Pandora's Star

As he stepped off the end of the ramp he glanced about casually, as if unsure which way he should be going. Nobody paid him any attention. There had been no warning from the Guardian team, either visually or through the cybersphere.

Maybe I am paranoid.

Kazimir started walking along the concourse, heading for exit eight where there was a taxi stand outside. Another quarter of an hour would see him return in triumph to the office of Lemule’s Max Transit, and hand over the memory crystal with its Martian data. He almost patted the little disk in its secure belt pocket, but that would have been pathetically amateurish. A confident smile tweaked his lips as he made his way through the thousands of travelers bustling along the central concourse. The Guardians would be another significant step toward bringing about Far Away’s revenge because of him. And once this mission was complete he would try to find time to visit Justine again. That venture out to the Tulip Mansion was the only thing he’d done since leaving Far Away that transgressed their operational doctrine. But he didn’t care. Bruce would understand that, if none of the others did. Justine was a part of him. Without her, there was no point to existence. She was worth risking everything for. And when he’d seen her again that fateful night, it was as if no time had passed. That she felt the same way about him was the kind of miracle he wouldn’t even expect the dreaming heavens to grant.

But she did. That was the true wonder he’d known. She felt for him as he did for her. Her delight alone made him more determined to rid the universe of the Starflyer. He wanted a universe where nothing could come between them ever again. What a world that would be. What an incredible, blissful future.

He was two hundred meters away from exit eight when he saw the man standing at the bottom of the ramp that curved up to platform six. Something about him… Neatly cropped hair, tall, young, early twenties just like Kazimir, wearing a simple blue jacket over a cream shirt. The way he was standing, holding a small array in his hand, reading a document on the unrolled screen. His position and angle against the ramp’s railing—so relaxed and natural—allowed him to see everyone walking along the concourse whenever he happened to glance up from the screen. It could so easily have been an ordinary civilian. But his profile made Kazimir slow as he approached. That profile was oddly familiar. A profile that was searing co

Kazimir halted. Tears smudged his vision. “No,” he said soundlessly. He wanted to move, but his knees were threatening to give way.

The man glanced up from the array screen, looking straight at Kazimir.

“Bruce,” Kazimir gasped. “It’s you.” He took a step forward, heedless of the people flowing between them. It was him, really him. Bruce McFoster, standing on the concourse on LA Galactic as if it were the most normal thing in the universe. Bruce McFoster who had fallen in battle right in front of him. Every day Kazimir saw the giant warhorse rolling across Bruce’s defenseless body. Bruce McFoster: alive. “Bruce!” Kazimir took another couple of steps. “Oh, my God. Bruce, it’s me, it’s Kaz.”

Bruce hadn’t stopped looking at him. He put the array in his pocket with a calm unhurried motion.

Kazimir started ru

Bruce McFoster brought his right arm up. There was something in his hand. It flashed—

Kazimir felt no pain. He felt nothing. There had been a moment of blackness. Then he was looking straight up at the Carralvo terminal’s white concrete ceiling far overhead. His body wasn’t moving. Silence closed in on him. “Bruce?”

Faces swam over him, but it was hard to see any of them. The light was dimming. Kazimir tried to smile. He finally realized he was dying. Not that it mattered, because his life had included—“Justine.” Ghostly fingers reached up to touch her icon. “Justine, I’m so sorry.” But her smile was there comforting him, forgiving as the light slipped away.

Justine screamed as the security camera swung around on the man Kazimir was staring at in such wondrous disbelief. Her brother’s murderer was standing in the middle of LA Galactic. She watched as he coolly raised his arm and fired a pistol. The ion stream blew Kazimir’s chest open in a horrific plume of blood and charred gore. He was flung back five meters through the air to sprawl on the concourse. Justine’s scream choked off. She almost dropped out of the chair as her body spasmed in shock.

The navy team filled the office with frenzied shouting. A furious, scared Alic Hogan was almost sobbing as he ordered the officers on the concourse to give chase. His fists were clenched above the main screens, ready to punch straight through the images. Every picture turned to a confused, fast-moving blur. More shots were fired. A chorus of yelling and panicked shrieks burst out of the speakers.

Justine breathed again. A long juddering breath that burned its way down her throat. One screen had remained centered on Kazimir’s broken body.

“Take me down there,” she whispered painfully.

“Senator?” one of the bodyguards asked.

“We’re going down there.”

“Yes, Senator.”

Her e-butler told her a single message had arrived via a onetime address. Its author was verified as Kazimir McFoster. “Nobody’s to touch him,” she yelled abruptly as she got to her feet.

The navy perso

As she left the office she ordered her e-butler to open the message. It contained a unisphere address code, and a line of text. MY DARLING JUSTINE, YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON I HAVE EVER LOVED. I THANK YOU FOR LIVING. KAZIMIR.

The bodyguard had to hold her as she started crying.

CST station security staff cleared a path for Justine through the tense, worried crowd on the concourse. They’d been kept well back from the body, leaving her with a long lonely walk at the end. The last few steps as the true damage that had been done to him became visible were almost impossible for her. Yet she forced herself forward, punishing herself because she knew she deserved far, far worse.

It was every bit as bad as she knew it would be. The blood pooling over the white marble. The smell. His face perfectly intact, holding the expression of someone whose prayer had been answered.

Justine knelt beside him, though in truth her legs could barely hold her weight anymore. The wide puddle of his cold blood soaked into her expensive skirt. She reached out and touched his cheek with her fingers, fearful of what she would feel. Lifeless bodies she had seen countless times, including her brother’s. But Kazimir was a Guardian, he didn’t have a memorycell insert. This was genuine death, a life that had ended. She thought she’d left this barbarity behind centuries ago.

Later there would be anger. Fury. And a bitter, bitter remorse. For now she was just numb. Not understanding how this could have happened despite all her power and authority; all the orders and thinly veiled threats that nothing, nothing was to harm him. Now here he was, her beautiful young love: dead. Forever.

Justine heard a pair of heels clicking on the marble. Someone walking purposefully along the concourse toward her. No doubt who that would be. She smiled forlornly down at Kazimir one last time, then rose to her feet and turned around.

“Senator,” Paula Myo said. “My sympathies.”

Justine’s smile turned cruel as she glanced down at the dark blood staining her skirt. “I told them. I made it very clear to the navy. Kazimir was not to be hurt.”