Marque of Caine Read online

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  PART TWO

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  PART THREE

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  PART FIVE

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Appendix A

  Appendix B

  MARQUE OF CAINE

  CHARLES E. GANNON

  Marque of Caine

  Charles E. Gannon

  Book 5 in the critically acclaimed Caine Riordan science fiction series by three-time Nebula nominee Charles E. Gannon. Science fiction on a grand scale. Prequels Raising Caine, Trial by Fire and Fire with Fire were all Nebula Award finalists. Charles E. Gannon is also the winner of the Compton Crook Award and a Dragon Award nominee.

  It’s been two years since Caine Riordan was relieved of his command for following both his orders and his conscience. Now he’s finally received the message he’s been waiting for: a summons to visit the ancient and enigmatic Dornaani. And this time, making direct contact is not just professional, but personal: the Dornaani still have his mortally-wounded love, Elena Corcoran, in their unthinkably advanced medical facilities.

  But instead of arranging a swift reunion, Riordan’s new Dornaani hosts are not only disinterested in human affairs, but are in such social disarray that they have lost track of Elena’s surgical cryocell. Riordan must blaze his own trail through dying and dangerous worlds to find the mother of his child, her fate as uncertain as the true agenda of the Dornaani leaders.

  However, as new clues and new threats push Caine’s quest beyond the edge of known space, he discovers that the Dornaani empire is not merely decaying; there are subtle signs that its decline is being accelerated from without. Which means that rescuing Elena is just half the mission: Riordan must report that the Dornaani collapse is not only being engineered, but that it is the prelude to a far more malign scheme:

  To clear a path for a foe bent on destroying Earth.

  BAEN BOOKS by CHARLES E. GANNON

  The Terran Republic Series

  Fire with Fire

  Trial by Fire

  Raising Caine

  Caine’s Mutiny

  Marque of Caine

  Endangered Species (forthcoming)

  The Starfire Series

  (with Steve White)

  Extremis

  Imperative

  Oblivion

  The Ring of Fire Series

  (with Eric Flint)

  1635: The Papal Stakes

  1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies

  1636: The Vatican Sanction

  MARQUE OF CAINE

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Charles E. Gannon

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4814-8409-1

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-720-9

  Cover art by Bob Eggleton

  Map by Randy Asplund

  First printing, July 2019

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Gannon, Charles E., author.

  Title: Marque of caine / Charles E. Gannon.

  Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2019] | Series: The Terran Republic

  series | “A Baen Books Original”—Title page verso.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019006251 | ISBN 9781481484091 (trade pb)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3607.A556 M37 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019006251

  Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  With deep and enduring appreciation for my friend and editor, Toni Weisskopf, whose support and skill made this novel better in every conceivable way.

  And as always, with thanks and love to my whole family (my wife Andrea and living children Connor, Kyle, Alexandra, and Pierce), who cheered me on through this lengthy endeavor.

  PART ONE

  Earth and Environs

  June–July 2123

  IN SUA PATRIA

  Propheta in sua patria honorem non habet

  (The prophet hath no honor in his own country)

  Chapter One

  JUNE 2123

  NEVIS, EARTH

  Caine Riordan watched the hull of the eighteen-foot sloop recede. “Pretty strong headwind in the Narrows today, son.”

  Seventeen-year-old Connor Corcoran looked over his shoulder as he stowed the pole he’d used to push off from Oualie New Dock. He smiled, a hint of indulgence in the expression. “There’s a pretty strong headwind in the Narrows every day, Dad.”

  “Dad”: hearing that never gets old. Caine smiled back. “Fair enough. But it’s a lot trickier tackling it solo.”

  Connor stood to the tiller, his smile widening as the boat drifted back and the breeze started toying with the telltales. “As you’ve told me. Every time I’ve tackled it on my own. With you in the boat.”

  Yes, with me in the boat. Where I can intervene. Help you
. Save you, if it comes to that. But Caine forced himself to simply raise his hand and wave. “Have fun, Connor.”

  “I will. And Dad?” Connor had to raise his voice a little to be heard across the widening gap. He was making ready to swing away from the dock.

  “What is it?”

  “You’re going to keep your promise, right?”

  Caine sighed. “I gave you my word. I will not watch. You are on your own.” Riordan checked his wristlink, which was offline. As it had been since the day they had arrived on the island of Nevis almost two years ago. “I’ll meet you back here at three PM.”

  Connor cupped a theatrical hand to his ear. “What’s that you said? Four o’clock?”

  Riordan replied in a loud, flat tone. “Three PM. As agreed.”

  “You are a killjoy, Dad.”

  “I love you too, Connor.”

  Who waved, and—with the eager agility of seventeen-year-olds everywhere—leaped to the tasks that would aim the sloop’s prow out toward the cerulean waters of the leeward Caribbean.

  Riordan decided that seeing the boat out of Oualie Bay wasn’t “watching.” It was just part of saying farewell. Okay, a very long farewell. Caine squinted against the midmorning sunlight bouncing up from the bleached dock planks, eyes tracking the sloop’s filling, dwindling sails. Finally, its red-tipped masthead disappeared behind the northern headland. He turned and walked slowly back to his car.

  “Car” was a pretty grand term for the cramped, motorized box. It was adequate for Nevis, though: the round island’s only major artery for vehicles was a thirty-three-kilometer coastal ring-road. Riordan slipped into the driver’s seat, activated the electric motor, and tapped the “reverse trip” tab on the dashboard’s faded screen. The weathered vehicle began rolling forward, angling toward the low eastern hills that mounted toward Nevis’ central volcanic peak.

  As it reached the coast road, the electric motor was still an atonal whine: just one of the many ways the car was showing its age. Which was probably greater than Riordan’s forty years. But the car had two decisively redeeming features: it was reliable and it was nondescript. And of the two features, its unremarkable appearance among the island’s other worn vehicles was the most important.

  In order to remain unfound, Riordan had made every aspect of their existence on Nevis as commonplace as possible. Their house was modest and not in a particularly desirable part of the island, yet not so remote that it spawned the speculations and aura of mystery associated with truly secluded homes. They used local currency, forwarded by off-shore agents who sent any extraordinary requirements in an unnumbered crate. Both father and son shopped in the local market at Brick Kiln, visited the larger stores in Charlestown once or twice a month.

  As the car swung onto the long, scrub-bracketed stretch of road that paralleled the Narrows and ran past Amory Air Terminal, its engine’s two-toned whine finally settled into a normal monotone hum. Riordan glanced to his left—surely a mere glance did not constitute “watching” Connor—to see if the sloop’s sail had appeared yet.

  Nothing. Not too surprising, given that the headwinds were brisk in the small channel between Nevis and the larger island of St. Kitts to the north. Connor would spend a lot of time tacking back and forth across that breeze before getting through the windward mouth and into the open ocean.

  Caine sighed, sat back. The roadside scrub was now interspersed with elephant grass and sandy flats. The towering cone of Mt. Nevis started brightening, murky gray transforming to rich green as the sun bathed it more fully. A kilometer marker flashed by, then another.

  Riordan resisted the temptation to look in the rearview mirror or instruct the car to slow down. There’s nothing to worry about. He’s piloted through the Narrows at least twenty times. Hell, he’s a better sailor than I am. Ought to be; he came to it earlier.

  A moment later, his resolve forgotten, Caine glanced in the rearview mirror. Back where the leeward mouth of the strait spilled the waters of the Atlantic into the Caribbean, he glimpsed a flash of white over the cars parked at the air terminal: the upper corner of the sloop’s mainsail.

  Riordan breathed out slowly. And along with the air in his lungs, he expelled the high, hard knot of worry that had been lodged in his chest ever since leaving the dock. Not because he had any misgivings about Connor’s skills or calm in a crisis. Nothing as defined or finite as that. No, this was the same fear that awakened Caine in the quiet, solid darkness of the tropical nights, body covered in sweat. No matter which images of battle and carnage came to haunt him, no matter which specific terror rose up through them, the lessons they rehearsed were always the same:

  There’s no such thing as certainty.

  Control is an illusion.

  Death and destruction descend the moment you forget to watch for them.

  That was what two years of intermittent war had taught him. And once you learned those lessons, you didn’t just remember them: you lived them, moment to moment.

  He didn’t have anything as severe as full-blown PTSD. The interludes of combat had been sharp but short-lived, with long reprieves in between: not the constant repetition that shapes new reflexes, molds new behaviors. But its impact upon him was no less real. Dawn no longer brought easy presumptions of personal safety, or even human dominance. Now, he and the rest of humanity saw each dawn as being the potential harbinger of a disorienting new reality—just the way it had been four years ago.

  On that morning early in April 2119, humanity had awakened into a universe in which it was comfortingly, and safely, alone. By nightfall, news of ancient ruins on Delta Pavonis Three had been leaked and supplanted the universe’s vast emptiness with anticipations of a cosmos populated by past or present exosapients.

  Just six months later, the grim sequelae of that revelation shook Earth out of its last semicomplacent slumber. Alien invaders fell from the sky, seized Indonesia as both leverage and as a beachhead, and crippled the globe’s power grid to ensure their mastery. And over the many months that followed, as Caine crept through both terrestrial and alien undergrowth on missions to reclaim some of the autonomy humanity had lost, he learned and relearned the prime lesson common to all these shocks:

  That all assumptions, like all plans, are never more than a second away from a catastrophic collision with reality.

  Riordan snapped his eyes away from the rearview mirror that he had stopped seeing, focused on the road that he knew better than his own face by now. After the fighting was over, Caine believed he had made his peace with the unpredictable imminence of death and disaster, a specter that could not be dismissed, only managed. During long months between the stars, there had been ample opportunity to confront it, to work through it, however unevenly and imperfectly.

  But now things were different.

  His eyes drifted back to the rearview mirror: he could see more of the sloop’s mainsail, and now some of its jib as well. It was easier when my fear was only for myself, and for others who had come into harm’s way of their own volition. But now, it’s my son. My only son. My only family.

  The faces of Riordan’s parents flitted through his mind; they were both gone, and he had been their only child. Connor’s mother Elena was untold scores of light-years away, frozen on the edge of death in an alien cold-cell: mortally wounded, so far as human surgeons were concerned. Right here, right now, all Caine had was Connor.

  The sails of the sloop continued their uneven progress, disappeared behind the Air Terminal’s main building.

  Riordan looked away, tried to see the road ahead instead of Connor’s face. Two years ago, he had not known the boy outside of a few pictures. Now, this young man was one of the two stars around which Caine’s world revolved. And with Elena out of reach in the unresponsive Dornaani Collective, Riordan’s impulses toward family, protectiveness, and love had all fixed upon Connor. A tendency against which he fought, lest the boy—no, young man—begin to feel smothered, and so, compelled to recoil from the relationship which had d
eveloped between them.

  And which had changed Riordan’s life in ways he could not have foreseen.

  The car plunged into a cut traversing a small stand of palms; the Narrows were no longer visible.

  * * *

  Connor Corcoran glanced at the telltales. Their already-weak flutter was stilling, becoming more of a tremble. He’d have to tack back soon.

  He glanced at Amory Air Terminal, looked for the sun-bleached green car in which he’d learned to drive. Not in the parking lot. Not in the pull-off at the overlook, either. He smiled. Dad was as good as his word. As ever. In fact, the harder it was for him to keep a promise, the more meticulously he did so.

  That was one of the first things he’d noticed about his father when he met him just over two years ago, in the summer of 2121. Monday, August 18, 2:32 PM, to be exact. Connor smiled into the sun. Not that he had made a special note of it or anything. After all, it had just been a matter of meeting his father for the first time.

  Mom had never spoken much about Caine Riordan, and there were almost no pictures of him, not until Connor was in his teens. The few to be found were mostly in wonky news and political websites. Not crazy conspiracy outlets—well, not many of those—but it certainly wasn’t the kind of journalism that reached mainstream audiences. It struck Connor as strange: Caine Riordan seemed to be kind of famous, but only with people who either followed, or were themselves, political insiders.

  Mom didn’t say anything about his father when more pictures started emerging in 2119, but she did start acting oddly. She became cautious around Uncle Trevor, Grandma, and particularly his late grandad’s old friend, “Nuncle” Richard. It was as if she had started to suspect them of keeping some kind of secret but couldn’t be sure of which ones were in on it, or what it was about.

  Connor brought the sloop around. The sun angled back toward his eyes; his goggles darkened until they reached the photochromatic shading he had preset. The sloop was picking up speed nicely once again.