This story is very old both in terms of when I wrote it — I think when I wrote it I’d only ever sold a singe short story, to a tiny press for (I think) 1/4 c a word and it was either 95 or 96 (Last millenium, yes) — and in terms of when it takes place. In the Darskship’s Timeline, this took place sometime before the rule of the bio-Lords (aka Mules.) I had a vague idea the two young men in this story are in fact fighting against Good Man Sinistra (not by that name yet.)
I haven’t gone over it, and it might have incongruencies. (I will go over it, I promise. I want to bring out a couple of collections in universe.)
For now, though, I thought you might enjoy it.
Castor
Sarah A. Hoyt
“You must come back, milord,” Martin said. He held his lips taut. Worry showed in his narrowed eyes.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll come back when we’ve rescued the men of the Victory.” I sounded too distant, too calm.
Martin’s eyes widened in surprise but, having been my father’s second-in-command for years, he was too well trained to dissent openly.
“You’re the Good Man now, Lord,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he meant reproach or acceptance.
I nodded and clicked off the lynk. It had done its job, bringing me news of my father’s death. News I couldn’t yet fully absorb. My mother had died when I was too young to remember. No one else I’d loved had died. And my father– He’d been the center of life for the household. The city.
From the dark screen my face stared at me.
The dark green eyes, unruly brown hair and still-too-soft adolescent features now belonged to a title and a role: the ruler of Olympus Seacity, Good Man Alexander Triante.
Sweat dripped down my forehead into my eyes. Yet I felt cold, numbed.
A hand touched my shoulder.
“Lex?” Cas said. “Are you all right? Lex?” The privacy screen that enveloped my head and shoulders muffled his voice, but his words were clear enough. And prevented his having seen the screen.
I pushed the pad that lifted the force field, and saw Cas reflected by my side on the screen, his face a reflection of mine. Same green eyes, same hair, same features.
“Lex?” Behind him, the red co-pilot chair and my own blue pilot chair stood vacant, the screens displaying a snatch of blue sky with fluffy white clouds, while the ship flew itself on its programmed course.
An acceptable time-saving stratagem, but a dangerous one, when we would be over enemy waters in minutes.
“My father died,” I said. How odd my voice sounded. How distant. “An hour ago. An accident with an algae harvester.”
Color fled Cas’ face. His lips went grey. His eyes opened wide. My father had indulged him ridiculously. Everyone said so.
He shook his head, as though to clear it, and took in too hasty a breath. “We must turn back.”
“What? Go back why? They don’t need me. Martin—”
“No, you idiot.” He grabbed my shoulder, tried to haul me to my feet.
Strong language, stronger action from a bio, a slave, not fully human.
“We can’t risk your life, you fool. You’re the Good Man of Olympus, now.”
“I know.” I’d never heard such forcefulness from Castor Dioscurus, my body-guard, fashioned in a lab before I was born, harvested from a bio-womb on my birthday, raised and trained to defend me, created to resemble me enough to double for me at dangerous times. “I know.”
His exasperated expression mirrored my impotent grief back at me.
We had the same mode of speech, the same mannerisms: the result of growing up together in my father’s palace.
In the dark or in a crowded place a potential assassin might mistake one of us for the other, and be undone by Cas’ bio-engineered strength, his superhuman reflexes.
Now, my bodyguard used that strength to lift me up by the shoulders, pull me all the way to the pilot’s seat, and drop me into it. A capital offense, by the laws of any country.
“Turn us around,” he said. “Take us home.”
I shook my head.
“Lex, we’re going home.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t order me around.” All through my poor-little-rich-boy childhood – while I was protected and coddled to keep out anyone who might harm me – Cas had been the closest thing to a brother and best friend. It obviously had given him ideas. But his mid-finger displayed the tatooed red ring of an owned bio and sooner or later I’d have to teach him to keep his mouth shut. “The survivors from the Victory of Sarmorthrace are waiting for rescue. Only we — only you — can land this deep behind enemy lines. If we turn back, they’ll die or be taken.”
Why was I justifying myself? Cas had no choice in what we did, unless he could intimidate me into turning back. Our keyboards were DNA coded. His DNA had been changed enough by his improvements that he couldn’t command the pilot’s keyboard unless I gave him control and the pilot’s keyboard always overrode the co-pilot’s.
Castor’s lips trembled. Anger and grief warred for control of his features, neither taking the upper hand. “You idiot,” he said, again. “What’s the use of rescuing twenty people if you’re captured or killed? What’s the use for those twenty people or the thousands of others who’ll get killed when the Council takes over our isle?”
The Council was our shorthand for the enemy, The Council Of Seacities, the fifty or so artificial isles at war with the thirty Seacities of the Alliance. The commander of the Alliance was the Good Man Of Olympus. Which now meant myself. I tried the thought on, like an ill-fitting coat, even as my mouth worked, “Those twenty men are our men. And we owe them rescue. Then, I can think about being Good Man.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Schrodinger Path to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.