Prisons Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason

Bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson has written nearly a hundred novels, many of them co‑written (as this story is) with Doug Beason, with his wife, Rebecca Moesta, or with Brian Herbert, with whom he continues Frank Herbert’s Dune saga. Anderson has written several media tie‑ins, for such properties as Star Wars and The X‑Files. His most recent original project is the Saga of Seven Suns series, which concluded with last year’s The Ashes of Worlds, and his nautical fantasy epic Terra Incognita.

Doug Beason is a physicist and a retired Air Force Colonel. He is currently works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he is responsible for programs that reduce the global threat of weapons of mass destruction. He has published fourteen books, eight of them in collaboration with Anderson. The writing team’s novel Assemblers of Infinity was a finalist for the Nebula Award.

“Prisons,” first published in Amazing Stories, explores the repercussions of a revolt on a prison planet and shows how one person’s existence influences the decisions of those in power. It examines black market trade, brainwashing, and how far some will go for revenge.

I am still called the Warden. The prisoners consider it an ironic jest.

Barely a meter square, the forcewalls form the boundaries of my holographic body. Once this felt like a throne, an isolated position from which I could control the workings of Bastille. Now, though, I must look out and watch my former prisoners laughing at me.

This projection has been an image of authority to them. Since living on this prison world was too great a punishment to inflict upon any real warden or guards, my Artificial Personality was entrusted to watch over this compound. I am based on a real person–a great man, I think–a proud man with many accomplishments. But I have failed here.

Amu led the prisoners in their revolt; he convinced them that Bastille is a self‑sufficient planet after all their forced terraforming work for the Federation. They have survived all Federation attempts to reoccupy the world, keeping the invaders out with the same systems once intended to keep the prisoners in. Besides the prisoners, I am the only one left.

Once, I ran the environmental systems here, the production accounting, the resources inventory. I monitored the automated digging and processing machinery outside. I controlled the fleet of tiny piranha interceptors in orbit that would destroy any ship trying to escape. But now I am powerless.

Amu’s lover Theowane comes to taunt me every day, to gloat over her triumph. She paces up and down the corridor outside the forcewalls. To me, she is flaunting her freedom to go where she wishes. I do not think it is unintentional.

At the time of the revolt, Theowane used her computer skills to introduce a worm program that rewrote the control links around my Personality, leaving me isolated and helpless. If I attempt to regain control, the worm will delete my existence. I feel as if I have a knife at my throat, and I am too afraid to act.

At moments such as this, I can appreciate the sophistication of my Personality, which allows me to feel the full range of human emotions.

It allows me to hate Theowane and what she has done to me.

• • •

Theowane makes herself smile, but the Warden refuses to look at her. It annoys her when he broods like this.

“I am busy,” he says.

Leaving him to dwell on his fate, Theowane crosses to the panorama window. Huge, remotely driven excavators and haulers churn the ground, rearing up, crunching rock and digesting it for usable minerals. At least, she thinks, Bastille’s resources are put to our own use, not exported for someone else.

Lavender streaks mottle the indigo sky, blotting out all but the brightest stars. A dime‑sized glare shows the distant sun, too far away to heat the planet to any comfortable temperature; but overhead, dominating the sky, rides the cinnamon‑colored moon Antoinette, so close to Bastille and so nearly the same size that it keeps the planet heated by tidal flexing.

On some of the nearby rocks, patches of algae and lichen have taken hold. These have been genetically engineered to survive in Bastille’s environment, to begin the long‑term conversion of the surface, of the atmosphere. On a human timescale, though, they are making little progress.

Farther below, Theowane sees the oily surface of the deadly sea, where clumps of the ubermindist weed drift. A few floating harvesters ride the waves, but the corrosive water and the sulfuric‑acid vapor in the air cause too much damage to send them out often. That does not matter, since they no longer need the drug as a bargaining chip. Amu has refused to continue exporting ubermindist extract, despite a black market clamoring for it.

Theowane finds it bitterly ironic that she and so many others sentenced here for drug crimes had been forced by the Federation to process ubermindist. The Federation supports its own black market trade, keeping the drug illegal and selling it at the same time. After taking over the prison planet, Amu cut off the supply, using the piranha interceptors to destroy an outgoing robot ship laden with ubermindist. The Federation has gone without their precious addictive drug since the prison revolt.

When the intruder alarms suddenly kick in, they take Theowane by surprise. She whirls and places both hands on her hips. Her close‑cropped reddish hair remains perfectly in place.

“What is it?” she demands of the Warden.

He is required to answer. “One ship, unidentified, has just snapped out of hyperspace. It is on approach.” The Warden’s image straightens as he speaks, lifting his head and reciting the words in an inflectionless voice.

“Activate the piranha swarm,” she says.

The Warden turns to her. “Let me contact the ship first. We must see who they are.”

“No!” Bastille has been quarantined by the rest of the Federation. Any approaching ship can only mean trouble.

Shortly after the prison revolt, the Praesidentrix had tried to negotiate with Bastille. Then she sent laughable threats by subspace radio, demanding that Amu surrender under threat of “severe punishment.” The threats grew more strident over the weeks, then months.

Finally, after the sudden death of her consort in some unrelated accident, the Praesidentrix became brutal and unforgiving. The man’s death had apparently shocked her to the core. The negotiator turned dictator against the upstart prisoners.

She sent an armada of warships to retake Bastille. Theowane had been astonished, not thinking this hellhole worth such a massed effort. Amu had turned loose the defenses of the prison planet. The piranha swarm–so effective at keeping the prisoners trapped inside–proved just as efficient at keeping the armada out. The piranhas destroyed twelve gunships that attempted to make a landing; two others fled to high orbit, then out through the hyperspace node.

But Amu is certain that the Praesidentrix, especially in her grieving, unstable state, will never give up so easily.

“Piranha defenses armed and unleashed,” the Warden says.

Five of the fingerprint‑smeared screens beside the Warden’s projection tank crackle and wink on. Viewing through the eyes of the closest piranha interceptors, Theowane sees different views of the approaching ship, sleek yet clunky‑looking, a paradox of smooth angles and bulky protuberances.

“Incoming audio,” the Warden says. “Transmission locked. Video in phase and verified.”

The largest screen swirls, belches static, then congeals into a garish projection of the ship’s command chamber. The captain falls out of focus, sitting too close to the bridge projection cameras.

“–in peace, for PEACE, we bring our message of happiness and hope to Bastille. We come to help. We come to offer you the answers.”

Theowane recognizes the metallic embroidered chasuble on the captain’s shoulders, the pseudo‑robe uniforms of the other crew visible in the background. She snorts at the acronym.

PEACE–Passive Earth Assembly for Cosmic Enlightenment, a devout group that combines quantum physics and Eastern philosophy into, from what Theowane has heard, an incomprehensible but pleasant‑sounding mishmash of ideas. It has appealed to many dissatisfied scientists, ones who gave up trying to understand the universe. PEACE has grown because of their willingness to settle raw worlds, places with such great hardship that no one in his right mind would live there voluntarily.

Theowane sees it already: upon hearing of the prisoners’ revolt, some PEACE ship conveniently located on a hyperspace path to Bastille has rushed here, hoping to convert the prisoners, to gain a foothold on the new world and claim it for their own. They must hope the Praesidentrix will not retaliate.

“Allow me to stop the piranhas,” the Warden says. “This is not an attack.”

“Summon Amu,” she says. “But do not call off the defense.” Theowane lowers her voice. “This could be as great a threat as anything the Praesidentrix might send.”

She hunkers close to the screens and watches the lumbering PEACE ship against a background of stars. The deadly pinpoints of piranha interceptors hurtle toward it on a collision course.

• • •

The First Secretary enlarges the display on his terminal so he can read it better with his weakened eyesight. Across from him, the Praesidentrix sits ramrod straight in her chair.

She waits, a scowl chiselled into her face. The Praesidentrix looks as if she has aged a decade since the death of her consort, but still she insists on keeping her family matters and all details of her personal life private.

The way her policies have suddenly changed, though, tells the First Secretary just how much she had loved the man.

The First Secretary avoids her cold gaze as he calls up his figures. “Here it is,” he says. “I want you to know that your attempts to retake Bastille have already cost half of what we have invested in Bastille itself. On the diagram here,”–he punches a section on the keypad–“you’ll see that we have thirteen equivalent planets in the initial stages of terraforming, most of them under development by the penal service, two by private corporations. Several dozen more have gone beyond that stage and now have their first generation of colonists.”

Overhead, the Praesidentrix chooses the skylight panels to project a sweeping ochre‑colored sky from a desert planet. The vastness overwhelms the First Secretary. His skin is pale and soft from living under domes and inside prefabricated buildings all his life. He doesn’t like outside; he prefers the cozy, sheltered environment of the catacombs and offices. He is a born bureaucrat.

“So?” the Praesidentrix asks.

The First Secretary flinches. “So is it worth continuing?” Especially, he thinks, with more important things to worry about, such as raising the welfare dole, or gearing up for the next election six years from now.

“Yes, it’s worth continuing,” she says without hesitating, then changes the subject. Her dark eyes stare up at the artificial desert sky. “Have you learned how one prisoner managed to take over the Warden system? He has a very shrewd Simulated Personality–how did they bypass him? I thought computer criminals were never assigned to self‑sufficient penal colonies for just that reason.”

The First Secretary shrugs, thinks about going through an entire chain of who was to blame for what, but then decides that this is not what the Praesidentrix wants. “That’s the problem with computer criminals. Theowane was caught and convicted on charges of drug smuggling although all of her prior criminal activity seems to have involved computer espionage and embezzlement.”

“Why was this not noticed? Aren’t the records clear?”

“No,” the First Secretary says, raising his voice a bit. “She... altered them all. We didn’t know her background.”

“Nobody checked?”

“Nobody could!” The First Secretary draws a deep breath to calm himself. “But I think you are following a false trail, Madame. Theowane only implemented the takeover on Bastille. Amu is the mind behind all this. He’s the one who convinced the prisoners to revolt. He’s the one who refuses to negotiate.”

She turns, making sure she holds his gaze. “I have already set a plan in motion that will take care of him once and for all. And it will get Bastille back for us.” The Praesidentrix leans back in her purple chair as it tries to conform to her body. Her gray‑threaded hair spreads out behind her. She was a beautiful woman once, the First Secretary thinks. The rumors have not died about her dead consort...

The First Secretary makes a petulant scowl. “It’s obvious you don’t trust me with your plans, Madame. But will you at least explain to me why you are doing this? It goes beyond reason and financial responsibility.” He purses his lips. “Is it because the prisoners are in the ubermindist loop? I find that hard to believe. It’s just another illegal drug. Cutting off the supply will upset a few addicts–”

“More than that!”

“And cause some unrest,” he continues, “as well as some reshuffling on the black market, but they’ll adjust. Within a few years we’ll have an equivalent drug from some other place, perhaps even a synthetic. Why is Bastille so important to you?”

The coldness in her gaze is worse than anything he could have imagined from her two months before.

“The ubermindist is only one reason.” the Praesidentrix says. “The other is revenge.”

• • •

I feel as if I am watching my own hand plunge a sword into the chest of a helpless victim. The piranha interceptors are part of me, controlled by my external systems–but I cannot stop them now. Theowane has given the order.

I watch through the eyes of five interceptors as they home in for the kill, using their propellant to increase velocity toward impact. With their kinetic energy, they will destroy the vessel.

I receive alarm signals from the PEACE ship, but I ignore them, am forced to watch the target grow and grow as the first interceptor collides with a section amidships. I see the hull plate, pitted with micrometeor scars, swell up, huge, and then wink out a fraction of a second before the interceptor crashes, rupturing the hull and exposing the inner environment to space.

Another interceptor smashes just below the bridge. I hear a transmitted outcry from the captain, begging us to stop the attack. Two more interceptors strike, one a glancing blow alongside the hull; the shrapnel tears open a wider gash. The PEACE ship continues its own destruction as air pressure bursts through the breaches in the hull, as moisture freezes and glass shatters. The fifth interceptor strikes the chemical fuel tanks, and the entire ship erupts in a tiny nova.

From the debris, a small target streaks away. I recognize it as a single escape pod. I detect one life form aboard. Of all the people on the ship... only one.

The escape pod descends, but then my own reflexes betray me as another interceptor also detects the pod, aligns its tracking, and streaks after it. Both enter the atmosphere of Bastille.

Now Amu arrives in the control center. I can tell he is upset by his expression, by his elevated body temperature. His head is shaved smooth, but his generous silvery beard, and eyebrows, and eyes give him a charismatic appearance. He is raising his voice to Theowane, but I cannot pay attention to their conversation.

The PEACE escape pod heats up, leaving an orange trail behind it as it burrows deeper into the atmosphere. It seems to have evasive capabilities, and it knows the piranha is behind it.

The interceptor also picks up speed, bearing down on the escape pod. But their velocities are so well matched that the piranha causes no damage when it bumps its target.

A few moments later, the interceptor–with no shielding to protect it from a screaming entry into the atmosphere–breaks into flying chunks of molten slag.

Amu seems mollified when Theowane explains to him that the intruder was a PEACE ship. I know Amu wants nothing to do with religious fanatics; he has had enough of them in his past.

I pinpoint the splashdown target for the escape pod. Without waiting for an order, I dispatch one of the floating ubermindist harvesters across the oceans of Bastille. No matter how great a hold Theowane has over my Simulated Personality, she can do nothing against my life‑preservation overrides, except when the security of the colony is at stake.

Ostensibly to allow it greater speed, but actually just out of spite, I tell the harvester to dump its cargo of ubermindist before it churns off across the sea to reach the pod.

• • •

Amu stands in the holding bay of the cliffside tunnels. His bald head glistens in the glare of glowtablets recessed in the ceiling. His eyes flash.

A second rinse sprays the outside of the escape pod. Black streaks stain the hull from its burning descent, but the craft appears otherwise undamaged. After its dunking in the corrosive seas, Amu waits for purified water to purge the acidity.

Theowane follows him into the chamber. Amu listens to the last trickles of water come out of the spray heads; drips run through a grate on the floor where the rinse water will be detoxified and reused.

For the hours it has taken the floating harvester to retrieve the escape pod, Amu has waited in silence with Theowane. He keeps his anger toward her in check.

Sensing his displeasure, she twice tries to divert his thoughts. Normally he would acquiesce just to please her. She has been his lover since before the revolt. But he doesn’t like her making such important decisions on her own. It sets a bad example for the rest of the prisoners.

On the other hand, Amu knows that Theowane tried to keep Bastille free of the PEACE ships. And he approves.

Both of Amu’s parents had been involved in a violent, fanatical sect and had raised him under their repressive teachings, grooming him to be a propagator of the faith. He had absorbed their training, but eventually his own wishes had broken through. He fled, later to use those same charismatic and mob‑focusing skills to whip up a workers’ revolt on his home planet. If the revolt had succeeded, Amu would have been called a king, a savior. But instead Amu had ended up here, on Bastille.

He wants nothing more to do with religious fanatics. Now this one PEACE survivor presents him with an unpleasant problem.

Theowane runs her fingers over the access controls. “Ready,” she says. She keeps her voice low and her eyes averted.

Amu stands to his full height in front of the escape pod. “Open it.”

As the hatch cracks, a hiss of air floods in, equalizing the two pressures. Then comes a cough, then sputtering, annoying words. A young boy wrestles himself into a sitting position and snaps his arms out, flexing them and shaking his cramped hands. “What took you so long? You’re as bad as PEACE.”

Theowane steps back. Amu blinks, but remains in place. The boy is thin, with dark shadows around his eyes. His body appears bruised, his hands raw, as if he has been trying to claw his way out of the escape pod.

Amu can’t stop himself from bursting out with a loud laugh. The boy whirls to him, outraged, but after a brief pause he too cracks a grin that contains immense relief and exhaustion. With this one response, he proves to Amu that he is no PEACE convert.

“Why didn’t you let yourself out?” Theowane asks. “Isn’t there an emergency release inside?”

The boy turns a look of scorn to her. “I know what’s in the air on Bastille, and in the water. I couldn’t see where I was. It might be bad to be cramped in this coffin for hours–but it would be plenty worse to take a shower in sulfuric acid.” He pauses for just a moment. “And speaking of showers, can I get out of here and take one?”

• • •

After the boy has cleaned and rested himself, Amu summons him for dinner. The other prisoners on Bastille have expressed their curiosity, but they will have to wait until Amu decides to make a statement.

“Dybathia,” the boy says when Amu asks his name. “I know it sounds noble and high‑born. My parents had high expectations of me.” He stops just long enough for Amu to absorb that, but not long enough for him to ask any further questions.

“I ran away from home,” Dybathia says. “It took me a week to make it to the spaceport. When I got there, I slipped onto the first open ship and hid in their cargo bay. I didn’t care where it was going, and I didn’t plan to show myself until we were on our way into hyperspace. I figured anyplace was better than home, right?” He snickers.

“It turned out to be a PEACE ship. They wouldn’t let me off. They kept me around, constantly quoting tracts at me, trying to make me convert. Do my eyes look glazed? Am I brain‑damaged?”

Amu allows a smile to form, but he does not answer.

Dybathia says, “They shut off their servo‑maintenance drones and made me do the cleaning, scrubbing down decks and walls with a solvent that should have been labeled as toxic waste. Look at my hands! The captain said monotonous work allows one to clear the mind and become at peace with the universe.”

Theowane breaks into the conversation, “Why were you the only one who got to an escape pod?” Amu looks up at her sharply, but she doesn’t withdraw the question.

Dybathia shrugs. “I was the only one who bothered. The rest of them just sat there and accepted their fate.”

This rings so true with Amu from his memories of his parents that he finds himself nodding.

• • •

Dybathia looks at the mind‑scanning apparatus; this will be the most dangerous moment for him. The device is left over from the first days of Bastille, when human supervisory crews had established the colony. That month had been the only time when non‑prisoners and prisoners cohabited the planet; as a precaution they had used intensive search devices and mental scanners, which had remained unused since those other humans had turned Bastille over to the Warden.

“You do understand why we have to do this?” Amu asks.

Dybathia sees more concern on the face of the leader than he expects. This is going better than he had hoped. “Yes, I understand perfectly.” He flicks his gaze toward Theowane, then back to Amu. “It’s because she’s paranoid.”

Theowane bristles, as he expects her to. She makes each word of her answer clipped and hard. “Your story is too convenient. How do we know you’re not an... assassin? What if you’ve been drugged or hypnotized? We can’t know what the Praesidentrix might do.”

Knowing it is imperative for him to allay their suspicions, Dybathia submits to an intensive physical search that scans every square centimeter of his body, probes all orifices, uses a sonogram to detect any subcutaneous needles, poison‑gas capsules, perhaps a timed‑release biological plague.

They find nothing, because there is nothing to find.

“The psyche assessor won’t hurt you,” Amu says. “Just stick your head within its receiving range.”

“How does it work?” Dybathia asks. He frowns skeptically. “How do I know this isn’t one of those machines to condition prisoners? I don’t want to end up like a PEACE convert.”

“Explain it to him, Theowane.” Amu smiles at her, as if he knows how it will rankle her.

Theowane blows air from her lips. “Everyone has a basic mental pattern, like a normal position that can never change. However, certain training–brainwashing, you’d call it–can superimpose another set of reactions on top of it. If you’ve been brainwashed or specially trained to do anything to Amu, or Bastille, it will show up here.” She adjusts her apparatus.

Dybathia rolls his eyes. Amu smiles at that. Dybathia knows he is easing past the leader’s defenses. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Without a word, the boy leans into the psyche assessor’s range. Theowane makes no other comment as she works with the apparatus and takes her reading. She asks him a series of questions designed to break down mind‑blanking techniques.

Dybathia answers them all without resisting.

Finally, Theowane shrugs. “It’s clear,” she says. “No one’s been messing with his mind. He has no special training. He hasn’t been brainwashed.”

“I could have saved you trouble if you had just listened to me in the first place.”

Amu claps a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’ll let you know when I’ve thought of a suitable way for Theowane to apologize.”

• • •

When the survivor of the PEACE ship comes through with Theowane and Amu, I receive the unmistakable impression of tourist and tourguides. No, that is not quite correct... more like a visiting dignitary being shown points of interest.

Inside the forcewalls I watch them. True, I have a million different eyes around Bastille, optics to observe through, from monitoring cameras around the corridors, to the remote sensors of automatic digging machines. But my real eyes are here.

Purposely, I think, Amu ignores me as he brings the boy down the corridor. He points to the auxiliary control systems, explaining them with deceptive ease, making them sound simpler than they are. The three keep their backs pointedly turned and walk to the viewing window, outside of which the diggers continue their relentless excavations. The sky swirls with dark, oily colors over the hostile sea.

“It’s going to be generations before anybody can bask under the Bastille sun, but at least it is now ours,” Amu says, then lowers his voice. “And we aren’t going to give it back when this world becomes habitable.”

“Is it going to be worth the wait?” the boy asks, pushing his face close to the thick glass. I flick my concentration to one of the digger machines outside, looking through a different set of eyes, but the coarse optics and the glass distort the boy’s face through the window.

Amu shrugs and rubs a hand on his silvery beard. “Theowane spends hours down here staring out the window. Actually, I think she just likes to taunt the Warden.”

Finally, they turn toward me. I am too familiar with Theowane’s close‑cropped reddish hair and her narrow, hard eyes. Amu carries much more capacity within him–an extraordinary person, with charisma and intelligence and compassion that allows him to do virtually anything he wants to. But he has chosen a path that society deems unacceptable.

The boy is the last to turn away from the sprawling view. He looks at me directly. I see him.

I know him.

He has counted on me recognizing him.

Instantly, I flash through a handful of buried newsclips, quick photographs shaded by the promise of anonymity, but it is enough. It augments my suspicions. I can remember few details of the person on whom I myself have been based, but some things are impossible to erase.

I remember.

I wonder what he is up to. Why is he here, and what am I supposed to do about it?

The three visitors say no word to me as they continue their tour. I am left with the absolute conviction that the fate of Bastille, and perhaps the Praesidentrix’s Federation, depends upon me recognizing this boy, understanding what he wants, and acting accordingly.

I can no longer avoid the risk to myself. I must save my son.

• • •

Amu sits across from Dybathia for another meal. The boy fascinates him. He reminds Amu of himself as a young boy, or what Amu wanted to be–scrappy, irreverent, and intelligent.

Amu serves the two plates himself. Prisoners in the kitchen have prepared a tough pancake‑like dish from cultured algae and protein synthesizers. They are trying to develop a pseudo‑steak, but they are several years from perfecting it. No matter. Amu is used to it and it is, after all, nutritious. What more can they ask for, with their limited supplies?

“It’s tough. You might need to use your knife to cut it,” he says. Dybathia frowns at the crude knife in his hand, but Amu continues. “It is easy to get mush from the hydroponics tunnels, but we keep striving for something with a firm texture. It’s only been in the last month or two that we’ve been able to have something tough enough to cut.”

Dybathia works at the food on his plate. “I was looking at the knife.” The blunt instrument is barely serviceable.

Amu smiles; it is the “winning” smile he uses when making converts to his various causes. “A holdover from prison life.”

“That was long ago,” Dybathia says.

“Yes, and things have changed now.”

Dybathia lifts an eyebrow.

“We’re here alone, with no non‑prisoners for us to worry about. Knives are no longer any threat. And the Warden is nicely contained. But we like to remember what we are and where we are. We manufacture these knives, and they serve the purpose.” Amu lowers his voice. “Maybe if the meat gets a little more meat‑like, we’ll need better ones.”

Amu looks across the table at Dybathia. The boy seems fascinated with everything about Bastille, and Amu waits for him to ask the obvious question. But over several days it has not been forthcoming. Finally Amu breaks down and answers it anyway. “I grew up on New Kansas and left my parents, and their religious sect–” he burns inside, thinking of the PEACE converts.

Dybathia smiles. Amu dims the lights, bathing the room in a softer glow. It is storytime.

“New Kansas was a young planet, the soil somewhat unstable. We had planted grassland across entire continents. Wheat, alfalfa and prairie grass, with some used as rangeland for imported animals. But three‑quarters of what we grew, the landholders exported offplanet. They were a handful of people who had financed the first colony ships and therefore claimed to own all of New Kansas. We were forbidden to leave our holdings.

“But I had learned how to whip my followers into a frenzy of religious devotion. We fought for our freedom. The colonists had come to New Kansas to start a fresh life. They felt that the Federation owed them at least a chance at autonomy. I knew how to galvanize them.

“They burned their fields. The fires swept across the plains for dozens of kilometers, pouring smoke into the sky that you could see from landholding to landholding. The others rose up.”

Amu speaks with a sense of wonder, paying little attention to the boy. “My people were ready to die for me. Can you imagine that? Holding people so much in the palm of your hand–” Amu extends his fist across the table, opening it so that Dybathia can see the callouses from his hard life–“they were ready to die for me. And we almost succeeded.”

Amu lowers his eyes and pushes his plate away from him. “Almost.”

“I’ve had enough,” Dybathia says. He has eaten most of his pseudo‑steak, but Amu stares at the wall, seeing in his memories the visions of burning grass and the bodies of his followers after the landholders had called in Federation reinforcements.

He doesn’t notice as Dybathia stands and slips toward the door. “I’m going to sleep,” the boy says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Amu nods and blinks his eyes. But they are filled with water and sting as if from smoke.

• • •

Theowane enters the control center alone. She moves with precise steps, as if stalking. She wants to know what is going on. She will catch the Warden. She will get the information together, and then she will take it to Amu.

The holographic Warden looks at her from his glass‑walled cage. His expression remains dubious, fearful, with a layer of contempt. Theowane says nothing as she casually walks over to the panorama window. She gazes across the blasted ground. Though the diggers continue to reform the landscape, she never sees any actual improvement.

Theowane stares for a few moments longer, then turns to meet the Warden’s eyes. “You pride yourself so much in having human emotions and human reactions, Warden, but you’re naive. You don’t know how to hide things from other people. I can read your reactions as clearly as if they were spelled out on a screen.”

The Warden blinks at her. “I do not understand.”

“I caught you yesterday.”

He extends his hands forward until the image fuzzes near the edge of the forcewalls. “What do you mean?”

“The boy,” Theowane says. “You recognized him. It was painfully obvious. You know who he is. You know why he’s here –and it isn’t because of that crazy story he told us. Explain it to me now.”

The Warden hesitates a moment, then hardens his face into a stoic mask. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Theowane raises her eyebrows. She reaches out and caresses the control panel. “I can turn the worm loose and delete you.” That doesn’t seem to frighten the Warden; she has used the same threat too many times before.

“Then you will lose whatever information you imagine I have.”

“Perhaps I can find some way to make you feel pain,” she says.

The Warden shrugs. “I am not afraid anymore.”

In all her taunting, Theowane has taught the Warden as much about herself as she has learned from him. He knows exactly how to infuriate her.

“I’ll inform Amu,” she says, trying to regain her composure. “That will stifle whatever plans you are hatching.”

Theowane straightens away from the window and sees the Warden turn his head, flicking his glance to look outside. Sensing something, hearing a muffled sound too close, she whirls around–

The giant automatic digger rears up and plunges through the glass. With its great scooping and digging gears churning, it claws out the poured‑stone and insulation, ripping girders and breaching the wall.

Theowane stumbles back, sucking in a breath to scream as the deadly, acid‑drenched air of Bastille rushes inside.

• • •

“You’re quiet today,” Amu says as he leads the boy down into one of the lower levels. Smells of oil, dirt, and stale air fill the tunnels.

“Introspective,” Dybathia corrects. He thinks that word will better disarm Amu. He has not thought his silence and uneasiness would be so noticeable, but then he remembers that Amu is a master at studying other people.

“Ah, introspective is it?” Amu’s lips curl in amusement.

“I have been through a lot in the last few days.”

Amu accepts this and continues leading him down to where the corridors widen into larger chambers hewn from the rock. Amu spends hours showing him distillation ponds that remove the alkaloid poisons from the seawater. Like a proud father, Amu demonstrates the rows of plants growing under garish artificial sunlight, piped in and intensified through optical‑fiber arrays stretching through the rock to surface collectors.

Other prisoners work at their tasks and seem to move more quickly when Amu watches them. Dybathia wonders how they can consider this to be so different from working under another kind of master.

Amu continues to talk about his grand vision, how they have made their colony self‑sufficient. It has been difficult at first without supply ships from the Federation, but they have overcome those obstacles and now have everything they did before–except their prison.

Then Amu speaks in a dreamier voice, explaining about the terraforming activities, how he has switched the diggers to mining materials useful for their own survival, rather than supplying ubermindist offplanet. The floater harvesters are spreading algae and Earth plankton that have been tailored to Bastille’s environment. They are resculpting the atmosphere of the planet, making it a place where humans will one day be able to walk outside and in peace. Amu’s long‑term goals and his naive sense of wonder disgust Dybathia, but he keeps his feelings hidden. The boy will know when the time has come.

Amu says something he thinks is funny. Dybathia isn’t paying attention, but automatically snorts in response. Amu nods, approvingly.

When alarm klaxons belch out and echo in the tunnel, the noise startles Dybathia, even though he has been expecting it.

• • •

My life‑preservation overrides force me to close the airlock on the other end of the corridor to keep Bastille air from penetrating farther into the complex. I do not resist the impulse. I know it will trap Theowane inside.

She sprawls on the floor, trying to crawl forward. The floor is smooth and slippery, and she cannot get enough purchase to move herself. Her eyes are wide with horror. Her lips turn brown, then purplish as she gasps, and the sulfuric acid eats out her lungs. I force myself to watch, for all the times she has watched me.

The digging machine, sensing that it has been led astray, stops clawing and churning, then uses its scanners to reorient itself. The big vehicle clanks and drops clods of dirt and shattered rock as it backs outside.

Theowane croaks words. “Open–open door!”

“Sorry, Theowane. That would endanger the colony.”

Before, I was afraid of the worm, which forbade me to do anything against Theowane and the other prisoners. But the worm, though deadly, is not intuitive and is unable to extrapolate the consequences of my actions. I will take the risk, for my son. I can do much damage, while doing nothing overt.

I have used an old sensor‑loop taken from the archives of the digging machines’ daily logs. Broadcasting this sensor‑loop along with an override signal to one nearby digger, I made the machine think it saw a different landscape, where the route of choice led it directly through the viewing window.

The chamber has filled with Bastille’s air, and I begin to see static discharges as the corrosive atmosphere eats into the microchips, the layers that form the computer’s brain, my Simulated Personality–and the worm.

But the auxiliary computer core lies deep and unreachable below the lower levels. Bastille’s acid atmosphere will destroy the main system here, where the worm has been added, but within a fraction of a second my own backup in the auxiliary computer will kick in. I should lose consciousness for only an instant before I am recreated.

My only wonder is whether the other Me will be me after all, or only a Simulated Personality that thinks it is.

Theowane lies dead but twitching on the floor, sprawled out in front of me. Blotches cover her skin. It is difficult for me to see anything now, with the images growing distorted and fuzzy, breaking up. I feel no pain, only a sense of displacement.

In the last moment, even the forcewalls seem to be gone. I have conquered the worm.

• • •

Dybathia watches Amu closely as the alarms sound. The leader stiffens and looks around. The other prisoners run to stations. Amu claps his hands and bellows orders at them. His face looks concerned: he doesn’t understand what is happening.

Dybathia gives him no time to understand.

Amu bends down to him. “We’ve got to get you to a safe place. I don’t know what’s going on–”

In that moment, Dybathia brings up the prison knife taken from Amu’s table, pushing all the wiry strength of his body behind it. He drives the dull point under Amu’s chin, tilting it sideways, and slashes across his throat. He has only one chance. He has no special training. Only his heritage.

Blood sprays out. Amu grunts, falling to his knees and backward. Scarlet spatters the silver of his beard, and the whites of his eyes grow red from burst capillaries. He reaches out with a hand, but Dybathia dances back, holding the dripping knife in his hand.

Amu’s expression is complete shock shadowed with pain and confusion. He tries to talk, but only gurgles come out.

Dybathia kneels and hisses. “How? Is that what you’re trying to say? How? Are you amazed because your psyche assessor detected no brainwashing? You forgot to consider that maybe I wasn’t brainwashed, that maybe I wanted to do this because I hate you so much. I am free to act. I have no special training.”

The light fades behind Amu’s eyes, but the confusion seems as great. Dybathia continues. “My father was a great man, an important man–a fleet commander. He became an ubermindist addict, and that was a great secret. Does that mean I am not supposed to love him? That I wasn’t supposed to try to help him? Do you know what happens when an ubermindist addict is cut off from his supply?”

Dybathia kneels beside the dying man to make sure his words come clear. “The withdrawal fried my father’s nerves. He lost all muscle control. He went into a constant seizure for eight days–his mind took that long to burn out. He went blind from the hemorrhages. His body was snapped and broken by his own convulsions. You caused that, Amu. You did that to him, and now I did this to you. My choice. My revenge.”

But Amu is already dead. Dybathia does not know how much he understood at the last. The only sound Dybathia hears is his own breathing, a monotonous wheeze that fills his ears. The boy stands without moving as several other prisoners shout and come running toward him.

• • •

Inside her office, the Praesidentrix has chosen a honey‑colored sky with a brilliant white sun overhead. She finds it soothing. For the first time in ages, she feels like smiling.

The First Secretary stands at the doorway, interrupting her reverie. “You asked to see me, Madame?”

She turns to him. For a moment he wears a fearful expression, as if he thinks she has caught him at something. She nods to make him feel at ease. “I’ve just received word from the Warden on Bastille. We have two gunships in orbit and all prisoners are now subdued. Amu and Theowane are both dead.”

The First Secretary takes a step backward in astonishment. He looks for someplace to sit down, but the Praesidentrix has no other chairs in her office. “But how?” He raises his voice. “How!”

“I placed an operative on Bastille. A... young man.”

“An operative? But I thought Amu had equipment to detect any training alterations.”

The Praesidentrix pulls her lips tight. “The young man’s father died from ubermindist withdrawal after the prison takeover. I believed he had sufficient motivation to kill Amu. He was free to act.”

The First Secretary sputters and keeps looking for a place to sit. “But how did you know? What did you do?”

“He acted as a catalyst to spur the Warden into taking a more drastic action than he was likely to take on his own, with nothing else at stake. Remember, we built the Warden’s Artificial Personality. I knew exactly how he would react to certain pressures.” She waves a hand, anxious to get rid of the First Secretary so she can use the subspace radio again. “I just thought you’d like to know. You’re dismissed.”

He stumbles backward, unable to find words. He stops and turns back to the Praesidentrix, but she closes the door on him. The subspace projection chimes, announcing an incoming transmission. She sighs with a pride and contentedness she has not felt in quite some time. He has called her even before she could contact him.

The Warden’s image appears in front of her like a painful memory. It is as she remembers her consort when he was a dashing and brave commander, streaking through hyperspace nodes and knitting the Federation together with his strength.

The Warden is only a simulation, though, intangible and far away. But that would not be much different from their original romance, with her consort flitting off through the Galaxy for three‑quarters of the year while she held the reins of government at home. She had rarely held him anyway; but they had spoken often through the private subspace link.

They greet each other in the same breath and then the widowed Praesidentrix begins catching up on all the things she has wanted to say to him, repeating all the things she did tell him while he writhed in delirium from his withdrawal, while she had concocted a false story about his fatal “accident” in order to avert a scandal.

But first she must say how proud she is of their son.