The Well of Lethe: 1

Prologue

Quantum Entanglement Anchor: Open.

Veritas Chain: Resolved | Accuracy 100%

Veritas Source: Logos Actual | Integrated Collective

Veritas Recipient: Corrector Korvus | Integrated Collective

Message: INVESTIGATE / CORRECT UNSANCTIONED INTELLIGENCE ON LETHE SC90982.

Quantum Entanglement Anchor: Closed.

Chapter One

Last time Mercer saw a Corrector, his wife died.

This time, who knew? The entire colony could be incinerated. The fact that it was a basket of reclamation cases, Nulls and Glitches stacked as deep and wide as you could go, didn’t change the odds. When you saw a Corrector, the killing started.

He shifted and ran a finger under his too-tight collar. Something about the damn wash cycles here meant everything starched came out too tight. The fabric was synth-cotton the Collective produced on some ass-world in the sector, supposedly from an Eden-class planet, but it had all the love of a Kiln-class product. The rim of the shirt abraded against his stubble, a grey frosting that always seemed to survive contact with his razor.

I hope this one isn’t here to Correct housekeeping services.

“Sir.” It was Eckles. The man was a practised hand at shepherding malcontents, a sort of brutish efficiency radiating from the way he almost slouched. “Give the word, and there’ll be an accident.”

Mercer gave him a sideways glance. “That won’t be necessary, Sergeant.”

Eckles nodded, but not in the way Mercer thought meant sure, I won’t shoot this asshole. It was the kind of nod that suggested he was buying time for his mental train to board at the station, a time-consuming process that hinted at the amount of ordnance coming along for the journey. “As you say, sir.”

Reeves shifted. She was new. Came in from off-world with the last group of Dissonants sent to Lethe for ‘safekeeping’. Reeves had the kind of pale-meets-sweaty look that suggested to Mercer that she was going to cause an accident, but the old-fashioned way: she wouldn’t mean it. “Is his ship going to be large enough for all these?”

It was an interesting—and odd—question for Private Reeves to ask. Mercer considered it despite the provenance. The three of them stood on the orbital connection platform. A squat cylinder was at their back, a sealed mass transit elevator that descended into the heart of the Well, nestled in the acidic spite of the ocean. The platform sat in a protective dome, the glass still mostly transparent, its acid damage kept to a minimum by the Collective’s purpose-over-cost-savings engineering. The whole loading bay was supposed to be a sanitary white, but the corrosive atmosphere of Lethe found its way into every damn space, discolouring the floor and elevator shroud to the hue of aged bone.

Above them, the Tether rose to be lost in the grey-green of the atmosphere. Out there, above them in the black, was a small station, the other end of the geostationary Clarke elevator that brought in malcontents and supplies, but not in equal measure. It was the only way in and out of Lethe, unless you had an atmosphere-capable craft, but the Collective didn’t send those here.

It wouldn’t be wise to provide the Nulls another way out.

None of that was what Reeves was talking about. She was referring to the other occupants of the bay, a group of prisoners escaping Lethe by some marvel arranged by, or with, Dr. Aris. Aris was not here for the prisoner exchange due to the outbreak, but Mercer suspected the man would secretly have loved to be there for first contact with this Corrector.

He had a history.

The prisoners, for their part, were exactly what you’d expect: the usual mix of agitators and catatonics, depending on their medication levels and previous crimes. There was a jumpy-looking one at the edge of the herd, but that’s what Eckles was here for. Containment. Or Reeves and her more-than-likely accidental accident. There were ten of them, which would fit just fine in the gravity elevator’s car, but Reeves’s question was about the Corrector’s ship. Mercer felt his brows pull closer together. “It’s a good question, Private. Corrector ships aren’t known for their roominess—” 

The platform shuddered. It shouldn’t have done that—just one more thing Mercer had requested parts for on the last supply run and received no response to. Not a no, but a blank. And now here they were: three brave soldiers of the Collective, ten prisoners, and a high-pressure acid atmosphere just outside five centimetres of nanospun carbon glass.

Five centimetres isn’t enough. Not for the fury of Lethe.

Mercer looked up just as the Corrector’s elevator car dropped through the atmospheric soup. It bulled its way through the burning clouds, slowing rapidly as it approached the platform’s docking collar. The Correctors were tough—a mere five Gs wouldn’t be enough to make them bend, but Mercer still wanted to wince in sympathy.

When the car shuddered to a stop, its collar locking into place, the loading bay shivered again, as if a mighty wave had rolled over it. That kind of sympathetic resonance suggested the elevator was misaligned, and Mercer’s administrator’s mind went to the cost justification of a new landing array at the same time his military mind said now was the time to get belowdecks.

The elevator car’s doors hissed wide, revealing a room shrouded in gloom. Hydraulics wheezed, and steam eddied out through the breach. Mercer could make out a lone figure standing there and had a moment to wonder why the Corrector wasn’t showing due urgency when a prisoner broke free.

Mercer swivelled, his mouth open to bark at Eckles, because this was his job, man, get it together only to find Eckles already down, two other prisoners atop him. The lone prisoner leading the charge toward the Corrector was joined by another five, and that not-useful-right-now-thanks administrator’s mind let Mercer know that meant only three of the inmates were drugged enough to prevent them from rioting.

Then his military mind noted that Eckles did not have his weapon. Mercer swivelled back and saw the lead inmate held Eckles’s rifle to his shoulder, drawing a bead on the Corrector.

The prisoner fired.

Ballistics were crude, but a hole in a man still gave pause for thought. At least one round hit the Corrector, who had the decency to take a step back—in surprise? Pain? Who knew—before he strode into the loading bay’s light. Mercer took in a man tall enough to be a presence without being memorable, strong without being bulky. Lean with it, too; a whole package that said the Corrector managed diet and exercise with the same focus with which he distributed the Will of the Logos.

That was when Reeves had her Big Accident™. The private opened fire on the running gang of prisoners, but her aim was wild, her ballistic weapon chattering in a too-slack grip. Rounds hit a prisoner, the Corrector, and the nanospun carbon glass of the dome.

Mercer realised his own sidearm was in his hand. He turned back to Eckles and shot one of the inmates on him. It was a loose, sloppy hip-fire, but he didn’t have a Herald. Mercer wasn’t Veritas. The inmate staggered back, blood spraying from the back of a through-and-through hole.

But you know who did have a Herald? The Corrector. He stepped fully down the elevator ramp, right toward the armed prisoner, black-and-grey armour like the manifested prophecy of a dark god. His armour’s inbuilt Stinger slid up and over his shoulder pauldron as the Herald System blared in a harsh male voice, “CEASE AND DESIST.”

No one ceased or desisted, so the Stinger fired. When Mercer’s wife died, that Corrector hadn’t used a Stinger. No, that had been more medieval than this. The shoulder-mounted autocannon brayed a single shot at one prisoner, the hypervelocity flechette punching through him in a spray of superheated mist before hammering into the elevator shroud behind Mercer.

The prisoners didn’t slow, which brought them right to the Corrector as he lifted his sidearm. Mercer felt his eyes widen, because he’d seen an Adjudicator before, and someone—probably him—screamed, “Get down!”

The Adjudicator fired. Rivulets of electricity coursed over the Corrector’s armour as the weapon spat purple-edged night. A roar followed as the energy field impacted the first prisoner, and a momentary flash raged into light of the purest white, accompanied by a deafening, concussive boom.

The lead prisoner was fully disrupted, the matter of his body destabilised and rendered back to stray atoms. The squad around him were hit by the shockwave, and red giblets sprayed outward from the impact. A crimson hue coated the dome’s glass as a crack fissured up from the east wall.

The Corrector stepped off the platform, his armour dripping with pieces of ex-inmate, and strode forward until he arrived at Mercer’s position. He didn’t stop there, continuing a few paces on until he shored up at the mayhem that was Eckles and his Apostate punch-up. The Corrector picked up the remaining prisoner atop Eckles as if the Null weighed no more than a meal wafer, then slammed the inmate into the one Mercer had shot. He then took Reeves’s rifle from her with the same kind of calm assurance that had seen Mercer’s wife a corpse, ejected the magazine, cleared the breach, and handed the weapon back to the stunned private.

He bent and hauled Eckles to his feet before turning to Mercer. It was then that Mercer saw that, despite the Corrector being shot by both the prisoner and Reeves, there wasn’t an apparent mark on him.

This close, Mercer could see the man’s almost-smile, a glint in his eye that seemed more important than the sound of the cracking dome above them. Mercer wanted to do something. Say something. He was the warden, by the Will of the Logos, and here he was, as flat-footed as fresh-off-the-boat Reeves. Behind them, a high-pitched groan echoed through the bay as the crack in the dome spiderwebbed another few centimetres under the immense pressure. Lethe was patient, but it was always hungry.

“Warden Samwise Mercer, greetings,” the Corrector said. “The Veritas Bureau sends its regards. Shall we go below before we’re agonisingly crushed by a high-pressure acidic atmosphere, or was there something else you wanted to show me up here?”