13

My workshop had taken on an oppressive atmosphere. The ventilation system was working just fine, but something else heated the space and made the air stagnant. I was working with Reb on the Hand’s assembly. The repairs were done and all that remained was to hook up the special components; first the AI shell and then the gravity core. Isidro delegated putting the finishing touches on the AI to Reb, who obviously would never refuse a request from him but also still did not get along with me.

She maintained a certain distance from me just a bit beyond respecting personal space and the only time we talked was when some wire needed adjusted or the shell compartment had to be retooled. It was simple work but her attitude made it exhausting. For my part, I just wanted to finish the damn thing and be done with it. What I would do afterward was a question I hadn’t even begun to tackle.

Would I stay at Galactic and watch the fireworks with front row seats? Should I try to find some even more obscure station to hide away on? I had enough of a resume to get a job on one of the factory platforms or an asteroid processing rig. I could even go back down to the forsaken Earth and disappear into some sprawl city.

I didn’t mind leaving the Hand with Isidro anymore. It just didn’t seem to me that he would turn out like my brother. He’d probably get himself killed before that even became a worry. The mastermind at the top of the tower was as hardy as a cockroach, but he was surely sending the young man to his death chasing their phantoms. As much as I ever tried to warn Isidro, he politely noted my warnings with a grimace and stated that no amount of danger would dissuade him.

As we got to the last step in hooking up the AI, Reb suddenly stopped and withdrew from the workbench around which we drifted. She stared at me with scrutinizing hostility for a moment before asking, “What do you intend to do after this?”

Is that the first thing you’ve actually asked me? We had mumbled to each other about our work, but had never spoken as people. I growled back impatiently, “Whatever. Does it matter?”

“Of course it does. How can I trust you?” she said growing quieter. Almost whispering, just loud enough to hear over the air conditioning, she added, “You’re a traitor.”

Me? Yes, of course I am. I’m at fault for what happened seven years ago but… My resentment boiled over. Her reaction to me was exactly what I thought it should be. I didn’t want pity or understanding or someone to tell me that what I did was correct, but to get what I thought was the treatment I deserved still hurt. Especially because she only knew parts of the story. If she wanted to know all of the terrible details, I was ready to let them slip in a rage. “If Diego came to you asking for help to blow up one of the other stations, Polaris or Yale or Tokyo-O, what would you do?”

“He would ne-”

“You didn’t even stop to think about it. I didn’t either. Then, one day, all the other Knights vanished and I was left behind with just a bit of suspicion about my brother. I thought he was hiding something from me because it was too dangerous or something stupid like that. Maybe that was his reason; he was surprised when I showed up to stop him.” Confusion overtook her accusatory expression.

“That’s right, even those two don’t know that part. I found my brother’s secret: a full set of plans to bomb all five of the space elevators. They left me behind to go on their grand mission and didn’t even leave a parting note. That’s how out of the loop they wanted to keep me, but I found them out just in time to get four of the bombs removed, four elevators saved.”

I took a deep breath while trying to stop my body from shaking. I had come to the part I had never told anyone. Voice nearly breaking, I went on. “I knew that no one else would be able to get there in time and stop my brother at the fifth, so I went myself.” I reached out and tapped the gauntlet fastened to the workbench between us. “Took one of these with me and confronted him face to face.”

The scene came rushing in around me as if I was standing on that rig again. It was a neat construction like an airport terminal rather than the rugged, utilitarian mess of a drilling platform. The sea stretched out to the horizon in all directions, waves growing fiercer as storm clouds loomed in the distance. Winds whipped around us as we stood at the base of the elevator cable, as thick as a thousand year old tree and taller than the sky. My older brother’s surprise had turned into a grim smile when I appeared in front of him.

“No matter how much I pleaded, he wouldn’t back down. He just told me that he was doing what he thought was right, the way to make a difference in an unfair world, and that I’d have to kill him if I wanted to stop it. The climber car was already on the way up, a couple hundred clueless passengers and a bomb rising toward orbit.” It was hard to force the words out. I wanted to lie to her about what I had done, or rather what I hadn’t. I wanted to lie to myself and to the past, anything to change the outcome. “I couldn’t do it. He wasn’t even going to resist and I couldn’t do it. I could have turned him to paste and taken the detonator from his cold hand, but I couldn’t.

“You know what happened. Two hundred forty seven dead from the car. Four hundred nine dead from falling debris. Innocents, at least most of them. Thousands displaced with flaming c-steel raining over sprawl communities. Of course the underprivileged were the ones to suffer. Then the propaganda drive undoing all our previous efforts and trashing whatever good will we had earned. Crackdowns on other rebel groups. Excuses to tighten the shackles on everyone else.”

Her face shifted with volatile emotions as she tried to process what I was telling her. I didn’t wait for signs of conclusion to appear before I put the fire under her feet again. My voice reduced to a hoarse growl, I asked, “So...so what would you do if he had this thing ready to crush another station like a piece of trash and toss it down on the Earth?” I wanted to describe the hypothetical in more punishing detail, to tighten the screws as much as I could, but my fury was exhausted and only sorrow remained.

She was quiet for some time, avoiding my eyes as she retreated into her own mind to think it over, and I replayed those events in my head for the millionth time, then the million and first, then the million and second.

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I don’t know if I could do what you did; I might even side with Diego. Mourn for the dead but call them acceptable sacrifices.” She pulled herself up to the workbench and began fitting the AI shell into its place within the gauntlet’s inner compartment. As she fiddled with the wiring she continued to speak in a subdued tone. All traces of enmity were gone. “I choose to believe in him. He chose long ago to believe in you and still does. I will let that be enough for now.

“I’m sorry,” she concluded. What exactly she was apologizing for she did not make clear. “Let’s try to understand one another a bit better in the future. Allow me to call you ‘Ash’ from now on.”

“Not sure abo-” I began, but her docile moment ended and she asserted with a stern face that this request was not truly open to rejection.

“It is an embarrassing story, you know,” she said with sudden levity. “How I came to be nicknamed ‘Reb.’ Obviously enough it is a shortening of my name, but there’s more to it. I grew up hearing about one of our national icons, Mahatma Gandhi, and how he opposed the British. And I grew up hearing news about a certain group who opposed tyrannical rule all over the world. For a young girl, knights are cooler than pacifists.

“You said that your efforts had been undone, but that’s not true. Many of us continued to believe in what the Knights of the Blue Rose stood for and took up the work that was left to be done. Our lives are probably similar in many ways: I strayed from the world of my wealthy parents to immerse myself in the struggle of the sprawl. When I joined up with my first militia, really a criminal gang with no higher ambitions, I told them to call me ‘Reb’ because it’s short for rebel.” Her face flushed as she squeaked out the words. She managed a small smile to show me, the first she’d ever directed my way.

The younger girl released the straps holding the Hand of Glory in place and let it drift slowly into open space. She admired it for a few moments before asking, “Is there anything left to fix? I’m finished on my end, so if it’s ready I’ll deliver it to the madman.” I nodded and gently brushed the gauntlet with my fingertips to send it floating her way. I was too drained to speak any more. Reb scooped the Hand into a box, a brand new hard case rather than the floppy cardboard it had been housed in at first, and left. She made sure to call me ‘Ash’ as she swam out into the corridor.

I was left alone with a puppy lapping up frayed wires and other bits of trash from the air. After the hatch clicked closed the only remaining sound was the hum of the aircon. My thoughts turned this way and that over the past, the present, and the future. I decided that I would stay just a bit longer among those people determined to carry on with the fight I had abandoned. Watching over them, I might find some sort of understanding.