War of the Marionettes, page 1
War of the Marionettes
Copyright © 2010 by Adam-Troy Castro
All rights reserved.
Published as an ebook in 2023 by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Originally published in 2010 by Lubbe in Germany and in 2012 by Audible in the US.
Cover design by John Fisk
ISBN 978-1-625672-69-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Background and Chronology
Cast
Prologue
1. Four Days Earlier
2. Schiff
3. Before the Slaughter
4. Madness
5. Survivors
6. Thatharsi
7. Fugitives
8. Refugees
9. The Condemned
10. The Lost
11. The Infected
12. The Wreckage
13. Taken
14. The Caged
15. The Secret
16. Transformation
17. Damocles
18. Paving Stones on the Road to Hell
19. Armageddon
20. The Price
21. Four Days Later
About the Author
Also By Ben Aaronovitch
To Agent Extraordinaire Joshua Bilmes, he of the tested patience
Background and Chronology
There’s enough special background to this novel that it deserves this background essay.
America bought two Andrea Cort novels, Emissaries from the Dead and The Third Claw of God. Germany bought three. Multiple other nations bought all three and published that third volume in translation; it also became an audiobook, read by the divine Kathe Mazur. Between 2009 and 2023, I dithered about preparing that third volume for e-book translation, in part because I knew the manuscript needed some revision. Here it is, finally.
* * *
This informal guide to the order of events in the Andrea Cort stories will be updated whenever a new story appears in the series. Last updated January 20th, 2023.
The Andrea Cort stories are part of what I now call the “AIsource Infection” universe, which details a substantial alteration in the nature of humanity.
As the stories in this larger universe take place over a period of many years, and in fact begin approximately a century from now, some stories merely use this history as background and others are more important to the grander story being told. Andrea Cort is one woman whose life is especially touched by the critical events of the phenomenon being talked about.
Most stories now being written take place at the beginning of her career.
“Burning the Ladder.” (ANALOG, May/June 2022) Her very first recorded adventure. She is 17 years old in this one, a prodigy respected by none.
“With Unclean Hands.” (ANALOG, November 2011). She is still an unformed thing of very little personal influence, though this will change as it becomes clear to her superiors how very formidable she is.
“Tasha’s Fail-Safe.” (ANALOG, April 2015). In this story she is still suffering the political fallout from her extreme actions in “With Unclean Hands.”
“The Coward’s Option.” (ANALOG, March 2016). Once again trusted enough to be sent on a mission, though she’s not expected to be much more than a rubber stamp. As frequently happens with Andrea, there are complications.
There is now a gap of several years, into which almost all new short fiction will be inserted. During these years she is continuing to work on various missions, some of which cement her ruthless reputation. She also zealously maintains her social isolation, a situation that will not improve for her until the novels.
Following the gap, we are introduced to her again with the first Andrea story I wrote, “Unseen Demons” (ANALOG July / August 2002), by which time she is a well-known controversial figure in the Diplomatic community, and widely recognized as a force to be reckoned with. In this story she receives her mission in life, reaching the epiphany that leads into the trilogy of novels.
About a year later, she appears in the first novel, Emissaries from the Dead, which changes her status quo, changes her agenda yet again, and introduces her to the great love of her life, the linked man and woman with one personality, Oscin and Skye Porrinyard. They remain with her for the rest of the series so far.
This is followed by the second novel, The Third Claw of God, in which she travels to the planet Xana and learns something she never suspected about her past.
“A Stab Of The Knife” (July/August 2018) takes place after she returns from Xana, and is in part driven by the relationships formed there. She in fact still has the very un-Andrea hairstyle she obtained in that novel, though she didn’t like it at the time; maybe the Porrinyards do.
The final Andrea Cort novel for now, War of the Marionettes, wraps up the trilogy and ends with her making a very personal decision that will change her forever.
The novella “Hiding Place” (ANALOG, April 2011), takes place less than a year later and will likely remain the final Andrea Cort story chronologically, as it concludes with her facing significant changes. At this point Andrea Cort will either move on and become a completely different person, or will retreat from her personal growth and back off from its implications. I cannot move on from this point at shorter than novel length, and that is unlikely to occur unless things change spectacularly. (But there’s always talk, and I have to tell you that I am well into a story which takes place shortly after her demise, which is very difficult for me to face.)
OTHER RELATED STORIES
Among the stories unrelated to Andrea Cort that are especially important to the events that impact her life are the Draiken cycle, which launches with “Sleeping Dogs” and takes place at the same historical moment, their relevancy to the overall arc not yet established; though he shows up in “A Stab of the Knife.”
There are also “The Funeral March of the Marionettes” and “The Tangled Strings of the Marionettes,” which lead into the third Andrea Cort novel, War of the Marionettes.
Some of these stories reference a notorious terrorist called The Beast Magrison, who for ideological reasons unleashed a biological weapon called Magrison’s Fugue on hundreds of worlds, re-wiring the brains of the inhabitants in various nasty ways.
Magrison is first briefly mentioned, but does not appear, in “The Tangled Strings of the Marionettes.” We get to meet a fanatic follower of Magrison’s, at the point when Magrison is believed to be still at large, in The Third Claw of God, and that’s where we learn just what Magrison is wanted for doing. It’s nasty.
Magrison’s crimes have not yet been examined close up, nor have we gotten to see him at the height of his power. His ultimate fate, which is not pretty, is described in the novella “Our Human.” Note that the novella does not specify how its events relate in historical time, to the events of the Andrea Cort stories. They may take place contemporaneously, or many years later. The existence of this story seems to suggest that Andrea Cort, who vowed in The Third Claw of God to bring this man to justice, will never quite catch up with him. This is not likely to change. Just because somebody rocks your universe doesn’t mean that you will necessarily meet him. But the aftermath of his crimes will continue to be referenced, in multiple places, in stories yet to come.
Many of the stories in the AIsource Infection universe hinge on emerging technologies in mind control. The religiously-motivated aliens of “Evangelist” have one such technology. Andrea Cort encounters others in a number of stories including “The Coward’s Option,” and in The Third Claw of God. Draiken spends much of his own cycle, most notably the upcoming novella “Blurred Lives,” investigating the same developments. These are all little puzzle pieces, adding to the bigger picture.
There are other stories set in Andrea’s time and place that just happen to share the same milieu, in the same way that I suppose The French Connection is not at all inconsistent with Seinfeld. “Among The Tchi” is one of these. If any given story doesn’t seem to connect with the larger picture in any substantial way, it honestly, likely doesn’t.
MORE DISTANTLY RELATED
There are a few stories set many years before the Andrea Cort novels, in our own immediate space-faring future. These are “Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl’s” and “Gunfight On Farside” and “The Gorilla In a Tutu Principle” (all ANALOG). I place these in the AIsource Infection sequence out of personal inclination, but the precise line that connects these stories to events taking place millennia afterward will likely always remain fuzzy. Maybe the third story in this sub-sequence will make matters clearer, or maybe not.
Finally, Andrea Cort’s universe is connected via a dotted line even more tenuous to a series of slapstick stories involving the inept space rogues Ernst Vossoff and Karl Nimmitz (whose misadventures are chronicled in the book called Vossoff and Nimmitz, naturally enough). Dejah Shapiro, who has been married at different times to both men, is an important character in The Third Claw of God, and she discusses her current husband Nimmitz at significant length therein; also, the Bettelhine Munitions Corporation, an interstellar entity introduced in those stories, which is important in The Third Claw of God and in stories yet to come, is reference d at least once in almost almost every Vossoff and Nimmitz story. I would like to note here that the continuity only flows one way. The Vossoff and Nimmitz stories are comedy salad and impossible to accurately reconcile with the events of the greater AIsource Infection universe, in part because certain alien races mentioned in both have wildly different descriptions depending on where you encounter them, in the Vossoff and Nimmitz stories or in the wider AIsource Universe. Really, if this bothers you, consider them apocrypha, or stories fatally distorted in the telling.
The Cast
Not all of these people appear onstage in the pages that follow; in fact, many of them don’t. But all are mentioned at least once. They are all given equal status here to avoid giving away the identities of any who might make unexpected entrances. To further inhibit spoilage, two are frauds with no relevance to anything that happens herein. You may assume that these personages was off somewhere, minding their own business while Andrea did her thing.
Andrea Cort and Associates
ANDREA CORT: Infamous child war criminal, now all grown up; Prosecutor-At-Large for the Diplomatic Corps of the Hom.Sap Confederacy; and secret defector to the alliance of software intelligences known as the AIsource.
THE PORRINYARDS: Andrea’s bodyguards and lovers, a cylinked pair sharing the same enhanced mind and personality. Capable of individual behavior, but most often speak and act in unison and should be considered a single person. (Also listed separately, for convenience.).
OSCIN PORRINYARD: The male half.
SKYE PORRINYARD: The female.
ARTIS BRINGEN: Andrea Cort’s long-time Dip Corps liason, back home at New London.
The Two Known AIsource Factions
AIsource: A conglomeration of software intelligences, originating from several ancient civilizations predating the dawn of Mankind; secret employers of Andrea Cort and her companions, Oscin and Skye Porrinyard. Tired of their immortal existence, they‘re seeking their own mass extinction, and have hired Andrea Cort to help them tie the noose.
UNSEEN DEMONS: Known to the AIsource as their rogue intelligences, they are the minority faction among the collective that wishes to live, and is willing to commit any number of crimes to avoid the march to extinction. They are responsible, in some as-yet unspecified manner, for the outbreak of madness on the planet Bocai that led to the deaths of Andrea Cort’s family and community.
Other Important Sentient Races, Movements, and Organizations
HUMAN BEINGS: Also known as Mankind, or Homo Sapiens. They do not have the best reputation. One of ten races maintaining embassies on Vlhan.
VLHANI: Also known as Marionettes and Whipdancers. They are best known for the annual Great Ballet, an annual ritual of much-debated significance in which a hundred thousand of their number die. Within the last few years, human beings have started participating, a phenomenon of much-debated significance.
RIIRGANS: A race very active in interspecies diplomacy, famed for its accomplishments in linguistics. Has a history of adopting orphaned human children.
TCHI, BURSTEENI, K’CENHOWTEN, ZAKATARI, CID: Five more of the ten races that have established permanent installations (“embassies”) tasked to study the strange phenomena on Vlhan. The ones mentioned in the course of the narrative.
DANCE PILGRIMS: The more than one million human beings who have had themselves smuggled to Vlhan, in the hopes of participating in the Ballet. Many have undergone significant surgical enhancement from parties unknown. A major point of contention to the Confederacy, which considers them a dangerous, self-destructive cult.
THE BETTELHINE MUNITIONS CORPORATION: Family-owned company developing state-of-the-art weaponry which fuel conflicts throughout human space. Past antagonists and allies of Andrea Cort.
DEJAHCORP: Privately-owned conglomerate developing environments and technologies throughout human space. Past allies of Andrea Cort.
The Confederate Diplomatic Corps
HAI DHIJU: Past Hom.Sap Ambassador. (Deceased).
WALSTER CROYD: Current Hom.Sap Ambassador.
VIROND HAMMERSMITH: Liason to Andrea Cort and companions.
PETRA {Last name unknown}: Diplomatic Indenture.
CLIFFORD DUNBAR: Diplomatic Indenture.
ALEX GORDON: Diplomatic Indenture (current whereabouts unknown).
PIERS STEGNER: Medical worker.
AMOS GRIBB: Chief Dietician, staff cafeteria at Dip Corps headquarters, New London.
Non-Human Sentients
VILISSIN HURRR’POTH: Riirgaan Ambassador to Vlhan.
CORRIBIN VERR’KATH: Hurrr’poth’s second in command.
B’CHAI PILL’GHATH: Riirgaan Diplomat.
VIGHINIS MUKH’THAV: Riirgaan Diplomat (retired).
CRE RHAIG: Prime Speaker, Tchi Delegation.
YOU BIG FUCK: Vlhani, awarded its colorful name by Andrea Cort.
AIsource EMBASSY: The local intelligence running AIsource diplomatic functions on Vlhan.
Dance Pilgrims
ISADORA: The first known human participant in the Vlhani Ballet. (Deceased).
GABRIEL, XAVIS, SHALAKAN, MELANIHERZ: The second through fourth, soloists from the years before humans started performing in multiples. (All deceased).
DALMO: Shalakan’s husband, a dance pilgrim who never got to perform. Current whereabouts unknown.
MORALIA: Another famous dance pilgrim of the past, married to Dalmo after Shalakan’s death. (Deceased).
KAI-SHAKA: Dance Pilgrim.
THATHARSI: Dance Pilgrim.
MISA: Dance Pilgrim.
Miscellaneous Human Beings, On and Off Vlhan
DEREK SCHIFF: industrialist, concerned father.
MERIN SCHIFF: Derek’s daughter; whereabouts unknown.
TARA FOX: Schiff’s assistant, second-in-command.
PAAKTH-DOY: Human Citizen of Riirgaan Republic.
PAKH KECH’TAI VALINIA: Embassy medical worker. Human citizen of Riirgaan Republic.
PAUL ROYKO: Neurec Slinger (retired).
CH’TPOK: Human refugee from Riirgaan Republic. Hurrr’poth’s adopted daughter and Paul Royko’s wife.
DEJAH SHAPIRO: industrialist; occasional ally of Andrea Cort.
JASON BETTELHINE: industrialist; occasional ally of Andrea Cort.
JELAINE BETTELHINE: industrialist; occasional ally of Andrea Cort.
PETER MAGRISON AKA THE BEAST MAGRISON: Fugitive terrorist, notorious for past catastrophic biological-warfare strike against Mankind. (Believed to be deceased).
EMIL SANDBURG: Serial killer. (Deceased).
HOSEI YAKAMURA: Would-Be Conqueror. (Deceased).
MINNIE (Last name unknown): Illegal settler on Vlhan. Married to Earl.
EARL (Last name unknown): Illegal settler on Vlhan. Married to Minnie.
RICARD THANE: Exolinguist. Married to Liisl, father of Cori.
LIISL THANE: Exolinguiprostheticist. Married to Ricard, mother of Cori.
CORI THANE: Adolescent. Son of Ricard and Liisl.
DAVE DUNN: Flibbertigibbet, tap-dancer, man-about-town. (Current whereabouts unrequested).
Prologue
We were prisoners. It had been hours, maybe days, since we had felt the heat of the Vlhani sun, an eternity spent in a cramped, pitch-black chamber with little food or water, listening to the scraping noises the whips of our captors made as they punched through subterranean rock.
It was difficult to avoid being sickened by the stench of the blood that had long since dried on our clothes. Some of it was my own, spilled from a nasty crack to the skull; others belonged to the people I’d seen ripped apart on a terrible killing ground.
The killing had spread across this globe like an epidemic of murder, claiming fanatics and innocents; true believers and cynics: human beings and aliens; people who had come to this world searching for meaning and people who had come here trying to understand a phenomenon. I suspected that it went on still.
Peace has always been a fragile thing. It can end at any time. But death, bloodshed, madness…they have momentum all their own.
Start the fire, and it continues to burn.
Chapter 1
Four Days Earlier
I didn’t see the monster reach for me until its whip wrapped itself around my midsection and hauled me twenty meters into the dull brown sky.
