Chapter Twenty-Three

A month went by, then another, and suddenly the shuttles were only two weeks away. Lars had made up his mind to leave as soon as the option became available, and signed up right away. He regretted that now, having not realised that, like most documents on Audacity, the list of resignees was publicly available. Sofia had caught wind and proceeded to spend the next few months badgering him to stay. He did some real work, too – he helped her pass the title to fund research into her theories, but declined her offers to stay and help with the research. He had been avoiding the discussion as long as he could, and Sofia wasn’t one to ask questions outright, but she eventually had no choice.

“It’s really not my area,” he had protested when the time finally came. She looked at him blankly.

“Lars, this isn’t anyone’s area. We’re working totally untested theories here – well, almost – and we need you. Besides, part of getting Herald to agree to the bill was that each Earth could have people on the research team, and I can’t imagine anyone else from your Earth wanting to actually do the work.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Lars deflected. “It’s a big Earth.”

“Technically it’s the same size as all the other Earths.”

“My point is, you’re not the only planet with an interest in science. I’m sure that now the word’s out, there’ll be plenty of people interested in exploring the consequences.”

He couldn’t say for sure that that was true, but there were certainly no shortage of different reactions coming out of the planet now that Audacity had been revealed. There were conspiracy theorists who claimed to have known along, surprisingly high-ranking officials who expressed total shock, and a suspicious silence from the new King Philip. His coronation had been a relatively low-key affair (at least judging from the descriptions Lars read in media packages they were sent). It was hardly history’s first coronation following an assassination, but it hadn’t happened for quite some time, and nobody present – the King included – seemed quite sure how much they should be celebrating in proportion to their mourning. For all the misgivings Lars had about his job at the moment, at least he wasn’t the florist for that event.

Sofia had relented temporarily after that, but she tried again just a few days later, ambushing him at lunch.

“You know, everyone’s looking at me nowadays.”

“You’re famous,” he said, tucking into his beef burrito. “I can’t imagine living on a planet full of these things, they’re so good.”

Sofia stopped for a second before realising he was talking about the burrito. “Yeah, you’re welcome,” she muttered, taking a seat opposite him. “I don’t really want to be famous.”

“Bad luck,” he said. “That’s what does it for most people, honestly. The poor luck to be noticed.”

“Very philosophical,” she said. “They’re not looking at you too?”

“A little,” he said, “since you insisted on giving me credit on the theory.”

“You helped develop it!”

“I just happened to be in a conversation about gravity – which, by the way, I still don’t totally understand how it connects to convergence – but you did all the work.”

“Bad luck,” she raised her eyebrows. Lars realised she was going to ask him again, and he sighed. “You’re still going to be famous when you get back to Herald. You were a delegate – everyone’s going to know who you are. Stay up here and work with me.”

She had used that exact wording in a previous attempt to win him over. Stay up here and work with me. He had to admit it was a tempting idea.

“I can’t,” he finally said. “I don’t belong here. And after what we saw… I don’t like it here. It’s not where I want to spend my time.”

It was only a day later that she was asking him again. They were in her dormitory, both lying in a too-small bed trying to get comfortable.

“You know what Garden’s saying about the attack? The killer was going to try and broadcast the footage to all the planets.”

“I heard that,” he shuddered. The death was one thing, but he didn’t like the idea of everyone seeing him ranting and raving at the King immediately beforehand.

Sofia seemed to have read his mind. “Private Jenks told me about the footage. They showed it to him. He said you weren’t really visible, only from a back angle.”

“Hm,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. They had gotten together like this a few times since the attack, always with a cautious hope that the other person was still interested – or perhaps it was a fear that they weren’t. The emotions were hard to differentiate, and perhaps it was one at one time and the other at others, but what Lars knew for sure was that she felt the same hope and fear. Perhaps that was why they were a good match. For now, he thought.

“But he was telling me about why the assassin wanted to broadcast it,” Sofia was saying. Lars was aware that he’d nodded off for just a second. He “hmm”d again and forced his eyes to stay open.

“Apparently,” she continued, “they wanted to scare all the delegates into leaving, make them think that Audacity wasn’t safe anymore.”

“Point proven,” he murmured.

“But that’s it,” she said. “He wanted to scare us away, make them shut the whole project down. And now, what, eighty delegates are packing up and leaving?”

Plus you, was the unspoken addition. “I don’t want to talk about this now,” he said, feeling his eyes grow heavier.

“But if they get what they want then they win – this was their goal.”

“It’s not our war,” he mumbled. “It’s not… let’s talk about it in the morning.” The last sentence came out slurred but she seemed to get the message, as she switched off the last light in her dormitory. She didn’t bring it up again that morning.

Titles were coming thick and fast. It seemed that even among the delegates who wanted to leave, they still had work to do, and the titles they had planned to introduce near the end of the first term now had to be rushed through before the arrival of the shuttles. There were titles that secured new sources of funding, titles that set tariffs on alcohol exchanges, titles that set the definition of various trade goods with subtle differences across worlds, titles that introduced an interdimensional currency, titles that introduced a competing currency to “encourage competition”, titles that began the work of translating great literature from each planet into Gaean, and more besides. With no King to “encourage” their votes in a particular direction, the Herald group found themselves free to vote however they wished, and Lars made use of this as best he could. But one day, a mass memo came through from Earth: Herald with a personal request from King Philip. It asked all delegates to vote against an upcoming administrative title proposed by a Edo delegate that would elect an official leader from each planet. That person would not have any constitutional power (such a change would warrant an amendment, which was considerably harder to achieve) but they would be expected to represent that group as a whole in any situation where a representative was warranted. To Lars it had mostly sounded like an exclusive club that wouldn’t make much material difference either way, but he was surprised to hear something so formal as a request from the new King to shoot it down.

“What do you make of this, eh?” he asked Panagos that morning. The two were hardly close, but everyone who had been in that midnight meeting now had a kind of strange bond – whether they wanted it or not.

“King Philip’s request? I can’t say, Scion,” Panagos replied. “I’ve never met the young man, so I can’t speak to his temperament, but it seems he’s not eager about the idea of someone else acting as “leader” up here.”

“So, more of the same,” Lars muttered. It was a funny feeling being openly critical of the King, even after he had passed, but he had long given up on the old ideas of etiquette. Even Panagos didn’t scold him for the insolence, merely raising his eyebrows.

“Perhaps,” Panagos said. “But at least he’s not up here in person, eh?”

That much was a comfort. When the time came to reveal Audacity to Earth: Herald, King Philip had been evasive on the question of whether he had already known. It was hard to imagine that his father wouldn’t have dropped a hint over the last five and a half years or so. Then again, King Aenos 5 was not known for being especially close to his family, and he spent most of his time in the Glory Palace (as opposed to the familial residence built on the Palace grounds). So there was no way of knowing either way, but King Philip wasn’t interested in telling.

Since the secret was out, he had at least been publicly supportive of the Parliament. That wasn’t a given – there were an uncertain few days of silence where the Herald delegates had wondered if they’d be recalled entirely, but it hadn’t come to that. Not that it made a difference to Lars, who was going to depart anyway.

Sofia kept trying to make him stay when she could, and Lars began to feel like it might be more personal than she was letting on. She was still framing it in terms of the research project, but she would also drop in hints about her own feelings towards him. These made Lars flinch, but not because he didn’t reciprocate – he did, but he didn’t feel like he could say that to her. It was like a promise he couldn’t keep, especially if he was leaving the station in what was now a matter of weeks.

Their late night meetings became fewer and she drew away from him. Lars knew he should be upset, and he was, but he was also privately pleased. He loved spending time with her, but every minute they spent together was starting to feel like a lie. What was the point of keeping that lie up if it would all end soon anyway?

He wasn’t close enough to share this with anyone else aboard the station, but more than once in this time he found himself in Marcia’s room. Their conversations were perfectly innocent but he still felt guilty – they had divorced, but he couldn’t help coming back to her now. They talked about upcoming votes, about the new King, about anything at all except Sofia.

It was a night like that where they were making light conversation, Marcia sitting in bed and Lars standing just inside the closed doorway, when a strange silence fell over the two of them.

“What are you doing here, Lars?” she finally asked.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“We’re not married anymore.”

“I know that!” he said. “Does that mean we can’t talk?”

“Of course not, but… shouldn’t you be talking to someone else right now?” she said, more gently than he was used to hearing from her.

When he didn’t reply, not knowing how, she carried on. “I know you and her have something – everyone knows it, Lars. You’re not a natural liar; which reminds me, the Edo delegates have been teaching me this fabulous game called poker – I’ll explain it later.

“But it’s okay, really.” She gave him a soft smile. “You went through a lot together, and nobody could blame you for liking her.”

“I don’t know…” he trailed off.

“Speak freely, Scion,” she grinned.

“I feel like I’m making a mistake. The same mistake I made before, with you. I don’t mean to say -“ he hurriedly tried to correct himself, but she raised a hand.

“I understand,” she said. “We never should have gotten married. I don’t regret all of it, but we did it because of the situation. Locked away in those rooms, deciphering messages and trying to figure out these other cultures… we only had each other. It’s not so different from what you’re going through now with Sofia.”

“Exactly!” he said. He hadn’t realised quite how much she understood about his position, and was excited to be able to share with her now.

“But that’s why you shouldn’t be talking to me, Lars,” she said. “I’m not the one who needs to hear whatever you’re about to say. Am I right?”

Lars deflated. Of course she was right. “But it’s easier with you.”

“Perhaps you need to interrogate why that is.”

“Well…” he thought about it for a moment, and then said “There’s less chance that I can say the wrong thing like I always do. I can’t mess up my relationship with you. Since I already did.”

Marcia looked at him, and for some reason he didn’t find himself wanting to look for a place to hide. “Lars,” she said, soft enough to be a whisper, “you didn’t mess it up. Is that what you’ve been thinking all this time?”

“Well, it wasn’t you,” he protested feebly. “You never did anything wrong.”

“That’s not how it works,” she said, “Nobody did anything wrong. We just weren’t right together. It wasn’t your fault – I said that to you, you remember? And you agreed, I thought you understood me.”

Lars remembered it all too well; the night she had said she wanted to leave, calm and prepared as she’d ever been, was somehow worse than any screaming match. The silences from that night still buzzed in his ears some days. “I thought you were softening the blow,” he said. “I thought you really thought I had messed up.”

“Oh for…” she buried her face in her hands. “I was divorcing you Lars – if there was ever a time for truth to take over from etiquette it was then. You understand me?”

He did, and after quickly making his excuses and departing he took a moment to reckon with what he had learned. He had gone through most of his life, even before the marriage, assuming that he was starting from a point of failure. But he had been wrong – he had tricked himself into assuming that, and it didn’t have to be the case. He had worked out the King’s secret plan, and he wasn’t totally useless. And Sofia wanted him to help her, too. There were things he could still do.

The next morning he wolfed down a sandwich and coffee and dashed through the corridors to find Sofia. He arrived at the Carmen dormitories and dashed up the stairs to rap against her dormitory door. There was no response, and her neighbour poked his head out of his door and said she had mentioned her office. He turned heel and followed the familiar paths – the paths that made up his home – to her office door. He went to knock, but before his hand hit the metal it opened before him.

Sofia jumped at the sight of him and her sudden movement made him jump too. They laughed a little at each other.

“I was just coming to find you,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said at the same time. “And,” she added, “I should probably go first this time.”

Lars smiled. “Smart.” They went back inside the cramped office. It had mostly been cleared of the photographs and documents they were using to investigate the new Baroness Gray, but they were slowly being replaced by timelines and charts marking divergence and convergence points, as well as something called the “wave function” that Lars didn’t pretend to understand. He looked at her expectantly.

“I’ve been telling you to stay and work with me – and I’m not going to ask you again, don’t worry – because I realised something. I was being selfish. You’re not a physicist. I think you’re so smart, Lars, but you were right before. This isn’t your area, and I was trying to make it your area for my own reasons.”

“Your own reasons?” he echoed.

She tilted her head and squinted, a sign that she was struggling to find the right words. “I don’t want to do this alone,” she finally said. “I spent so long alone on my island looking at the stars, looking for life, and then when I found it I got to come up here and look at them up close. I used to think that I worked best alone, but you taught me that it wasn’t true. It was just one of those lies that we tell ourselves – part of the narrative of “me” that I build in my head, that then becomes self-reinforcing. You know what I mean?”

Lars knew exactly what she meant, having gone through the exact same thing last night. But instead of answering in the affirmative, or saying anything at all, he took the two short steps to cross the office and embraced her. He half-expected her to pull back, but instead she leant into his shoulder as he held her tight.

Then, her face buried into his chest, she asked him one more time, the words just slightly different but the question the same as she’d always been asking. “Stay with me.”

“Of course I will,” he said, voice gentler than he thought capable. “Of course I will.”

It was later that day that the vote to appoint leaders to each faction came up. Lars sat on the back bench that had become his home, but now with a kind of pride instead of fear. He was going to stay and help change the world. He had seen another way, and he thought that Herald could stand to be a little more like its neighbours. So instead of following King Philip’s wishes and blindly voting against it, he listened to the speeches and the points that every other delegate made, and took his decision into his own hands.

To their credit, the other Heralders did raise strong arguments. Baron Yorros pointed out that passing the bill would formalise the factionalism that had already (in his words) plagued the Parliament thus far. But, as Lars watched a confident Earth: Edo executive point out, voting the bill down would hardly work to reject that factionalism – they were factions, whether they liked it or not, and perhaps adding some structure to the currently formless party system would temper its worst impulses. Such as, the executive continued, pointing a finger at Baron Yorros and the whole Herald bench, interfering royalty who didn’t even have a place aboard the station trying to influence votes.

There were loud murmurs from all sides of the chamber, but the Speaker expertly brought the volume down and kept order. Sai was a more hands-off President in the debating stages; while the President technically set the rules of debate, on most titles Sai had been happy to make it a free-for-all and let the Speaker try to control things.

The time came to vote, and Lars was still split. He saw Sofia from the other side of the room frowning down at her device, also apparently torn. He switched from the voting screen on his own device to the messaging screen – this technically wasn’t allowed during the voting process, but nobody minded as long as you got your vote in.

What are you thinking?

he sent. She replied quickly.

Probably in favour. There’s not really enough order to the Parliament, and this could help. Not to mention, I think Herald could stand to choose a new leader… don’t you?

He thought about it. The idea of choosing a leader was strangely alien to him – he had voted for Sergeant Graves as President, and before that for the King, and in neither case had he felt like he’d gotten what he wanted. He wondered if he could be the Herald leader. After all, if he really wanted to change things it would be the obvious place to start. And people knew him now, whether he liked it or not. He could turn that into a positive reputation, totally separate from the monarchs who had ruled all their lives thus far.

He switched back to the voting screen and pressed “Pass”. A four-second countdown began, he held his breath and hit “Confirm”.