Hackette whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I want you to know a few things, Governor. First, what I told you before about your son is true. I hold nothing against him. Next, I want you to see what I’ve become. You didn’t destroy me. But here’s the kicker: I can destroy you. The law is on my side now. Practitioners of The Trade can be sentenced to death.”

  “Stop there. I never … I was only a client. I was …”

  “You’re an influential man. I’ll bet a deep investigation might turn over some ugly rocks. Maybe I should put in a request with Special Intel. Or maybe I won’t. I’ll leave you to wonder. My name is Exeter Woolsey, and I’m going to haunt your dreams just like you did mine.” Exeter turned around and smiled at the wife and Enfatta. “Almost done,” he told them.

  “If I’m lucky, Governor, I’ll never set foot on this nightmare of a planet again. You’d best hope I’m lucky.”

  He grabbed Hackette’s hand, and they shook. He raised his voice.

  “Thank you so much for your help, Governor. It means a great deal. I look forward to working with Julian.”

  Hackette tapped into his politician’s magic and forced a smile.

  “It has been an honor, Captain. I will heed your words.”

  Exeter looked off Commander Enfatta and put together his best military stride onto the waiting transport. He held his mask in place until he stepped onto Lightfoot, checked in with the bridge crew, and retreated to his office.

  His hands trembled. The rage threatened to burst through his chest. He retrieved his digipipe and double-tapped. The leaf filled his lungs with a sweet sedative.

  His desk plate dinged.

  “Captain?”

  “Yes, Lex.”

  “We’ve entered worm. Thirty-nine minutes to the Kartuffe system. We’re due to begin testing the web scheme in two hours.”

  “Thank you, Lex. Add the newbs to the flight plan.”

  “Sir?”

  “Observer pilots. Let’s give them a fright.”

  Lex laughed. “Yes, Captain. I’m on it.”

  “Oh, and Lex. Please have Col. Parish report to my office.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Exeter opened his Occip and dug down into his personal stacks. The all-in-one implant offered limited resources outside the Aeternan system since it had not yet been adapted for the UNF and might not for years. It did, however, contain treasures Exeter needed: Images and vids of him with Caleb.

  Every time the pain and humiliation returned and his chest ached, Exeter needed only Caleb’s touch and a few comforting words to bring him back to the present. Exeter hated not being able to put it behind him. He spent five years surrounded by blood, fire, and death, yet he never woke from nightmares about the war.

  “The worst part,” he confessed to Caleb, “was that I never fought back. I just laid there. I gave them an invitation to do anything, and the bastards accepted. I made myself one of their favorites.”

  His office door slid open. Col. Van Parish, Deck Chief, sauntered in with a swagger.

  “How can I be of service, Captain?”

  He swiped away the images of Caleb.

  “You can join me for a drink, Van.”

  “What, now? We’re on the clock, as they say.”

  “Don’t be a pissant when I need you to be a friend.”

  “How can I refuse an offer like that?”

  Exeter poured each a single shot of sanque and invited Van to sit.

  “I’m still the newest Aeternan. Yes?”

  “Haven’t heard of any others showing up for indoctrination. Why?”

  “So I’m the last one whose life story was added to Occip’s public ring. Yes?”

  Van shrugged. “Twenty-five hundred open books.”

  “Everything I revealed during indoctrination camp. All the way back to when I was a boy. Everyone knows about me. Yes?”

  Van shifted with unease.

  “What can I say, Captain? Most of us lived nightmares when we were kids.”

  “Van, do you think I’m a good Captain? Good leader? Good man?”

  The Colonel threw back his sanque and set down the glass.

  “Oh, shit. Everdeen. I didn’t make the connection.”

  “It’s not Everdeen. Screw those people. It’s about me. I need you to be honest. Am I a good Captain?”

  “X, you’re as fine an officer as I’ve ever served under.”

  “Do you trust me to make the right choices for this crew?”

  “Honestly, X, I think you’re having a moment. It’s a big job, and we’ll probably run smack into the war any day now.”

  Exeter pulled on his pipe. Van’s statement was more accurate than he realized.

  “I want to ask a favor, Van.”

  “Anything, Captain. You know that.”

  “When I fuck up, have the courage to tell me to my face.”

  Van laughed. “I think you mean if. But sure, I’ll speak up. Why come to me, Captain? Your bridge crew outranks me.”

  “They know what I expect, but they’re mortals. No matter what we tell ourselves, Van, you and I are not the same. We have a special ticket they don’t. I need you to remind me if I lean the wrong way. Things are going to be difficult sooner than later.”

  Van stood up and approached Exeter. He extended his hand, which Exeter accepted.

  “I promise to tear you a new one when you’re fucking up, sir.”

  Instantly, the tightness in his chest subsided. Exeter burst into a long, beautiful laugh.

  “I’ll hold you to it. Oh, and for the record, not all my bridge crew outranks you.” He counted the four bars on Van’s chest. “Two of them are short a bar.”

  “Maybe you should change that. Anything else, Captain?”

  “No, Colonel. Thank you.”

  Exeter put away his pipe and returned to his chair on the bridge. They’d soon arrive in the Kartuffe system. Back to business, more urgent than anyone on the Lightfoot realized.

  4

  Aeterna

  M ICHAEL COOPER HEARD what the doctors said. Did he allow their words to sink in? Not today. Their prognosis? Inconceivable. Yet the evidence stared him in the face.

  “Minister, I truly don’t know what else to tell you,” said Doc Tess Ranke. “We have a year’s worth of data. You will reach total system failure in three months, and that’s assuming the process doesn’t accelerate.”

  He sat in Ranke’s office, staring at holos. Dr. Barbara Atwater, who led the Chancellor gene therapy reversal trials on Earth, concurred with Ranke’s findings. They had consulted on Michael’s case for two months. Aeternan’s full engagement policy allowed Atwater full access to Ranke’s lab and data.

  “I’ve felt like myself for three damn days, and you’re telling me I got three months to live?”

  “Yes, Michael,” Ranke said. “Five days ago, you were lying in a coma while your body regenerated. Your lungs collapsed and you hemorrhaged three times in your cerebral cortex. These episodes are becoming more frequent, and your recovery time is lengthening. Dr. Atwater and I agree: Your body is losing its ability to regenerate. The degradation will continue until it kills you.”

  “I bounce back every time. How do you know my body isn’t learning to adapt?”

  “We don’t,” Atwater said. “You and your wife are unique. If you were Bouchet immortals, we’d study your so-called reset gene. Even with the Chancellors I’ve been working to cure, I can reverse engineer them at a genetic level because I can program the corrupted DNA. But there is nothing in your anatomical profile that differentiates you from any mortal human being. I can’t find an underlying cause. All we have is this claim of yours that time itself keeps you going. This business about being unstuck.”

  “It’s true. All of it.”

  Atwater shook her head as she reexamined the data points.

  “Minister, you’re telling me something I can’t possibly measure. For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. You and your wife were saved by a reversal of time, less than a second. Yes?”

  “We died. The timeline changed and we were saved. But we exist in the same timeline where we died. What part of that shit don’t you understand?”

  “The incoherent bits, which is effectively all of your story. I don’t doubt you believe this – and I’ve heard some wild tales about the Interdimensional Folds. But that’s not my area of expertise. What I see is a human being whose body is failing him. It breaks down, incapacitates you for hours or days, then recovers until the next collapse. Each recovery burns muscle at a staggering pace. The lag between collapses is narrowing at a consistent rate. If time was your savior, then frankly, Minister, it’s also your executioner.”

  Michael had not swum to the bottom of Lake Profundus to consult the Jewels of Eternity in more than six months. His endurance had faltered, his lung capacity lessened. He lost ninety pounds. Yet the message remained the same upon each visit:

  “Time dies. You are time. You will die when there is no more time.”

  Michael asked for a greater explanation but learned nothing. He begged the Jewels to offer avenues of escape.

  Silence.

  “Why isn’t Sam as sick as me?” He asked the doctors.

  Samantha had headaches, occasional blackouts, and her blood pressure was elevated, but she did not experience organ failure or internal bleeding.

  Atwater massaged her temple and looked away. Ranke took over.

  “Minister, your wife’s meds appear to be working, more or less. It’s possible we’re delaying the inevitable, but her symptoms don’t match yours, even compared against the earliest data.”

  “What about the problem with the other universes? You’ve read my report? Yes?”

  Atwater waved her hands as if she wanted nothing to do with it.

  “You mean the one where the other realities are going to somehow disappear in a few years? Whole universes? Just … vanish.”

  “Think I’d write that crazy shit if I didn’t believe it? Amayas Knight told me about it two years ago.”

  “The lunatic who opened the doors to the Swarm.”

  “That guy. The same one who sacrificed himself so we could close the doors. If he’s right, those universes could be fading now. How the hell would we know? There’s gotta be a reason why Sam is holding up better than me. We were born and killed across the divide.”

  Ranke blinked. She swung around, as if searching for a device she misplaced. Her eyes ballooned.

  “Maybe we’re overlooking something, Minister. Lady Samantha said she was born in your hometown of Albion, but her mother was six months pregnant with Sam when she crossed the IDF and settled in Albion. That means Sam was conceived in this universe.” Ranke studied Michael and Atwater like she was embarrassed and hoped to be forgiven. “It’s mad, I know, but it is a differentiator.”

  “She’s also given birth to three children,” Atwater said. “It’s possible, in a million to one shot, that the hormonal changes have impacted her ability to ward off whatever time might be attempting. I can’t believe I’m talking about this.”

  “One thing’s for certain, Minister: If those are the mitigating factors, they won’t help you.”

  Michael felt as if he’d been slammed against a wall, cuffed, and a gun pushed into the back of his skull.

  “Nah. I’m not going down like this. I’ll be a vegetable by the end. Right?”

  Atwater nodded. “Each cycle eats you up from inside. I won’t sugarcoat. Unless the process reverses course, the end will not be pretty, Minister.”

  “Any other roads you can pursue, Docs? I’m running out of time here.”

  Ranke wouldn’t make eye contact. Atwater sighed dismissively.

  “In lieu of scientific explanations, might I suggest you consult this so-called God of All Universes? I hate to sound like a defeatist, but you are not going to find salvation in human hands. You’re built like no one else, Michael, and I fear you’re going to die like no one else. There’s nothing more I can do. I am truly sorry.”

  Michael laughed because, well … what else was there?

  “I don’t doubt you’ve tried, Doc. Rikard said you were the best. He said you wouldn’t raise a white flag unless …” Michael shook her hand. “Oh, and I tried the God route. Not that jackass the Swarm worship. The one I was taught to believe in growing up. The Coopers were all about church and potluck in the fellowship hall. Nah. He ain’t listening. The Jewels gave up, too.”

  Atwater winced. “The Jewels?”

  “Never mind. Look, I’ve got work and family to attend. You know everything stays in here.”

  “Of course. I’d never breach a patience’s confidentiality.”

  “If I do buy the farm, you’re more than welcome to write about my case in your journals, or whatever the hell you people do.”

  That’s how Michael left them. What else did they expect? Should he have fallen to his knees and begged they try new medicines or techniques? Perhaps if he reverted to the form that worked so well for years and threatened them to an inch of their lives? Would that have lit a fire under them?

  There wasn’t a damn thing they could do. He knew it going in. He’d known it for two years, but only recently allowed a small measure of acceptance to creep in.

  His people asked questions, and rumors spread wild as his presence on the streets of Promise diminished and his attendance at Ministerial Council meetings became erratic. Shortly after his return from the Aston James Conference, Michael announced a restructuring of government. He planned to share power with five other ministers, each responsible for key areas of Aeternan life. He allowed the council to open diplomatic relations with every world and the new UNF. He allowed immortals to sign up for the galactic navy, though the number of volunteers stunned him. Through all these changes, the man who once shaped Aeterna in his image rarely posed objections.

  Samantha watched him remake their society with pride. After his first debilitating episode, Michael explained why he became a gentler version of the tyrant who once held his people in a cult-like vise. He told her about the Jewels and his last words with Amayas Knight.

  “I’m gonna fight hard enough for both of us,” he vowed. “But it’s all different now. If I lose, I don’t want to leave our people empty-handed and isolated. I promised to keep them safe.”

  Immortals saw the physical changes – he was still huge at three hundred pounds, but much of the muscle had softened. His bombastic style mellowed, which seemed to frighten Aeternans more than the weight loss. Only recently did he hear the first rumblings of genuine skepticism. Was it possible Michael was never immortal? Were much of his legendary feats created for propaganda? Were he and Lady Samantha mere mortals all along?

  Only the two doctors and ever-loyal Rikhi Syed, the Information Minister, knew the extent of his crisis. Along with Sam, they devised a plan to isolate him at the first sign of an impending collapse and provide a cover story until he returned to form. Their little conspiracy showed cracks every time Michael’s woes staggered him in public.

  Today, Michael found Rikhi waiting outside Ranke’s lab. The young man, who never lost faith in Michael’s ability to win, stared with anticipation. When Michael shook his head, Rikhi shaded his eyes.

  “What now, Minister?”

  “I’m working on it, dude. What’s my next business? Council?”

  “Started twenty minutes ago. I said you were running late.”

  “That’s getting old. I used to be the first guy in the room. I was like the gym rats back home shooting hoops before sunup.”

  “Gym rats?”

  “Not actual rats. Never mind, Rikhi. I’d drop in by Occip, but that damn thing gives me double vision.”

  “Not a problem,” said Rikhi, whose irises glowed green. “I’ve been taking notes from the outset. They’re discussing the Marriage Act. Looks like it’s headed for 3-2 in favor, but they can’t approve it until they know your vote.”

  “Marriage. That’s the one for Exeter and Caleb, right?”

  “It is. There’s some debate as to whether it should be a blanket law, or a case-by-case approval.”

  He liked discussing business; it provided a temporary salve.

  “Ten years, and they’re the only ones who petitioned for marriage. I’m sure others thought about it, but goddamn, Rikhi. That shit is not for immortals.”

  “Most Aeternans seem to agree, sir.”

  “There’s only two ways for mortals to end a marriage: Divorce or death. Aeternans don’t have the second option. No way you live with the same person for hundreds of years without wanting to put them in a grave.”

  “But, sir, wasn’t that what you and Lady Samantha vowed for yourselves? Eternal union?”

  Michael did not like being called on his hypocrisy, but he had an out this time.

  “We married back on Earth before we learned the truth about ourselves. We have three great kids, Rikhi, but they’re mortal. It’d be torture to outlive them. We wouldn’t survive as a couple. Nobody else here can have kids. What’s the point in marriage?”

  “Love, I suppose. That was Exeter and Caleb’s entire argument.”

  “Stupid kids.” Michael laughed. “I sound like Pop.”

  “Would you like me to submit a ‘no’ vote on your behalf?”

  Michael stopped in his tracks. The streets of Promise did not teem like they used to. Forty percent of immortals served the UNF, and another ten percent engaged in commercial activity off-world.

  “No. Exeter’s been through ten kinds of shit and he’s still doing us proud. I’m gonna give him this. I’ll vote yes on their application.”

  “And the larger law?”

  “I’ll go along with the majority. Blanket law or case-by-case. Add my stamp so they’ll know it’s me.”

  Rikhi blinked twice. “Done.”

  “Any other pending legislation?”

  “Not today, sir.”

  “Have you heard back from our guy in Central Command?”

  “No, sir. It could mean anything though. He might not have found the data, or he doesn’t want the message to be traced.”

  “Or he’s been caught.”

  Rikhi lowered his voice. “He still has another day to report in. I wouldn’t worry. Yet.”