“I didn’t come to drag you. I came to talk.”
He’s skeptical. “So, talk.”
“The Republic may not survive the year without your help,” I say. “Phobos has fallen to the Rim and Lysander’s alliance. They may Rain on the planet any day now, if they haven’t already. Not to mention, Atalantia is waiting in the wings blockading Luna. Already, millions have died of starvation. We need whatever ships and weapons you have leftor our lifelong dream will die. You have reasons to be upset with me, with Virginia. I have not always been the best partner, nor delivered the results I promised. I don’t have the long view like Fitchner. Nor the subtlety. But we started this war together and we need to end it together. I have always had your back, Quick. I need you to have mine one last time. Give me the weapons to make this a fight.”
He sips his whiskey and looks at Matteo.
“Very well spoken, but who says I have weapons?”
“Virginia has your books,” I say. “From your oldlogos.”
An eyebrow arches toward Matteo. “Our loose end. I thought I said hire a team?”
“I hired three.”
“Well, shit. Here we are.”
I press him. “We know about the metal and materiel you’ve hoarded. Whatever fleet or weapons you’ve built in secret serves no purpose out here. I’ve come to ask you to lend me your ships. Let me put them to use. Give me the weapons I need to finish this war, and I will finish it.”
Quicksilver sighs. “I fear we cannot do that, Darrow.”
“Cannot or will not?” Sevro asks.
“Both, in fact.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Matteo says.
Quicksilver glares at him, then smiles at me. “Listen, Darrow. It’s not that I don’t believe in you anymore. I asked you to move mountains, and you did. I asked you to wage a war on heaven, and you have. Shit, dead gods are in your wake, my boys. That you survived Mercury, that you found your way here—” He shakes his head with a true and unreserved admiration that I immediately resent. “Well, it’s enough to make an old nihilist believe in heroes again. I believe in you, Darrow, at least that you and Sevro will fight till the last. But Gold is rising once more. Atalantia’s forces multiply by the day. Lune—a Lune I said we should kill, remember—is reawakening their dormant moral spirit, and has won the Rim to his banner. Even with the recent developments, our cause is at its terminus.”
“Recent developments?” I ask.
He ignores that. “To be perfectly honest, I no longer believe the people have the will to win this. I no longer believe in the people at all really.”
“You never did,” Sevro accuses.
Matteo looks at him, hard.
“Oh, like you do?” Quicksilver laughs. “Say it then. Claim the people are the power of the Republic.” Quicksilver waits, but Sevro just glares. “No? See. The people rely on a narrow, sharp edge. The Volk. You two. The Free Legions. The people just huddle and whine and wait. You hate the people too, Sevro. You think they’re slime. When have they ever treated you decently? When have they had your back? All you care about is your wife. Your children. And you know what? That is fine. It’s natural. Fair. But don’t act like I’m worse than you. You abandoned the Free Legions. Left Darrow to rot before I did.” Sevro looks down in shame. “I only left after the people returned my gift of liberty on the end of a pike.”
It’s Matteo’s turn to look down. Quicksilver leans back and puts his feet up on the rain column that, if sold, could feed twenty assimilation camps for ten years.
“Quick, you can bitch and moan all you like, but you can’t hide out here forever,” I say. “If Gold puts down the Republic, do you think they won’t hunt you? Atalantia’s promised Ceres to the man or woman who brings either you or Matteo back to be her playthings. When the Republic falls, you’ll be next. There’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run.”
A mysterious half-smile appears on his face.
“What if there was somewhere to run, somewhere to hide, where Gold could never reach us, where the stain of their rule was erased from humanity and we could start with a blank slate…a tabula rasa…would you come and be a part of that future? Would you come with me?”
I hesitate. “What do you mean?”
“Enough toying with him. They’re our friends. Show them,” Matteo says.
“They’ll hate it,” Quicksilver says.
“We agreed you’d show Darrow. Show them both. They both deserve to know the war wasn’t all for nothing.”
“Show us what?” Sevro asks.
“My dream,” Quicksilver replies and looks heavily at Sevro. “I will remind you that violence will not work here.” With a smile of pride, he nods toward the garden window. I stand and approach the window. Obscured as it is by the fogged glass, I cannot divine anything about the garden save that it has foliage and running water. I’d assumed it was anoxygen farm, but something in Quick’s words, and in the faintly visible curve of the garden, seems off.
