army was doing with their research program. Unfortunately for him, the Sentinels rejected machine dependency.
“Good morning, Espher,” he said, and managed a tight smile. “I’m in a great deal of pain, and exhausted, thank you for your concern.”
“You still don’t sleep well?”
Weslan looked away and shifted uncomfortably. “It’s the meteors. I feel like I can’t stop waiting for the next one.”
“We will have to book you in for a sleep therapist,” Marsella said. “You can’t adapt if you don’t recover properly.”
Weslan nodded. Whatever they asked him, he would lie anyway.
“More personnel reviews today?” he asked. Background checks were boring, but essential work for League security, and a favorite chore to dump on new recruits.
“Of course,” Masella said, and sighed. “The parade’s next month, you see.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Didn’t you check your calendar? Foundation day is coming up, and there will be a military parade through the city. We need to vet all the officers who will be present. The directorate is particularly keen, given the incident on Ambrosia.”
Barroche’s vast missile production industry, and physically stronger citizens, made the planet a natural base for the League’s military. The citizens idolized their soldiers to an extent that made Weslan uncomfortable.
He snorted. “I should think we can manage to be more reliable than the fools defending their beach resorts.”
Marsella fixed him with a stern look. “What is our worst enemy, Genny? I have told you many times and I don’t want to have to keep restating it.”
Weslan rolled his eyes. “Overconfidence. But I’m not advocating that we take a day off. I’m simply pointing out the incompetence of the corporate class.”
Marsella tossed her wrapping in a bin, stood up and began heading in the direction of her car. “I’ve obviously never been to Ambrosia, but I hear they have several of our finest veterans contracted on their security details,” she said as they walked.
“Are these the same veterans who lost the frontier war?”
She glanced at him with a disappointed expression. “Why are you always so negative?”
“It’s probably the fatigue. But I promise to be attentive today. Ill-tempered, but attentive.”
“So be it.”