Morning Star полностью

Sevro swallows slowly, feeling the weight of the words.

“I did what I had to,” he says, sounding so small. “What no one else would.”

“Did you?” Quicksilver leans forward nastily. “Or did you do what you wanted to do? Because your feelings were hurt? Because you wanted to lash out?”

Sevro’s eyes are glassy. His silence wounding me. I want to defend him, but he needs to hear this.

“You think I haven’t been fighting, but I have,” Quicksilver continues. “The Sovereign’s opinion of the Jackal seems to have soured of late.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I couldn’t guess before, but now I’d bet anything it’s because you escaped the Jackal’s prisons. In any case, I saw an opportunity. I brought Virginia au Augustus and the Sovereign’s representatives here to broker a peace that would give Virginia the ArchGovernorship of Mars and would remove the Jackal from power and put him in prison for life. It’s not the end I wanted. But if what we’re seeing on the Jackal’s Mars is any indication, he is the single greatest threat to the worlds and our long-term goals.”

“And yet you helped him consolidate power in the first place,” I say.

Quicksilver sighs. “At the time, I thought him less of a threat than his father. I was wrong. And so were you. He needs to be removed.”

The Jackal’s been betrayed by two allies, then.

“But your plans for an alliance are slagged now.”

“Indeed. But I don’t mourn the opportunity lost. You’re alive, Darrow, and that means this rebellion is alive. It means Fitchner’s dream, your wife’s dream, is not yet gone from this world.”

“Why?” Sevro asks. “Why the bloodyhell would you want war? You’re the richest man in the system. You’re not an anarchist.”

“No. I am not an anarchist, a communist, a fascist, a plutocrat, or even a demokrat, for that matter. My boys, don’t believe what they tell you in school. Government is never the solution, but it is almost always the problem. I’m a capitalist. And I believe in effort and progress and the ingenuity of our species. The continuing evolution and advancement of our kind based on fair competition. Fact of the matter is, Gold does not want man to continue to evolve. Since the conquering, they have routinely stifled advancement to maintain their heaven. They’ve wrapped themselves in myth. Filled their grand oceans with monsters to hunt. Cultivated private Mirkwoods and Olympuses of their very own. They have suits of armor to make them flying gods. And they preserve that ridiculous fairy tale by keeping mankind frozen in time. Curbing invention, curiosity, social mobility. Change threatens that.

“Look where we are. In space. Above a planet we shaped. Yet we live in a Society modeled after the musings of Bronze Age pedophiles. Tossing around mythology like that bullshit wasn’t made up around a campfire by an Attican farmer depressed that his life was nasty, brutish, and short.

“The Golds claim to the Obsidians that they are gods. They are not. Gods create. If the Golds are anything, they are vampire kings. Parasites drinking from our jugular. I want a Society free of this fascist pyramid. I want to unchain the free market of wealth and ideas. Why should men toil in the mines when we can build robots to toil for us? Why should we ever have stopped in this Solar System? We deserve more than what we’ve been given. But first, Gold must fall and the Sovereign and the Jackal must die. And I believe you are the sign I’ve been waiting for, Mr. Andromedus.”

He nods at my gloved hands. “I paid for your Sigils. I paid for your bones, your eyes, your flesh. You are my friend’s brainchild. My husband’s student. The sum of the Sons of Ares. So my empire is at your disposal. My hackers. My security teams. My transports. My companies. All yours. With no reservations. No strings. No insurance policy.” He looks at Sevro. “Gentlemen. In other words, I’m all in.”

“Quite nice.” Sevro applauds, mocking Quicksilver. “Darrow, he’s just trying to buy you so he can escape.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But we can’t blow the bombs anymore.”

“Bombs?” Quicksilver asks. “What are you talking about?”

“We planted explosives in the refineries and the shipping docks,” I say.

“That’s your plan?” Quicksilver looks back and forth at us as if we’re mad. “You can’t do that. Do you have any idea what that would do?”

“An economic collapse,” I say. “Symptoms including a devaluation of stock assets, a freeze of commercial bank lending, a run on local banks, eventual stagflation. And a breakdown of social order. Show us some respect when you talk to us. We’re not dilettantes or boys. And it was our plan.”

“Was?” Sevro asks, stepping back from me. “So now you’re letting him dictate what we do.”

“Things have changed, Sevro. We need to reassess. We’ve new assets.”

My friend stares at me as if he doesn’t recognize my face. “New assets? Him?”

“Not just him. Orion,” I say. “You never told me Mustang contacted you.”