SENALL

3 At the start of the first Ultra scare, when Coral Moon had blown up and its fragments intersected with the colony world of Ribon, the planet was decimated, and very few colonists were evacuated in time. Dorie Senall involved herself in the reclamation project, and soon took over the day-to-day operations building the New Venasaille Dome. Life was near impossible outside the dome, but colonists had trickled back. A lot of things had happened since then.

Becoming governor was one of them.

Dorie Senall had no reason to believe the newest reclamation dome, simply christened West Dome, would join the New Venasaille Dome in voting the Union Party line when the colonists settled in, and the dome’s infrastructure allowed for regular council meetings. But she’d been wrong before. The north dome, New Coral, favored the Separatist Party and elected past assistant governor of New Venasaille, Tom Sakson, as its new leader. It wasn’t long before Tom started a lot of noise about New Coral becoming self-governing, wanting nothing to do with any other domes.

She should’ve seen this coming during the six months he worked for her when the reclamation project started on Ribon. He’d taken many trips to New Coral on her behalf when her job dug fingernails into her, and she couldn’t leave her office in the Brindos Building. He’d taken liberties with his given agendas and met with those very men and women—as well as a few Memors and Helks—who would later help him get a toehold there. Dorie had never expected to rise much higher in Ribon politics, but those who believed in her said she was a natural at it.

But she was still learning.

She’d learned a little from Terl when he dabbled in politics before everything went to hell with the Ultras. So when she was voted in as governor of New Venasaille, and the Brindos Building became the dome’s seat of power, she rarely left, except to tour the progress of the East Dome, which was still under construction. The East Dome had a long way to go before it considered colony resettlement, let alone its politics. When New Coral became operational and the number of colonists increased enough to run a provincial government, Sakson resigned from New Venasaille and took a few of his cronies with him to New Coral.

Which is why it worried her when the new assistant governor of New Venasaille, Aditya Thakur, came into her office with news from Sakson’s camp in New Coral. Thakur was younger than Dorie by five years and had lived on Ribon before the crisis. He’d been one of the lucky ones to get out but returned to help rebuild the colony. He came onto her staff as an energetic but inexperienced assistant, and quickly rose in the ranks until elected assistant governor. That kind of speedy advancement happened in a rebuilding community with limited space. Limited space, fewer citizens. He turned out to be perfect for the job, however, and she relied heavily on him.

And what about me? she wondered. Perfect for the job? Or was she just someone flailing along, someone around New Venasaille at the right time, her heart in the right place? When elected governor, it surprised her. True, the voting bloc was small, but it meant a lot to her.

She hadn’t had thoughts like these until recently.

Dorie stared out the office window at New Venasaille, the dome’s arch showing a bright yellow sheen today. Several flitter drones left the Operations Building across the street and headed toward the far end of the settlement, no doubt to facilitate the ever-present need to inspect dome infrastructure. She recalled a recent problem with the West End recyclers—“End” being a relative term.

“Tell me, Adi,” she said when Aditya Thakur cleared his throat for the second time.

“Yes, ma’am.” His voice was strained, although he had a soft high voice to begin with.

“I assume it’s bad if you took the time to come here instead of sending it to my card.” Dorie turned toward him. The man had jet black hair, cut short to his scalp. He wasn’t a big man, barely taller than her, but he had an imposing presence she liked when he was out campaigning. He looked extra sharp in his black suit and tie. “What’s Tom up to?”

“He’s called a special session of Congress and cites a charter mandate that allows him provincial jurisdiction.”

Dorie almost wished for the days she was simply an artist’s wife, although she didn’t long for her RuBy-hazed days of irresponsibility. She figured, someday, Sakson would use it against her. “We know what that means,” she said.

He tapped his comm card and scanned it. “He’s calling for a vote to keep New Coral separate from the Ribon government. In two days. Joint assembly. To be held in New Coral’s dome.”

“Damn it, what’s his fucking hurry?” she yelled. She wished Sakson was in front of her now. She’d kick him in the shins. She closed her eyes, trying to control her thoughts. “Analysis?”

“Of the possible outcome?”

“Of anything.” She shook her head. “Sorry. Yes. Does he have the votes? He may want to be his own dome, and he has all the support he needs there, but can he carry enough councilors here?”

“He has his sympathizers.”

“I know.”

“Many of them will jump domes if the vote carries.”

“Good for them.”

“Good only if we can replace them with Union Party members. What if a vote comes up here in the future? Could we see New Venasaille turning Separatist? West Dome? East Dome? What if we all become our own governments on Ribon?”

“Would that be so bad?” She surprised herself by asking that question. Was she softening her stance?

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said. “Not with four domes so close together. Relatively speaking of course.”

“It’ll confuse the hell out of the Union government on Earth. ‘What are we going to do about Ribon?’” She hadn’t been too happy with President Richard Nguyen’s hands-off attitude regarding the colonies. It seemed to her his concern should be on high alert, post-Ultra scares. “They’ve asked that question before.”

“I can schedule a press conference. You can take a stand. Feeds go out to both domes. You have a few provincial councilors attached to West Dome who get to vote, too, even if they can’t yet occupy their own dome.”

She waved a hand. “Yes, of course. Do it. I’m sorry you must be both assistant governor and sometimes errand boy.”

“And the bearer of bad news.”

She sat down at her desk and tapped the DataNet terminal. “You’re right. Stop doing that.”

Thakur grinned. “Anything else? Coffee? Tea? Something stronger? You look tired. Distracted. Anything else going on I should know about?”

Yes, there is. “No, I’m fine. Tea, please. Have Ross do it. You have work to do. I want to be at the podium tomorrow, first thing. Invite all the media, give The Observer and Dome News Daily front row seats, and make sure Sakson doesn’t block anything. It would be like him to do it and claim ignorance.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks, Adi.”

Aditya Thakur gave a little wave and left her office. When her door closed, she looked at the door where he’d disappeared. As fast as Adi had climbed the ranks, maybe it would be better if he had her position instead. He was a quick learner and had a presence about him that made people turn their heads. Maybe she’d done enough here. Maybe she should move on.

As soon as she thought it, though, she knew she couldn’t. There was so much more to do. She would feel more confident, she was sure, when the next two domes were built, and more colonists arrived. She had promised herself, and others. There was no better way for her to honor the memory of her love, Terl Plenko. He would have appreciated her commitment to bring Ribon to importance again.

Thinking about Terl also made her think of Dave Crowell. They’d been linked from the start, and in more ways than one, during both Ultra scares. Dave had seen her new life, briefly, on his visit here a year ago. I’m doing something good here, she’d told him. I’m not the wild girl you first met. Certainly, she wasn’t the imposter Dorie Senall that had run with the Movement and the false Plenko.

I couldn’t have wished her a better death than a 100-floor dive from a tall building.

Dave Crowell had believed in her from the start, unsurprised at her good turn here at New Venasaille. He had done more good for the Union than almost anyone, twice saving it from the Ultras. There were only so many times one man could save the Union, but if a third time came, she was sure Dave would be there. Reluctant, maybe, but in the end, he’d be drawn in, particularly if it threatened someone he cared about.

The Ultras were gone, however, as was their universe. As was his dad, the one person Dave barely remembered, but most wished he could see again. The one human he knew who was lost in that Ultra universe. The dad she’d told him he had to forget.

It’s over. You can’t possibly get to him.

Her secretary Ross brought her tea. Dorie sipped at it, thought about the press conference, about Sakson and New Coral, and decided she couldn’t deal with any of it until she had her lunch. She left the office and sat down in the cafeteria, tea in hand. Once there, she felt better and transcribed her speech through her comm card. She would hit Sakson hard. She’d appeal to the voters to stand firm and keep Ribon united.

As she finished, a message pinged her card, surprising her. It was Warden Max Rydell asking if she could come to the Bubble as soon as possible.

The Bubble was a small dome ten miles from New Venasaille. Ironically, amid all the fuss with the Separatists and their agenda, the Bubble was self-sustaining, and Dorie was completely fine with that. No colonists lived there. In fact, only a couple dozen citizens lived there. Their jobs were to work the facility contained within the Bubble and its population of more than thirty Thin Men. It was a research center.

It was a prison.

After the second Ultra scare, Union officials decided a facility to house Thin Men on Ribon made a lot of sense. Take the most notable Thin Men and test them, prod them, and—well, who knew whatever else they did to them. That wasn’t her department or, frankly, her concern. The only worry she had was the facility’s proximity to New Venasaille. The idea was to further isolate these Ultra-created copies. Change the landscape. Change the control. See if that offered up any other clues about the process that made them. If, by chance, Thin Men escaped the facility, they wouldn’t get far outside the Bubble. But you never knew.

“Why do you need me?” she asked Rydell, annoyed that her lunch had been interrupted. She had only now sat down with her tea and hoped to eat something. Everyone on staff, and even some from New Coral, knew she expressly refused to take calls or answer pings during her lunch hour. That included Max Rydell. The VERY URGENT label made her pick up the coded call. She read the message abstract before hitting accept.

“Someone is asking for you,” the warden said.

“Your staff?”

“A subject.”

In the Bubble, Thin Men were known as subjects, not inmates. Subjects as in “test subjects.” That was her guess, anyway. “Who is it?”

“She asked me not to say, but hoped during her rest period you might visit.”

She. “You allow that? Withholding a subject’s name?”

“In this case, yes.”

“What is it about?”

“She didn’t say that either.”

The warden didn’t add anything else. It wasn’t up for debate, even if the governor of the dome was on the line, everything coming from the top of intelligence circles throughout the Union. “When is her rest period?”

“It started fifteen minutes ago. There’s a two-hour window.”

Shit. If she agreed, she’d have to cut her own lunch short, get to the shuttles, and work her way through the Shell and the domelock. At least she could bypass Shell security checks and get to the outer skin without delay. There’d be security checks on the other end, however, and restrictions on what she could bring with her into the subject block.

“Okay,” she said after a brief pause. “I’ll be there. I’ll want more information about the—subject—when I arrive.”

“Certainly. Not like I haven’t got anything else to do. At least it alleviates the boredom of this job a little.”

She broke the connection and stared at her tea. Councilor Jamey Rosas passed by with his cafeteria tray full of something that smelled delicious. They nodded at each other. So much for lunch.

The short ten-minute flight from New Venasaille to the Bubble was uneventful. There wasn’t much to look at but the planet’s ruined lifeless surface. As expected, the wait at the Bubble’s domelock took longer than at New Venasaille. Dorie passed through the security ring, and once they tagged her with the Bubble’s visitor card and made sure she had nothing else with her other than what she was wearing, an attendant led her through the facility to the subject block. The Thin Man’s rest period was nearly over; she wouldn’t have but fifteen minutes with the subject.

Warden Rydell waited at the last security door.

“Max,” she said with a forced smile.

“Governor Senall, good to see you.”

He started cycling through the DNA lock on the security door. It immediately made her think of Terl, who’d been a DNA lock expert. It was one of the things that had got him in trouble in the first place. She saw Terl stamped all over the design of this door. When it was open, Rydell handed her a new card.

“What’s this?”

“Ident of your Thin Man.”

She glanced down but didn’t open it. The dark flashpaper did nothing in inert mode when she rubbed her thumb thoughtfully over the surface.

“You wanted more information,” he said. “Are you going to look at it?”

She stared at the card a little longer, then shook her head. Standing there at the door, thinking about Terl and his DNA locks, she decided not to brief herself on the subject, figuring it didn’t matter who it was. It was a Thin Man. What else did she need to know at this point? She felt more comfortable shielding herself from the knowledge, creating distance between the Thin Man and her, like the buffer zone between the Bubble and New Venasaille. Close by, but hard to get to unless invited.

Rydell shrugged, then extended his arm through the door. “Off you go, then. Room 15 on the end, right-hand side.”

Room, not cell.

In the few years since coming back to Ribon, she had never been in the subject area. She’d been to the Bubble’s admin areas, but never here. Never wanted to examine Thin Men. Never wanted anything to do with that process. Now here she was, striding purposefully down a well-lit hallway to talk with one of them. Blinders on, staring straight down the hallway. Just get it over with.

She was surprised to find the door to Room 15 open. When she took time to scan the hallway, she saw several other doors open. They weren’t locked in? The doors were not barred and had no communication system she could see for visitors wishing to converse with a subject without entering its space. She didn’t see anyone inside the rooms. Still out during their rest periods, apparently.

“I’m not a prisoner,” the voice in the room said.

Dorie didn’t recognize it. She’d thought maybe she would. Somewhere in the deepest, most secret compartments of her heart, she’d entertained the thought that this had all been a ruse, and that the creature in the room was not a Thin Man, but a human; that this was not a copy, but an original. And if not an original, then a myth. A legend. A martyr.

Dave Crowell had found his martyr. He had run into the man known as Vanderberg Parr, who turned out to be a Thin Man, a copy of Crowell’s deceased partner Alan Brindos. A Thin Man who was also part Ultra, who, in the end, had found a way to help Crowell and others, closing a portal at the cost of his own life. On the official end, the story was all about Vanderberg Parr. Crowell didn’t tell the NIO or Kenn or any other agency about the Brindos that Parr had become.

So she didn’t blame herself for thinking for a few brief hopeful moments, that it would be Terl Plenko inside that room. The voice was indeed female, however, and the bubble burst.

“Come in,” the voice said. “Please. Don’t be afraid. You’re perfectly safe.”

She raised her chin and entered the room. The light was dim in here, but she could make out the subject sitting on a single bed. At once, she felt she should recognize the subject, although even now, after all these years, she’d never been good at telling them apart from one another.

A Memor.

Her ponytail was short, just above her shoulders, orange hair with wisps of white throughout. Her face had some wrinkles and her lips were chapped. She looked tired.

“Hello,” the Memor said, inclining her head. She wore a long, simple gown of blue made of a heavy fabric. “Do you know who I am?” She pointed at the ident card in Dorie’s hand.

Dorie shook her head.

“My name is Lorway.”

Lorway! The Memor from the Science Consortium who had helped the Ultras infiltrate the Union, and then disappeared. Presumed dead. This Lorway was a copy, a Thin Man who in the end had helped Dave Crowell quantum travel to the Ultra world known as Rook.

In the days before the Ultras, Dorie had been one of those who believed the alien Memors could play mind tricks: influence thoughts and actions and manipulate memories. If they were that powerful, then why not believe they could actually suck memories from your head? As it turned out, they could put you to sleep. Memors had a thing called The Memory, or shared memory, which Crowell had been subjected to so he could find out more about his dad. Most humans in the Union thought differently now, although there would always be ignorant people out there.

Still, Lorway was a Thin Man. Even after her good deed for Crowell, she had to be rounded up with the others and studied. It didn’t surprise Dorie that Lorway had been transferred to this facility.

“Does my name bother you?” Lorway asked when Dorie didn’t speak right away. “Frighten you?”

Dorie smiled, more to calm herself than to alleviate the Lorway’s worries about her fears. “No, of course not.” She didn’t know what else to say at this moment.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give more information than I did in the message. Bubble officials had to handle and approve the message, of course.”

Dorie looked around Lorway’s room, now that her eyes had adjusted to the low light. It wasn’t much smaller than a studio apartment, and it was furnished like one. Not a cell, at all.

“I’m not a prisoner,” Lorway repeated. “I mean, at least not in the way you normally think of prisoners. I’m locked up in this facility, but as you can see, I have a modest, comfortable dwelling. I get to have some personal possessions, and I was allowed—on the Union’s credit, of course—to purchase some other practical items. I have some mobility around the subject area, particularly during rest time.”

Dorie was afraid to ask what happened when it wasn’t rest time. “I understand,” she said, not wanting to know more about that.

“I’m as comfortable as can be expected,” Lorway said. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Do you have a message for me or something?” Time for all this to get to a point. The rest period would be ending soon.

“I do, and I don’t.”

Dorie frowned. “If you’re going to answer like that, we’ll get nowhere, and you’ll be out of time out and back to—whatever they do to you.”

Lorway lowered her head, and her green eyes bore into Dorie’s. “My message is not in words.”

“What’s the message then?”

Lorway stood and went to a dresser that had multi-colored drawers and a mirror framed in an iridescent material. The dresser was bright, and likely the alien had picked it out on one of her Union-paid shopping sprees.

“A gift,” Lorway said, opening the top drawer. “Something of value to no one except perhaps a serious collector, or maybe a lover of nostalgia. I believe your friend Dave Crowell counts. You might consider giving it to him.”

“What—?”

Lorway turned, and she held in her hand a card slightly bigger than her comm card. She pushed it out toward Dorie. “This.”

The card was just paper with images printed on it. Real paper, not flashpaper. She took it. “What is it?”

“A Tarot card.”

Dorie nodded. “I’ve heard of them.” She looked closer at the card, at the two planets, thin connecting lines, the purple color. She turned it over and she recoiled in surprise. “It says—” She glared at Lorway, suddenly suspicious. “It says Death.”

“Death. Yes, a powerful card in a Tarot deck, but you don’t need to worry about all that.”

“What do I worry about then? What the fuck does this mean?”

“That’s for you to figure out.”

A knight—a skeleton in armor—rode a white horse and carried a black flag with a white blossom and the number thirteen on it. At his feet were the bodies of other humans. “What—I mean where did you get this?”

She only looked up at the ceiling.

They might have certain freedoms, but Max Rydell and his security personnel were watching. Maybe listening. “What do I do with it, then?”

“I already told you.”

“You did?”

“Maybe it would be a nice gift for Dave Crowell. Because I think he’s collecting the set.”

“Dave’s love for antiques and the past is fun and all, but honestly, it has nothing to do with me. You should keep it.”

“It doesn’t help me any, either, and I have no sentimental attachments to it. You should see him.”

“I have work to do—”

“Your days at New Venasaille are numbered, Dorie Senall. You know that.” The Memor sat on her bed again. “It has everything to do with you. It has everything to do with those you love.” She stared hard at Dorie. “With those you loved.”

Dorie felt her face redden. She wanted to say something, but the tightness in her throat made her work at it. The Tarot card was shaking in her hand. “Terl?”

“It’s no secret you have enemies, Dorie,” Lorway said. “I’ve heard the rumors. I’ll probably get a reprimand from the warden for bringing it up, but think about it. How long can you put this off?”

She said, “Put what off?” in a whisper, but all she could think about was Terl.

“The inevitable,” the Memor said.

“I don’t know. I can’t just leave—”

“You shouldn’t wait too long. Spend a little time now and it will go a long way to heal the past. You’ll have to work your way toward understanding. Do anything you can now to move things along.”

Dorie’s hand still shook, as if spasming, and she found she couldn’t stay on her feet. Her legs gave way, and she sat on the floor, a coldness gathering in her core. “Call Dave,” she mumbled, knowing she’d have to be careful about her rivals finding out anything about all this, but her thoughts said Find Terl.

Lorway put a hand on Dorie’s head. “Death isn’t death when it’s a new beginning.”