Quicksilver rubs his mysterious ring with its Gold eyeball at its center, the one he’s worn since I first met him. I let him look me over.
If Sevro’s his black sheep, I’m his golden son.
“Darrow.” He reaches up and grips both my arms. “My boy. Gods. Mercury.” He breathes out. “I’m sorry about your troops. They were patriots, all. Heroes. The mob doesn’t deserve their sacrifice. But where have you been?”
Matteo clarifies. “We’ve watched the Archimedes approach since you entered the Belt.” I turn. They must have very long eyes. “And we know Kavax sent Cassius with that fresh hull to help you escape Mercury, but where have you been in the time between?”
“I was marooned on one of the Marchers,” I say.
“Icarus Base?” Quicksilver guffaws. “Really? Gods, makes me nostalgic. Remember when we sent teams to build the damn thing, Matteo?”
“How could I not? You’d rove the penthouse at all hours raving that Fitchner was too bold. That the Votum would see the construction skiffs and rat us out to the Praetorians.”
“Ah, the old days.” Quicksilver’s eyes twinkle. “That was truly a thrill. Spartan base, though. Couldn’t have been pleasant.”
“It was…educational,” I say.
“And what is it that you learned?”
“Perspective.”
“Perspective, eh? You know, I once overheard Magnus au Grimmus tell your old companion Roque that losing an army will either make a man a philosopher or a suicide. Glad you chose differently than Fabii.”
“After that it was the Dockyards of Venus.”
Quicksilver and Matteo look at each other and laugh. “That was you?”
“Technically, it was him.” I nod to Sevro.
They frown. So, they don’t know about the auction. Sevro looks at me, and it’s clear he doesn’t want them to. He’s embarrassed. “If you knew we were coming, then you probably know why we’re here. Virginia did send five other ships. Did any of them make it?”
“No. But your wife’s agent has been very clear with Matteo. She thinks the Republic’s salvation lies here with us,” Quicksilver says.
“Does it?” I look around the room. The data might as well be streaming by in ancient Mandarin. Can’t make heads or tails out of it, but the length of our journey with Matteo on the lift to Quicksilver’s study was long enough for me to guess he’s hollowed out the entirety of the asteroid. A herculean effort. Maybe Virginia was right after all, and the asteroid is filled with dockyards and new warships. Yet a feeling is telling me it’s housing something else. But what?
“Come,” Quicksilver says. “Let’s sit if we’re going to get mad at each other.”
He takes us to a sunken sitting room with cushions arrayed on the floor and, dripping from the ceiling, a Neptunian rain column. It is shaped like a teardrop made from the diamonds that rain down on that distant sphere. Sevro doesn’t sit on the cushions with the rest of us. He perches on the rim of the sitting room and keeps watch.
“Sevro, come sit with us,” says Quicksilver. “Whatever happened to you on Luna wasn’t my fault. You know that. We’re friends, you and I. Let’s sit and talk like it.” Sevro gives him the crux. Quick shoots me a look of concern. “Right. Well. You’ve had a hard run, lad. A hard run. Act as you like. You’re entitled to it.” Mischief enters his eyes. “That’s the way in Virginia’s Republic, is it not?”
“If anything, she’s shown restraint,” I say. “Especially with you.”
“Please. If she listened to me, the Vox would have been smashed years ago. Had she treated them with as firm a hand as she dealt with my Silvers, well the Society would be ashes. And she wouldn’t have had to send her husband here to drag me back to the slaughterhouse.”
“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 left or 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 old logos.”
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.”